Diary of a former Bow Street Runner

Police officer stabbed to death...

...details are still sketchy, at the time of writing, but she was either investigating a disturbance on the street, or disturbed burglars in her home. A very sad incident, especially with it being the loss of someone who was prepared to do an often dangerous and harmful job for free, in their spare time. It also leads to consideration of the wider matter of intervention when off duty.

NB This is not a critique of the officer or her actions, more a contemplation of the topic of off duty intervention in general.

Involving yourself in something that does not directly affect you, in this day and age, is a situation in which the disadvantages far outweigh any possible advantages. One risks death; serious injury; complaints; no support from others; ungratefulness from those you've 'helped' (whether you're a police officer or not) and, inevitably, paperwork and general mithering when they're next in the station.

Unfortunately it is difficult to shake the sense of duty and, to an extent, obligation one feels as a police officer towards those which we agreed to protect, leading us sometimes to put ourselves 'on duty' and assist in a situation that we are witnessing, be it a minor shoplifter or a group assault on one person. Gradually, experience (and sustaining injuries of varying degrees) iterates that this is, more often than not, a foolish thing to do.

When one is not being paid for it (or if you're a Special, booked on and working), you should NOT intervene directly in anything that does not have an immediate bearing on you or people close to you. The safety and well-being of the general public takes a significantly lower priority than your own personal safety, even more so when you are not even expected to be directly intervening in matters. A few people sustaining injuries in a street disturbance without direct intervention is better than the loss of life arising out of a sense of potentially fatal altruism.

Look after yourself first! The Job probably won't give you much support and may even turn on you if you don't do things 'right' (which changes depending on what day of the week it is) anyway, and you can't expect other members of the public to intervene if things go wrong. Make a 999 call and leave it to the people who are on and paid to deal with the matter (although see below).

If one disturbs burglars in your own home, then the mantra is simple - when burglar disturbed, you kill burglar or they kill you.

You are likely to be supported in law (indeed there's some good reported cases on this) if you kill burglars in the act of committing the offence in your home, as opposed to, say, shooting them in the back as they're running away. You'll have public opinion, and probably the police, on your side anyway (though we won't officially be able to say so) and it's better than dialling 999 if you suspect something, and being told there's no free patrols. I challenge any judge or magistrate in this land to say that someone who does kill burglars disturbed in thier own home was not acting out of genuine fear for their life and the lives of those in the house.

Going back to this tragic incident, apparently a knife amnesty is to be launched. I think people need to look at this rationally - does anyone with even an ounce of intelligence really expect that this will trigger an attack of conscience in the collective psyche of the offending population, causing them to hand the knives in and no longer be armed in future? Amnesties are an utter waste of time, effort and money and make not the slighest difference. This sad incident will not change anything, such is the irreperable state of regression and (paradoxically) progression towards anarchy this country now finds itself in.

People in these cirumstances sometimes quote Burke: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’

In fact, that quote is incorrect, he actually said: 'When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.' That is illustrated by this case - don't go in alone no matter what. Evil will triumph many more times after just the one incident, so there's no point in potentially making the ultimate sacrifice for something that, in the grand scheme of things, will make no difference.

Fortunately, my travel tickets arrived today and I am leaving this cesspit of a society/country within weeks!
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