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I remember PC Blakelock who was the bobby on the beat in for my area at the time, there is a little memorial to him on the local roundabout which I pass often.

(On the beat is an historical phrase describing the way Policemen would walk the streets in order to prevent crime a practice replaced today by high speed drive by's in cars. So this incident occurred in very different days to the ones we live in now.)

Someone has mentioned the nature of reporting and I remember that the riots only really got going after the early TV news reports attracted people from outside the Broadwater estate into the area.

The arrest and wrongful conviction of several people who were subsequently acquitted did nothing to repair the communities relationship with the police which had led to the riot in the first place and must in part be responsible for the lack of co operation which has prevented the identification of those involved to this day.

PC Blakelock was murdered by several people who were in turn supported by many others whose blows and attempted blows make them as guilty as those who made the fatal wounds. Even if this latest suspect proves guilty there are dozens of others who were involved and the case will never go away until they are all identified which may never happen.

I know the roundabout you mean, I have seen the plague too. There is a clue in your screen name to the area you are referring to but I knew where it was anyway.

I've never really understood this whole thing of the Police wrongly charging and getting people who werent responsible sent down for something can be seen as a reason for the Police facing a wall of silence and how Police/local community relations can be broken as a result. It implies that the behaviour of the community in that instance is justified, when it never could be justified. If I knew of a killer I would shop them, even if I didnt particulary like the Police.

I would imagine the Police know who the people are who did it anyway but just can't prove it. As I said before the Police And Criminal Evidence act, which was brought in as a response to what occured to bring about the Brixton Riots, has made it very difficult for the Police ever since and the criminal is more or less laughing now.

Erm I was 12 at the time I hasten to remind you and don't think I'd quite formed the ability to be 'selective' about the things that upset me!

The fact that its one of the things that I do remember from my early years to me is the significant point given how young I was, however I havn't spent ensuing years debating it or seeking deeper meaning. My only point was I was young and it impacted upon me.

And how does news reporting differ now from then anyway? Its no less a dark art but in different terms perhaps, sensationalism all based around the need to generate figures for advertising as a rule.

Devils advocate but how is the death penalty not part of a civilised society. The term 'civilised society' is a moot point anyway, history has shown that each civilised society that has existed has in turn been replaced by another that considers IT to be the civilised and its predecessor barbaric.

Each generation of 'civilisation' has in turn failed.

What we define as civilised today is in our own arrogance of superiority and in turn will be no doubt judged as 'barbaric' in 100/100 years from now.

It is after all simply based on majority opinion at the time and this always changes eventually.

We're no more civilised today than any other 'great' civilisation that has existed, we just think we are.

To me the quote is just another example of human arrogance, in order to self justify ourselves.

max_tranmere wrote:


> I would imagine the Police know who the people are who did it
> anyway but just can't prove it.

Makes you wonder why if they know who did they chose to prosecute 3 innocent men instead

I never said I agreed with the death penalty if you read my post properly, I merely suggested as devils advocate why you could argue that it is part of civilsed society.

My main driving point was that we are no more civilsed today, than we were 10, 15, 50, 100, 1000 years ago comparativley speaking and yet each period of history shows that particular time frame to consider itself as being civilised.

And as for Descartes, a human being with an opinion is all. No mightier than you or I.

It's the lie of progress and the extent to which we've been programmed to believe that things just get better and better. Accordingly we should become more 'civilized'.

In Neil Young's song 'Rocking In The Free World' there's a lyric which goes ' .. we got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand' and that's what our 'civilization' sometimes amounts to, and that's if you're lucky !