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| It was taking place in the cut indicated by the arrow. |
Last night on my way home I encountered a drug deal in progress. I'm 90% certain this is what was going on. As I walked up the back path between Valley Road up to Sturdee Avenue, I heard voices in one of the cuts and I glanced over my shoulder to see three youths stood talking loudly enough that I could hear them over my IPod. They seemed to be acting a little suspiciously and one was trying to conceal something hurriedly and I double took.
"You better not be looking! If you are I'll knock you the F**k out!"
The taller one with the clear bag he was trying to conceal said.
Strangely I didn't feel threatened. As a Red-head I've attracted abuse throughout my life and have had my fair share of attacks including two robberies and I have no fear of defending myself if I am attacked but the first thing that sprang to mind was - This is 3 minutes from my house. A fact that was hammered home again when a 6 year old girl walked past me towards the same spot and I immediately thought of my daughter.
Sophie is growing up around this!
Should I call the Police? What was the point, they'd be long gone before the Police could respond and three kids are hardly worth the prosecuting.
Of course it wasn't always like this. When my Grandfather was a Police Officer he patrolled the streets, and was a respected member of the community now the police are something to be shunned or abused and are kept so busy that they cannot be everywhere at once. Even back in the day you never addressed someone in that manner and there wasn't the fear of intervening and getting stabbed. We've all heard the horror stories of well meaning citizens who have tried to avert crime and found themselves injured or killed by youths.
I understand with previous cuts that sacrifices had to be made. I grew up in Marden on the Weald which had had a Police house with a couple of Police officers which had long since closed and we were a good twenty minutes from Maidstone by car. Often a Patrol car would skirt through the village once a day maybe and to a degree it felt as if we were lawless, but the community was a lot closer and you knew who the trouble makers were, it was almost a 1950's style community that self policed.
It is a great fear that the Government cuts will take Police officers off the street and helping keep the community safe, even cuts to PCSOs is a problem. This is why it is important that the Chief Constable and the KPA pay special attention and cut where they have excess and cut carefully, these crimes aren't happening in inner city London but in the quieter suburbs of Gillingham around our Children and it must be stopped.
Spending reductions in the public sector are, as you and other Liberal Democrats realise, unavoidable; but are not the real issue anyway.
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thing has been going on in any convenient location for at least a decade now, and I have dealt with a few (successfully!) during my years on Medway Council, so have some experience of this subject.
The causes are complex, but hugely aided by the previous national government's attitude and impositions upon police forces, compelling them to spend far more time at desks filling in complex forms than actually policing.
It's not like in your father's day, when there were no Diversity Officers and all the other trappings of a pseudo-Communist society that were introduced during the Labour years.
It will take the best part of a generation to undo all the damage – but it has nothing to do with spending reductions, which only take spending back to 2004 levels, and no-one was making a fuss back then.
If it could be done then just half a dozen years ago, it can be done now. All this noise from the Left is just political, nothing more.
Absolutely, I agree cuts need to be made and should be made. My only worry is that the Chief Constable gets to decide where the axe falls, (as is proper- afterall who knows more about the constabulary than the Cheif Constable!) I'm just urging him to be considerate with where the axe falls.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the Police Force should be about crime fighting and shake off the culture of "Excessive Paperwork" that has developed over the years.
Thanks for your response to my comment.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, something that is now well-known is that the London drug barons have been seeking to extend their empires out into the surrounding counties for some years. My own "eyes & ears" have seen them here in Medway and overhead their conversations with local dealers.
Thus the framework is by now well established, and what we have here is in essence an extension of those London empires to which you too have made passing reference.
I could tell you anecdotes of where this and other issues has blossomed during the Labour years, more or less unhampered, but it would be long and make for uncomfortable reading. I have over the years touched on a few examples on my own 'blog and on my old Councillor website.
It is important that all instances of dealing be reported to the police regardless, as that way they can build up a picture and in due course could lead to arrests and convictions.
I urge everyone to do so, ideally at the time but otherwise after the fact, just to make sure that as much "intell" as possible is fed into the police.
It doesn't surprise me at all. It would make sense to spread out your empire, especially if the Met Police are clamping down in London or close off one asset.
ReplyDeleteI will indeed report it to the Police as soon as I can. It was one of the reasons I wrote the blog so that I would have a memory of the insident!
sorry typo! should be Incident !!!
ReplyDelete