POLICEMAN SHOT AND KILLED.

[Georgiesmum]

I see a policeman has been shot and killed today, and another one injured in Clacton.
What a terrible world we live in.

[ludwig]

// AP has a point. Murdering a police officer in the course of his duty used to be a more serious offence, as mike111111111 mentions. But somewhere along the line they've forfeited the right to be considered a special case. Too many killings of suspects, too many innocent people jailed, too many corrruption cases. It now appears to be just another job, with good people and a few bad ones, no longer on any moral high ground. //

AP doesn't have a point. He just made a stupid comment (late at night probably after a few beers).
You might have a point, but it's unrelated his comment.

[jno]

AP's point appears to be that the police aren't deserving of special sympathy when killed (I don't have your access to data about his drinking). I agree with this, and so now does the law, which I think reflects a wider change in social attitudes to the police - from Dixon of Dock Green to the Sweeney, say. Ian Dibell's death is regrettable, but no more so than Ian Tomlinson's.

[beso]

Georgiesmum //What a terrible world we live in.//

No. It is a wonderful world we live in. The presence of some bad people in it does not make the whole world bad.

[ludwig]

// AP's point appears to be that the police aren't deserving of special sympathy when killed //

Not really. His 'point' was more like the police aren't deserving of any sympathy when killed, because people have died at the hands of the police in the past.

A bit like Patrick Moore's recent 'the only good kraut is a dead kraut' 'point'.

[FredPuli43]

The death penalty under the Homicide Act wasn't just for murdering a police officer. The Act reflects fears and thinking in 1957.Part of that was concern at criminals having guns.

Death was also for:

All murder by shooting or explosion; all murder committed in the course of theft; all murder in the course of resisting arrest or escaping lawful custody; any serving prisoner murdering a prison officer.

There was an inbuilt absurdity that strangling the victim in rape, or poisoning someone, didn't attract the death penalty, which would have been good news to some serial killers, and gang members had to kill rivals by other means than shooting if they were to save own their necks.But any farmer who killed his wife, in a fit of rage, by shooting with his shotgun, rather than strangling her or bludgeoning her, was sentenced to death

[mike11111]

I cannot but agree with Fred here. The Homicide Act of 1957 led to so many anomalies that its lifespan on the statute book was a short eight years. He mentions correctly the case of poisoners. Prior to the Act, when the penalty of death was mandatory in all cases of murder, it was an unwritten rule that those convicted of murder by poison were never reprieved from the gallows, as it was considered the ultimate crime with regard to intent. Yet under the new Act it became a non-capital offence. Many will be familiar with the case of Ruth Ellis, a glamorous twenty-something blonde hanged in 1955 for pumping six bullets at point-blank range into the heart of her faithless lover. Yet how many will recall the case of Louisa Merrifield, a not-so- glamorous forty something hanged two years earlier (rightly in my opinion) for the murder of an old lady whom she had befriended then proceeded to kill by putting rat poison into the lady's jam jar in order to inherit her bungalow, worth £3000, which had been promised to her by the said victim.

After the execution of Ruth Ellis the hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, was pursued by journalists on leaving the prison asking, " Mr Pierrepoint, what does it feel like to hang a woman?". His reply was, "Pity you weren't around here last year to ask me that question when I hanged Mrs Chrystophou, or the year before up in Manchester when I hanged Mrs Merrifield."

[Answerprancer]

Now look here - my response didn't in any way detract from my belief that the UK's police force generally do a great job. Of course it's tragic that someone would have thier life taken like this. Don't round on me for giving an opinion that happened to be controversial.

[Answerprancer]

...and what the he'll is it with this assumption that because of what I said it must therefor mean I thought he deserved it !

[jno]

you've fallen foul of PC, Answerprancer.

Police Constableness.

[Answerprancer]

Lol - so it seems jno

[ludwig]

// Of course it's tragic that someone would have thier life taken like this. //

I wouldn't grieve too much about it AP, many people have also died..etc etc

// Don't round on me for giving an opinion that happened to be controversial. //

Oh come on - now you're just resorting to the 'AOG' defence. :o)

I see it's been zapped anyway. It weren't me that reported it though, honest guv.

[Answerprancer]

Hmm - strokes chin suspiciously ;-)
Nah - AOG does 'passive aggressive', I was being defensive.