PCSOs leave boy to drown

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This is absolutely disgusting. ANYONE with an ounce of humanity would have tried to save this poor lad. The senior officer's comments are equally disgusting but not surprising given the totally innefective police force we have today.

Ineffective how? You do not see what happens day in and day out Spie. You read or watch what the media wants you to view or perhaps you have some personal experiences that you wish to share? If you have personal experiences that have resulted in a poor police response then I would be interested to see what they would be and would comment accordingly.

I am sure the two PCSOs had more than an ounce of humanity but the fact is that they are not trained in this type of situation and are not trained or encouraged to think out of the box. Also bear in mind that the coroner recorded that he would likely have been dead when they arrived and also that they have been exonerated by an inquest which leaves no stone unturned.

As for being ineffective, would they not be the first people you called if your house was burgled or you were a victim of crime? To write off the whole force as ineffective is a surprisingly generalising comment from an obviously intelligent man.
 
Godfather
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I am not influenced by the media. I have plenty of personal experience that demonstrate the innefectiveness of the police. I'm not prepared to go into them here for personal reasons.

It's not police officers generally that I have an issue with, but the priorities of the police these days have changed for the worse. I think most people expect the police not to be helpful these days and I'm sure a lot of petty crime goes unreported as a result.

You don't need special training to help a drowning child. Sure, it would be useful, but it's not essential.
 
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There is a big difference from seeing a child drowning to a child under the water, when the PSCO got to the pond the child had submerged so jumping tring to find him if you can swim would be pointless, you would need to dive down because the body might be on the bottom of the pond.
 
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Now we have blunkett the Plunkett jumping on the bandwagon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7008077.stm

This from a man that pushed in Uni fees, Compulsory ID cards, was tough on immigrants - yet speeded up his filipino nannys visa, had an affair and former lover and fatherless child, and then managed to be headline news again during the DNA bioscience share backhander scandal after being re-instated to the gov.

After all that he still got to live in a house in Belgravia paid for by my taxes & has since admitted to having a few other affairs and children.

What a top-class muppet.
 
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I am not influenced by the media. I have plenty of personal experience that demonstrate the innefectiveness of the police. I'm not prepared to go into them here for personal reasons.

Well that I certainly can't comment on and would not ask any further.

It's not police officers generally that I have an issue with, but the priorities of the police these days have changed for the worse. I think most people expect the police not to be helpful these days and I'm sure a lot of petty crime goes unreported as a result.

Police priorities are set top down. The Government / Home Office states that this is what we need to do and how we want it done and this is taken into practice by the force on the instruction of senior management. Policing priorities are not set by the cop on the street who, I assure you in most cases, love to be on the street and not tied up with beaurocracy. It is no spin that we are burdened with paperwork and I give the following example of my 10 hour shift yesterday. While the Government may have political objectives, they differ from the cops on the street in most cases.

I had three persons answering police bail and also has two appointments with the CPS prior to this for charging advice. One of the three was NFA ( No Further Action ) but a cut down file still had to be submitted and the other two were charged with offences but I had to re-interview one of them to show further evidence for which an admission was made. This was made simpler by the fact that none of them wanted legal representation which would have meant I would have been tied up even longer due to disclosure and then consultation with his client which can sometimes take an hour and more. I then had to submit a file about an inch thick with A4 which had to be submitted the same day.

In between this, I managed to attend two immediate response jobs to assist colleagues which were an elderley lady knocked down ( thankfully not injured badly ) and a 3 vehicle RTC which allowed me an hour out of the station. When I am not burdened with a mountain of paperwork I do enjoy being on the street and patrolling areas where the intel says to go and responding.


You don't need special training to help a drowning child. Sure, it would be useful, but it's not essential.

In certain circumstances you do and this was one of them. The lake was large, deep, dark and when they arrived the child was not seen and had been under the water for some time. When you have such circumstances the job say don't go in. You don't know how deep the water is, where the shelf is, what debris is on the bottom that could tangle you and cause the same thing to happen to you. If the child had been seen struggling in the water then it's a judgement call but this was not the case and wither way, PCSOs are still not trained to rescue drowning people and even police officers are not trained to a particularly high standard.


While I accept you won't discuss your personal issues with the police I will say to you and anyone that while we are not perfect and never will be, we are certainly not ineffective. Ask me to tell you how to run a hardware supplier and I would keel over, pulling my hair out. I wouldn't have a clue where to start and what to do. I do know enough about policing and associated law to back my views up 100%.
 
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Now we have blunkett the Plunkett jumping on the bandwagon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7008077.stm

This from a man that pushed in Uni fees, Compulsory ID cards, was tough on immigrants - yet speeded up his filipino nannys visa, had an affair and former lover and fatherless child, and then managed to be headline news again during the DNA bioscience share backhander scandal after being re-instated to the gov.

After all that he still got to live in a house in Belgravia paid for by my taxes & has since admitted to having a few other affairs and children.

What a top-class muppet.

I am astounded that the very man who introduced PCSOs and approved their remit and training has the audacity to comment.
 
Godfather
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Police priorities are set top down.

When I am not burdened with a mountain of paperwork I do enjoy being on the street and patrolling areas where the intel says to go and responding.
Those two points say it all. It is not Police Oficers who are to blame. It is those in control of police policy and management. Too much paperwork and not enough hands-on.

I accept that there may be more to the drowning incident than meets the eye. If it were me though I would have gone in. It's just a basic human reaction.
 
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from the link in the previous post

Mr Blunkett said that Jordon's courage in rescuing his stepsister should be recognised with a posthumous award.

"I've never heard of a 10-year-old show such bravery as helping the little girl out of the water at his own risk," he added.

"I hope we'll be able posthumously to give an award to recognise the enormity of what he did."


And children have the innate ability to think they are immortal and can ride down a road pulling a wheelie on their 50cc Zip and kill themselves. Sure he saved his sister and that deserves respect I'm not slating that just Mr Blunketts ignorance.
 
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You cant just leave a child to die.
No matter how dark or deep the water, no matter who you are.

I can't swim, and dark/deep water is one of only two real fears I have. I believe I would nonetheless go in, knowing it to be futile but feeling no choice, if it were a child of mine.

I would not go in for any other child, because I know that barring some miracle it would result in my horrible death, and the child would probably still drown. I feel no shame in that, although I do now feel a renewed desire to learn how to swim!
 
Man of Honour
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why aren't police trained in water rescue :eek:, that's Shocking. Why aren't police officers who can't swim taught. It's something pretty much everyone can do. As the police say they technically did what was right, as they weren't trained, but still You would have thaught they might try. But Police should deff be trained for rescue situations.
 
Don
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why aren't police trained in water rescue :eek:, that's Shocking. Why aren't police officers who can't swim taught. It's something pretty much everyone can do. As the police say they technically did what was right, as they weren't trained, but still You would have thaught they might try. But Police should deff be trained for rescue situations.
Rescue is generally the domain of the Fire Brigade.

Jokester
 
Soldato
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why aren't police trained in water rescue :eek:, that's Shocking. Why aren't police officers who can't swim taught. It's something pretty much everyone can do. As the police say they technically did what was right, as they weren't trained, but still You would have thaught they might try. But Police should deff be trained for rescue situations.

There's no point training officers in anything if they won't have the equipment necessary. When all said and done, if you trained and equipped police officers in preparation for every conceivable incident, they'd never be out of training school and they'd each need a flatbad truck for all the equipment.
 
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And people who choose to have children should be trained in parenting....
Tragedy really but the parents are totally at fault here.

why aren't police trained in water rescue :eek:, that's Shocking. Why aren't police officers who can't swim taught. It's something pretty much everyone can do. As the police say they technically did what was right, as they weren't trained, but still You would have thaught they might try. But Police should deff be trained for rescue situations.
 
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[TW]Fox;10136392 said:
And died as a result.



Well he can't really, can he, because he died becuase of what he did.



What, so we can have an even bigger bodycount?

He still managed to keep her above the water long enough to be saved, and him lifting her up is probably why he was under for so long anyway. anyone over 5',2" could have done that for a child and still been easily able to hop up for air ever so often :(
 
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why aren't police trained in water rescue :eek:, that's Shocking. Why aren't police officers who can't swim taught. It's something pretty much everyone can do. As the police say they technically did what was right, as they weren't trained, but still You would have thaught they might try. But Police should deff be trained for rescue situations.

When I joined it was a requirement that officers could swim and part of the initial recruitment test was to swim down to the bottom of a pool about 10 feet deep to retrieve an object. We were also taught basic water rescue in terms of approaching a subject and brining them back to the shore but if you had concerns that they would thrash about and drag you down then you would not take hold of them. It is a basic instinct to cling to anything near to you and if that is an officer then they will likely be in danger as well.
 
Man of Honour
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Rescue is generally the domain of the Fire Brigade.

Jokester
I know that, but they should be trained up in basic rescue, that doesn't require equipment. Often police are the first on the scene and as such should have all the basic skills. Until the professionals arrive, which in this case would be the fire brigade.
 
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Ive just had another read of the story and I can honestly say even as someone who is trained in water rescue I would hesitate when it came to jumping into an unknown body of water to rescue a casualty I can not see and did not see go under
 
Associate
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This is a touchy subject, one of the main factors is i would say, is because they are not trained to do it they are noti insured..

therefore if the child ahd still died despite their intervention or he had suffered an injury of some sort, then they would be liable and this would leave the door open for a lawsuit, its not just about keeping their jobs its about their lives aswell...

are you honestly telling me you would jump in and potentially not asve the boys life or injure him and then land yourself with a pay-out that you cannot afford to pay?
 
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