Who Are These People?

It’s good to read Simon Jenkins again. He has a remarkable facility for putting the blindingly obvious into words that even our benighted leaders should be able to follow.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-home/columnistarchive/Simon%20Jenkins-columnist-322-archive.do

His article on policing summarises precisely what is wrong and how our present situation arose. The incident in Richmond last year demonstrates the parlous state of policing today: two thieves smashing a jewellery store window in broad daylight, in a busy high street, surrounded by startled shoppers, in full view of CCTV cameras, expecting that the police had been called. Were they concerned about their current or future liberty? Not at all. And are we, the public, surprised by their audacity? Not really.

Eleven years of Blairite criminal philosophy (in both senses) and we have thieves walking up and down our High Streets with sledge hammers and balaclavas with not a copper to be seen. But you can be sure that the statistics look fine.

(Longbowman)

On the afternoon of Thursday October 30 in Richmond, two would-be thieves took sledgehammers to the windows of Ernest Jones the jewellers and tried to break through to the valuables behind. While shoppers stood and watched and, presumably, the police raced to the scene, the two thieves continued to hammer away at the toughened glass that was beginning to give way under the onslaught.

This bizarre spectacle continued undisturbed until a lone, elderly crime-fighter in a brown mac appeared, took one villain by the shoulder and pulled off his balaclava. At this unplanned intervention in the proceedings the startled thieves took to their heels, whereupon the off-duty Batman turned, smiled at the crowd, stepped on to a bus and disappeared.

The Evening Standard reports - A police source said: “While it is always welcome when acts of bravery are successful there is always the possibility that they will go wrong and we urge people to call the police immediately to deal with these type of situations.”

‘Deal with’? If the citizen had not acted we can safely assume that the robbers would have achieved their objective and escaped, not empty-handed but with pockets stuffed with jewellery. My interpretation of the phrase ‘deal with’ is obviously somewhat more dynamic than that of the police. Certainly Ernest Jones, whose staff are certainly shaken by the events, at least have only broken windows to ‘deal with’ and not injuries or stolen watches. They might care to add a certain old gentleman to their security systems; he certainly has practical ideas on how to ‘deal with these type of situations’.

An unavoidable observation as a result of this incident is to compare the effectiveness of CCTV and the police versus the sheer determination of a member of the public.

The CCTV cameras impressed the criminals, drably dressed and with their heads covered, not one iota. Presumably the staff had already called the police and most probably had a panic button with which to do so. This probability likewise did not deter these thieves, who continued to swing at the windows as if they had made an appointment and had no cause to rush.

Thus nothing caused these two any concern until a member of the public, and an elder one at that, took them completely by surprise. Without his intervention the thieves would most certainly have made off with at least a few handfuls of jewellery before the police arrived.

So, who or what was most of value here? The CCTV? Nope. The police? Certainly not to minimise the impact of the attempt, and possibly never. No, one old gentleman with courage and a sense of indignity who used his initiative.

Both CCTV and the police have little, if any, deterrent value. This incident demonstrates this. They are documentation that a crime has occurred.

If you find the old gentleman let me know. Next time I need the police I’ll call him first.