Police Killer / public killers

[Oneeyedvic]

Okay, this is probably going to sound very callous, however I will try and make my point as best I can.

If a close member of family or a loved one was murdered, I would expect the police to do what they can. If it was done on the street, then I believe they would do a fair amount of work.

However, I think I am shocked about how much work has been done (and it appears to me) only becasue the victims are police officers. I don't recall (and I may be totally wrong on this) fingertip searches done by a string of policemen covering the width of a street for 'normal' people who have been shot, be they innocent passers by or involved in some form of feud.

Is there (or should there be) one law for the police and one for the public?

And please don't see this as a police bashing exercise - it is not meant in that vein

[surfer mike]

I don't see it as police bashing, its a perfectly valid question...can totally understand the reaction of her fellow police officers, but no i don't think there should be one law for the police and another for the average victim of crime, but in fairness i do think that generally the police do careful fingertip searches for most murder cases, but these are generally the cases with high profile media attention.

[january_bug]

I agree with both of you. I suppose it's only natural that they should want to look after their own. And it does seem a double blow when a law enforcement officer is a victim of crime like this. However, if I were a relative of someone who had been raped or murdered (or even a lesser crime) in Yorkshire this weekend, and I felt that that crime was being under-investigate (or having insufficient resources committed to it in some way) I would feel very miffed.

[Andy008]

No. Being a police officer is a dangerous job, but that's life. Anyone who can't handle the heat ought to apply serious thought to leaving the kitchen.

[libertie]

I suspect that the police will pull out all the stops to catch and convict the scumbags who murdered this PC!As for carrying out fingertip searches I'm sure I've saw them do this many times before when investigating a murder! Several months ago in Glasgow a young woman was murdered and the police have been determindley working away trying to catch her killer, in a recent interview her parents thanked the police saying that they were doing everything in their power to catch the person responsible.......just for the record the young woman was a prostitute......which as far as I'm concerned should make absolutely no difference and as far as the police are concerned it has'nt!!

[kags]

No, the life of a police officer is not more valuable than that of anyone else, and yes, living near Bradford, I would have expected to have the police assist me this weekend as normal if I had experienced a crime. However, we do not arm our police in this country, nor do believe we should. The police must give out a very strong signal that violence against officers will not be tolerated, and I think this is why there is such a strong public showing of detemination to bring the criminals to justice. This is not to say that other murders/crimes are less important, or need to be investigated with less determination, but I am just saying I can understand why this has been done so publicly.

I also think that, despite us living in an age of supposedly sexual equality, there has been more horror at the fact that this was a woman and mother, than if it had been a male officer.

[Loosehead]

No I've seen them doing fingertip searches lot's of times, copper or not. Nothing there Vic!

[Oneeyedvic]

Thanks for your answers people - as I said, didn't know if it was something special or not - I don't recall them closing parts of the M1 for suspects before though!

[january_bug]

Motorways have been closed while suspects have been moved around on many ocassions before. It's certainly not the first time I've seen images of such heavily guarded convoys on the motorways, although I confess I can't give dates, times, channels, or cases names.

[stevie21]

Even if this one was being investigated more vigorously I still think it'd be the case that "normal" cases were investigated to the best of their ability *with the resources available*

If I was a police officer and a friend and colleague of mine was killed then I'd devote a lot of my own personal time (i.e. even more unpaid overtime than the police already do) to convicting the guilty party. I wouldn't do that as standard otherwise I'd have no personal life.