Quote Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY View Post
Wether their reaction was good , bad or nothing at all it's the fact they have from the start failed to state exactly the situation that people saw .....a police van following two kids on a scooter .....that has caused confusion , mistrust and given some the excuse to get involved in confrontation

Let's imagine some people on here were in Ely and saw the scooter being followed by a police van

The crash occurs and on social media people start saying what they saw .....kids being followed by a van

The police come out and say there wasn't a chase etc ......

To a lot of people that's going to feel that they are being challenged on what they saw

Chase , pursuit , trailed , shadowed

You say potato , I say potato etc etc

It really doesn't matter

The police failed to make sure everyone knew that the boys were being followed but when they crashed the police had withdrawn

This is all down to this simple matter . This missed opportunity has lit the fuse .
Lots I disagree with you on Sludge, but I’m with you on this.

I think my parents did a good job in bringing my siblings and I up, but the respect for and trust in the police that we had drummed into us during our childhoods has not been justified in my experience in the last forty years or so in particular. My use of the word experience is not totally justified mind because there’s been little direct experience of them (what there has been has been a mixture of good and bad), but life in general has taught me that the police tend to lurch from one crisis to another, there are plenty of fine wors spoken after something like the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, but, essentially, nothing ever changes - suffice it to say, I’m not sure how anyone can be shocked by, for example, the police actions against the Republic protesters a few weeks back or the lies after what happened on Monday - it’s what the police do.