criminals - who people generally expect to act like criminals.
Most people do not expect the police to act like criminals.
Isn’t that what the police were doing, though? The police were surveilling a gang member as part of Operation Trident, tried to arrest him, in the course of which he was killed.
The assumption by some members of the public has been that, for some reason, the police decided, after they had arrested him, to execute him in cold blood. Why? Probably this is just the sort of thing that police officers enjoy. It’s been a while since we’ve killed any innocent bystanders, and, even though we’re not sure how much of an innocent bystander this guy is, he’ll have to do!
So in fact it seems as though acting like criminals is precisely the sort of thing people are expecting of the police.
Since then we’ve had three days of violence and looting—by criminals, the very people who the police are supposed to protect us from.
Perhaps we should just give over the capital to them; perhaps this is the start of a kind of glorious Arab Spring for the UK. What else can the police do, anyway? Stand around getting hit by rocks waiting for the violence to stop, by the looks of things. Obviously, if the police try to push back too vigorously against the “protesters”, someone might get hurt. And when people get hurt by the police, we end up with cities in flames.
Anyway, viva la revolution! Burn London to the fucking ground! And everywhere else!
Any sympathy they were angling for will be long gone if the continue to stand by.
Er, you can't have it both ways.