You thought the Government were bad...

[SueEllen]

...and now we turn to the Met police.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...atchdog-racist

Metropolitan police officers were caught sharing messages about hitting and raping women, and making racist and homophobic remarks, as part of a an offensive culture in Britain’s biggest force, an official report has revealed.

</snip>

The IOPC released extensive details of the messages shared via WhatsApp or Facebook among members of the squad, which has now been broken up. Examples of the offensive messages included:

• One male officer wrote to a female officer: “I would happily rape you … if I was single … if I was single I would happily chloroform you.”
• Another officer talked about getting women into bed and advocated violence: “Getting a woman into bed is like spreading butter. It can be done with a bit of effort using a credit card, but it’s quicker and easier just to use a knife.”
• Police officers wrote about attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders and a molested child.
• “Numerous messages about rape and ‘raping’ each other” were sent in two WhatsApp group and one Facebook group.
• One officer messaged another saying he was going to attack his partner and wrote: “Swear to got [sic] I’m going to smack her”.
• Another message shows an officer bragging about visiting a sex worker when he was using steroids.

The IOPC said those officers who knew about the messages had been afraid to challenge or report it. Its report said: “Several spoke of how when people spoke out about this behaviour, they were harassed, humiliated and excluded. Challenging sexual harassment led to additional problems.

“Female officers told us they would be treated as the ‘weary female’, told it was part of police culture, that they should accept, ‘play the game or stay quiet’, or leave. We also obtained evidence that reports of sexual harassment were not dealt with sensitively within the MPS [Metropolitan police service].”

Messages sent between the officers threatened those who were thinking about breaking the silence, including: “There’s a few of those grassing c***s I would like to knife.”

[vetran]

Sadly not shocked.

[WTFH]

Isn't the Met owned by Sadiq Khan, and always has been?

[jamesbrown]

Isn't the Met owned by Sadiq Khan, and always has been?

Nominally, in terms of strategy.

The problem is that they're a law unto themselves - it probably doesn't matter very much who's responsible for strategy, the unspoken strategy is "act like massive cretins".

[malvolio]

Nominally, in terms of strategy.

The problem is that they're a law unto themselves - it probably doesn't matter very much who's responsible for strategy, the unspoken strategy is "act like massive cretins".

Any organisation that promotes a fool like Dick to be its head is one that is in serious trouble. But then looking at her last three predecessors, it's only continuing a pattern of appointing fools.

[Gibbon]

Nominally, in terms of strategy.

The problem is that they're a law unto themselves - it probably doesn't matter very much who's responsible for strategy, the unspoken strategy is "act like massive cretins".

So you saying that all 43K of it's officers are like this? Really! Can you imagine the shame of the majority of decent coppers having to be tarred with this. Even a couple of hundred like this can look like an avalanche. The trouble is dealing with them. As described those who speak out are side-lined. The same thing happens in the services. All these organisations take people from general society so of course there's some scum.

[Gibbon]

Any organisation that promotes a fool like Dick to be its head is one that is in serious trouble. But then looking at her last three predecessors, it's only continuing a pattern of appointing fools.

The problem isn't the head, its the aspiring middle, that don't want any tulip on their watch to spoil promotion, so they conveniently hide it away. Thing is truth always comes out in the ned, although often far too late.

[malvolio]

The problem isn't the head, its the aspiring middle, that don't want any tulip on their watch to spoil promotion, so they conveniently hide it away. Thing is truth always comes out in the ned, although often far too late.

I've worked with constabularies. You can spot proper coppers a mile off.

IME the CC, DCC and ACC were political animals, not policemen. The senior officers were targeting being DCC or ACC. The ones below them were proper policemen, down to the junior uniforms, some of whom (by no means all, or even a majority) believe they are something exclusive and special.

It's the senior management that's the issue, not the Inspectors.

[WTFH]

It's the senior management that's the issue, not the Inspectors.

Similar to the government and NHS.

[OwlHoot]

Some of those sound like jokes, albeit in pretty bad taste, the butter spreading one for example. But that's some jokes for you.

Also, most front line cops are pretty young, in their twenties, and I believe many young people generally joke about rapes and knives these days. You'd be surprised. So it's misleading to think of cops as being unusually bad or callous for doing the same.