http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/24/met-police-rough-sleepers-possessions
Great answers come from children; if you ever need a moral compass, don’t look to the old people laying the law down on us, or the flashing television showing biased versions of what you’re allowed to think the news is.
Just ask a child, young enough to not be manipulated by your own thoughts, and the truth will spill out between requests for a cartoon and a smell, indicating a nappy needs to be changed.
I asked a friend’s kid what he would do if the police stole his bed in the middle of the night, whilst he was asleep.
“The police don’t steal”
So I said, yes, but what if?
I was met with a giggle and told not to be so silly.
What this situation boils down to is nobody, from a six year old child to a 32 year old man sitting at his computer, can quite understand what the fuck could motivate the police force anywhere in this country to take the last few possessions from the homeless.
Ilford Chief Inspector John Fish said they stole the last belongings from people lost on the way to where they belong to “reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers.”
What about the negative impact on the wider community of police officers being bullying, narcissistic, unwise fools?
How about, if you want to reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers, instead of taking away everything they have, you help them. You talk to them. You call around homeless shelters, you do a bit of police work for an hour, you find them somewhere warm, and safe, to sleep?
What about you state you can only reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers if you do not negatively impact on the reputation of the metropolitan police force?
At least, with that rule, the outcome would logically be the homeless would keep their belongings, they would be moved from parks, but to somewhere warm, and safe.
I’m pretty sure the officers carrying out this role, would rather go home, look their children in the eye and tell them that earlier that night they helped someone; instead of saying the wider implications of their actions could mean they are responsible for the death of a person.
What about the negative impact of bad press? The officer who made this decision on behalf of the public, decided putting a life at risk from dying in the cold at night, was better than a member of the community complaining a man is sleeping rough in a park.
What causes greater negative impact:
A sleeping bag on a bench with a homeless person in? Or…
A dead body on a bench with no sleeping bag?
Because of these recent actions by the police, should you find yourself homeless and at one of the lowest mental points a person can reach – you now face a new risk. The cold, hunger, drugs, alcohol, and threats of violence are no longer the only devils in the gauntlet.
The very line of sanity, the thin blue line – is being wrapped around bearded throats.
The people forgotten by society are being cast aside by society’s moral code.
The police force has joined the side happy to kick men when they’re down.
Homeless people do not need their blankets and food taken away, by police officers who will later return to their warm homes, and think nothing about what they have done…
Homeless people need blankets taken to them, they need food, they need a shoulder, they need an ear to listen to; they need help getting back on the ladder.
They do not need their only belongings in the word stolen from them, and the ladder pulled away.
Possessions for the average person are important. The police officer will return to his bed, he will watch his television; he will walk through his house, past his pictures of his family on the wall, up his stairs, past his office, past his kid’s room and into his bed.
He will walk past all of these rooms, all littered with his possessions.
These possessions are important to him; if there was a fire and he lost them – he might even cry.
But, his possessions would be replaced.
They are still just possessions.
To a homeless man, possessions are not just possessions – they are life; entire worlds.
When you have nothing, truly nothing, that old photograph in your wallet becomes your family.
The old sleeping bag becomes your wife.
Your plastic bag becomes your children.
What looks like rubbish to an outsider looking in, is the tangible, the life being clung onto by the man looking out.
When the police walked into the life of Adam Jaskowiak they did not just take a bag, his possessions and his food.
They burnt his house down.
They stole his wife.
They took his children.
They fucked with his head, taking the last shreds of what he had.
The policeman might cry if his house burns down; but a homeless guy, left with only his skin and his mind, may very well want to die.
Now imagine the policeman’s house didn’t burn down by accident. Imagine it was by design. A deliberate act by men sent to destroy it, forcing the innocent officer to scream and run away into the night.
Now imagine the gross injustice, if those men who destroyed everything the policeman had walked away, believing their actions righteous.
That is exactly what the “police” did to Adam Jaskowiak.
How is that justice?
As a society we are governed by our laws, and our laws are policed by people who serve the queen.
I wonder what the queen would think, looking out from her 57th bedroom at Buckingham Palace, central heating blazing away, about the acts taken in her name.
I wonder further, what she would say, if the next time Adam Jaskowiak has his sleeping bag stolen, on a freezing cold London night, if he went to Buckingham Palace and asked if he could stay.
After all, the Queen has plenty of spare rooms; and these acts are being carried out in her name.
http://www.shelter.org.uk/donate?appeal=20121107-IG-40&gclid=CIiHlpXXsbcCFfIPtAodRxgA1w
