POLICE CHIEF BLASTS OUR ‘BROKEN SOCIETY’
Witnesses refuse to help female officer attacked by Kung-Fu yob
THUGS with “no respect for society” are attacking officers while people watch on, a police chief warned last night.
Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said forces may even let criminals go if the public does not “stand up for what is right” and prevent yobs from viciously attacking them.
It comes after a video showed a suspect aiming a Kung-Fu kick
as officers were assaulted as they tried to arrest a suspect in Merton, south London, on Saturday night.
A male officer was dragged across the road moments before a lout aimed a flying kick at a female officer, leaving her injured in the middle of the road. Both were taken to hospital before later being released.
Just one person stopped to help the two officers while others watched from their cars or filmed the violence on phones.
Mr Marsh said: “Society is broken. In the old days, this would never have happened. The public would have jumped in. Members of the public were just walking past as if this was normality. Normality to watch a female police officer kicked to the ground. What is going on? It’s beyond shocking.
“Do I start telling my colleagues to just walk away, just let them go? No one will help you. We don’t have enough officers. It takes longer for officers to get there to assist.
“There are some really violent people out there now who just don’t care. They have no respect for society, they have no respect for police. We have got to start upping our game and being a little bit more forceful.”
Police Minister Nick Hurd said: “This footage is appalling and sickening. Being attacked should never be part of the job for our courageous emergency services workers, who put themselves in harm’s way to protect us.”
An officer was attacked every 20 minutes last year, meaning 72 were assaulted every day in England and Wales in the year to April – a total of 26,295 and 3,975 in the Met area alone.
Mr Marsh admitted there are risks to members of the public intervening.
But he added: “There are burly lads out there and you have got to stand up for what is right.”
Two of the thugs were last night still on the run, while one had been arrested and charged.
Mr Marsh conceded it would be “horrible” for officers who “signed up to uphold the law and defend the common society” to walk away.
Social media has fuelled hatred towards the police, he said. Some use
Facebook and Twitter to call for people to attack officers while others criticise any use of force during arrests which are filmed and uploaded to the internet.
Mr Marsh said: “Have we got to a situation where my colleagues can’t even defend themselves because they are so scared about the public perception that they have to just be abused in this way?
“We’re now faced with a situation where if the police officer doesn’t adhere exactly to the officer safety training manual, they have stepped outside the guidelines and acted incorrectly. If you have got a 6ft 2in male coming at you, full of aggression, drink and drugs, you have to got to ask yourself, where are we going with this?
“Society has gone down this bizarre path where we are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. What are we going to do when someone pulls a knife or a gun on one of my colleagues? It is very worrying.”
He also warned organised crime gangs are so desperate to protect their profits that they will commit brazen attacks in broad daylight. Mr Marsh added: “It has become much more violent. You never used to see officers being assaulted at the levels they are now. I will accept sometimes we didn’t always get it right.
“There’s obviously a feeling that they can act like this. The recompense isn’t there and it is becoming the norm.”
Social media users also criticised those who filmed the violence during the Merton incident.
A person on a video posted to Twitter boasts: “They’re all fighting. They’re spraying them up. I’m getting this all live.”
Labour MP Chris Bryant, who introduced the Assault on Emergency Workers Bill to Parliament, said: “If we ever needed any more evidence it was needed, we have got it. My anxiety is that the prosecuting authorities need to push for tough penalties and the courts have got to hand them down, because all too often we have heard ‘a bit of violence is in the normal course of duty’. But it is not.”