[Killer Whale]

The story has now appeared on the BBC web site and includes this:

Paul Kelly, chairman of the Police Federation in Manchester, said PCSOs do not have the same level of training as police officers to deal with life-saving situations.

He said: "The message is clear and unambiguous - it's the government, they are trying to fool the public.

"They take a person and dress him up as a police officer but they just don't have the same powers.

"Every single police officer I trained with left training school with a life-saving certificate of some sort."

He said the PCSOs might not have been able to swim and in that case they should not have risked their lives.

But he added: "People throw themselves into rivers and ponds to save people every day because it's the right thing to do.

"This is an accident waiting to happen again."

Now, do you think the BBC have edited this deliberately to make the Mr Kelly look like an incoherent idiot, or what?

[Samanfur]

It just made the One o'Clock News, so it may rumble on for a little while.

[bairy]

Paul Kelly, chairman of the Police Federation in Manchester, said PCSOs do not have the same level of training as police officers to deal with life-saving situations.

[snip]

But he added: "People throw themselves into rivers and ponds to save people every day because it's the right thing to do.

"This is an accident waiting to happen again."

Oh right. So because other people do it, they should to.
I don't agree. It might be the noble and heroic thing to do, but that doesn't make it a good idea, especially if it doesn't go as planned and the PSCO ends up in trouble too.

It's not strictly part of their job, and they aren't trained for it and so in effect they are just like anyone else who just happens to be around and have to make a judgement in the same way.
Thinking about it more I know I wouldn't jump in because I wouldn't feel confident enough that I could keep myself safe, let alone mount a rescue.

But nooo, let's ban the useless PSCOs, and when crime goes up because the regular police have to do the work they do, let's all have a whine that we need some sort of support officer to do that work. [/pissed off]

[JuanTwoThree]

It's making the rounds:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20070921/t ... 618_1.html


In another mail moment I wonder if a big badge that says "not police" might help. Looking at the photos these PCSOs have more than a passing resemblance to real plod.

And in yet another mail moment, 17 to 20 grand when you're under twenty seems to be quite a nice wedge for not being trained to do anything.

Do you think reading the mail on-line is affecting me?

[bairy]

PCSOs 'did not watch boy drown' - Details of what the PSCOs did do, according to a police chief.

The Mail has got the what-happened in their story, however I don't know if it had the text when they first ran the story.


*TITLE CHANGE ALERT*: It's now "Hero boy's mother: How could police officers stand by and let my son drown?"

"Police officers" didn't. Another lying sensationalist headline.


The story comments are .. Mail reader predictable, some of them the usual Mail reader make-it-up-as-we-go. I can't be bothered to pull them apart.
I'm just gonna stand by my conclusion that it was their decision to make.

[mattomac]

So these Community officers were supposed to wade into the lake, after a probably already dead child and risk there own lives.

Well, I'm glad to see the Mail got the correct facts before stirring this into a public attack on all of "Blunketts Bobbies"

I'm guessing it's just a personal vendetta over a minster who fucked off years ago, Grow Up.

[bairy]

I like the mother's attitude: "They didn't save my son so scrap all 14,000 of them!"


Blunkett says they should have tried to save the kid.
Complete with sad pictures of parents, children, picture of "pond" (fucking big pond!)

Another disgusting article. They're not bothered about the kid or the (in)actions of the PSCOs, they're just loading it up with hate.
The police are crap!! the PSCOs are crap!! It's Blunkett's fault!! The government sucks!!

Last month, there was widespread outrage when it was revealed that one force had recruited 16-year-olds for the job.

Widespread? Outrage? As I recall it was overhyped bullshit by the mail and a few readers.

Comments are the usual predictable lot.

[Adrian]

Not sure it's been pointed out above, the boy disappeared underwater a good while before the PCSOs arrived. He was almost certainly dead by that time anyway, and as bairy says, it was a pretty big pond and apparently pretty deep as well.

My parents, watching the news report, were wondering aloud about who was supposed to be supervising the children.

[bairy]

The BBC article says that they couldn't see any sign of Jordon when they arrived.
Presumably they should have just picked a bit of water at random and hoped to get lucky.

It hasn't occured to anyone that I've seen that if no one else had dived in, it would be easier to spot air bubbles, water ripples etc.

I really don't believe that they just said to each other "there's a kid dying in there" "yeah I know, let's watch"

[bairy]

yay, mad mel is having a crack at the story.

The headline: Emergency services 'do anything to avoid putting themselves at risk'
Notice the quotes. She doesn't tell us who said it. She could be paraphrasing the article, but the wording is such that someone actually said it.

A few snippets:

Well, more fool us! It turns out that their purpose is to avoid anything that puts themselves at risk - and they've got a health and safety rule book that says so.

Have they? Proof?

The more we learn about how ten-year-old Jordon Lyon drowned in a pool in Wigan while two police support officers at the scene did nothing to save him, the more surreal and preposterous life in Britain appears to have become.

"nothing"? According to the Mail's own article they helped the regular police find the spot. That isn't "nothing".

This is because both the police and fire service have instructions not to save people who are drowning.

Source?

Police and fire officers, we are told with the straightest of faces, are not taught to swim or trained to save people from drowning.

Source?

..you get my idea..

The rest of the article goes on about how this applies everywhere. She's also dropped in a huge photo of 10 year Jordon for effect.

It's actually an interesting article. I don't know how much of it is true, and since Mel doesn't bother to supply any actual references (such as a quote by someone), it would require me hitting google to find out.