Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Police Federation chairman John Apter, a recent court ruling has placed police who arrest climate protestors at potential risk of legal repercussions.
Officers Fear Arresting Extinction Rebellion Vandals over Threat of Legal Reprisals: Police Representative
VICTORIA FRIEDMAN 19 Feb 2020
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Chairman of the Police Federation, which represents the concerns of rank-and-file officers, John Apter said that members across the country had expressed concern that if they attempted to arrest the protesters that they would be sued and face financial penalties.
The concerns arose after the High Court ruled against the Metropolitan Police force’s order banning the crippling XR protests in London, with green advocates claiming that they could sue the force for retroactive wrongful arrests.
“We’re damned whatever we do,” Mr Apter said in comments reported by The Times.
The Police Federation chief said officers were “clearly very mindful of potential legal action. The government has promised we will get the support that we need [but] it’s going to be on the minds of senior officers who will not want to fall on the wrong side of a previous judgment.”
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Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/19/police-fear-arresting-extinction-rebellion-vandals-fear-legal-reprisals/
There has already been at least one well documented instance of ordinary people fed up with Extinction Rebellion taking the law into their own hands, beating up climate protestors.
If the police feel unable to restore order, and I’m deeply sympathetic to the problems the police are facing, this will further exacerbate the risk of violent confrontation between climate protestors and their victims.
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British Police much like Canadian police are afraid to enforce the law unless it is against white men, all others can break the law with impunity. I would be shot for blockading a road or rail line but others are not.
So, one could rob a bank as long as they are doing it “for the planet”?
What happens in the UK with liberal thinking usually finds it’s way here, but in this case of police being restricted from enforcing the law with the backing of the courts, is this a result of sanctuary cities in the US restricting police protection of citizens and enforcing the law setting the example or the other way around?
At any rate it amounts to the authorities allowing harm to citizens if it supports their goals.
The Extinction Rebellion roadblock and camp is still (Saturday 22nd Feb 2020) in place in Cambridge UK, a week after XR began the “spontaneous” protest and the police responded with an “emergency road closure order” to ensure the safety of the protesters. It is of course a complete sham. The whole protest, camp, road closure, laminated signs, sanitary facilities, power supply, audio system, street food vendors, performance artists, wifi relays, “de-escalation” personnel, food, first-aid provision, photo opportunities, press coverage, road signage and diversionary routes for the buses and cars were planned well in advance by a working group consisting of the local council, the police and XR coordinators. The main disappointment was that none of the campers manning the barricades 24/7 seemed to have been educated in science or engineering or indeed anything other than the ability to deliver anti-capitalist sound bites and the random use (but no understanding) of long words or concepts like “divestment” or “thermodynamics” or “economics”, or even of “energy”. The police at the site were warning people not to shout anything at the campers nor walk through the camp wearing a mask or a counter-protest banner as that might be construed by the more sensitive campers as an action intended to instil fear of acid attacks or of constituting verbal abuse or hate speech which would necessitate prompt police intervention. At noon tomorrow the police will launch their planned surprise response and pretend to break up the camp and roadblocks.
The prevailing street atmosphere today was akin to a reunion of the few remaining ageing members of the UK 1980s Socialist Workers’ Party, mixed with the new cult of St Greta, but riven with ambivalence about the role of former coal miners, all having a grand time chatting to the police while all were trying to keep the cold out with the help of braziers heated by an unclear fuel source. I was expecting the police to be sporting the traditional rainbow arm-bands and unicorn fingernails to fit in with the flags on the university and council buildings, but was disappointed.
More worrying than the strange sight of a handful of neurotic deluded stalinist senior citizens and their grandchildren on the streets is the thought that all this is the projected policy of a nominally conservative government with an unassailable parliamentary majority.
Look on the bright side: the early signs are that the campers are diligent about not leaving their plastic bottles and their dog-poop, and there were no riot shields or water-canons. A quick hose-down of the streets tomorrow and the business will be back to normal on Monday. The far-east tourists are out in force, taking pictures of themselves outside dug-up college lawns and buying food and trinkets. The only immediate outcome is a limp petition asking the police to get the streets moving and to remove control of police policy away from the council’s “citizen’s assembly”: https://www.change.org/p/chief-constable-nick-dean-stop-the-extinction-rebellion-roadblock-in-cambridge
Perhaps XR could try this in Wuhan Main Street.
The UK police are in gross dereliction of their duty. It is about time they considered the results of their inaction,
fail to investigate one too many crimes and the UK tax paying public may very well decide to stop funding them.
It gets worse than that, the police may find them selves replaced by vigilante groups. Problem is that they make many more mistakes than the police officers. Innocent people are liable to get beaten up or worse. So UK police
enforce the law, arrest Extinction Rebellion morons/vandels and slam them in gaol. Also arrange for those arrested to be put on the international no fly list.
As always, the left considers itself to be above the law.
So, if you flip the coin, shouldn’t the police be acting preemptively against the coal companies and fuel outlets for selling dangerous and harmful goods ???
It is illegal to disrupt, as climate extinction continually do, but legal to sell the so called dangerous pollutants.
Go figure.
Any lawyer going into court claiming that their client is above the laws of the land is going to look a right idiot: so maybe the judges will be in on the corruption, but ordinary folks who ARE subject to the laws of the land will probably start saying: ‘You want to lawyer without laws applying to your client, we will beat you up without being liable to legal due process from you, sunshine!’
As soon as anyone argues that they are above the law, the rule of law breaks down and violence returns.
Uncomfortable, but true.