Police officer warned after tweeting ‘kicking down doors is our favourite thing’
An officer has been warned after tweeting from a police account that “kicking down doors is probably one of our favourite things to do”.
The tweet, which was deleted a short time afterwards, came from the Homerton branch of the Metropolitan Police and showed officers using a battering ram to break down a door.
It continued: “Another warrant conducted on #Victoria ward with the assistance of @MSPHomerton @MPSKingsPark @MPSHackneyWick #knockknock #localpolicing.”
Really great tweet to send if you want to sound like a bunch of unhinged gangsters, @MPSHomerton! (And yes, this is real) pic.twitter.com/ivNebpqSaE
— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) July 1, 2020
Read on...
Support us and go ad-freeAfter being contacted about the post, the Metropolitan Police said: “We are aware of an inappropriate tweet sent from the @MPSHomerton twitter account.
“The officer who tweeted this has been given words of advice and the Professional Standards Unit have been made aware. The tweet has now been deleted.”
Social media users were quick to condemn the tweet, with Guardian columnist Owen Jones posting: “Really great tweet to send if you want to sound like a bunch of unhinged gangsters, @MPSHomerton! (And yes, this is real)”
A fellow social media user responded: “As a Homerton resident, I find this now-deleted tweet very disturbing. This is why defunding the police and ring-fencing policing budgets for local services is needed.”
Another complained that the message was “sinister”, adding: “As someone who lives in Homerton it makes me feel terrified.”
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How would they like it if the Arsenal Boot Boys tweeted that taking on coppers twelve on one is their favourite thing?
I briefly knew a man back in the mid ’90s who said he had his front door smashed in by the police a few years earlier, after somebody said he was dealing. They found nothing and released him from the cells soon after, but because he had already been convicted of either possessing dope or dealing it, he said the police told him that they’re not obliged to compensate him, or anybody else who has a criminal record. So he had to pay the joiner £70-odd himself to repair the front door jamb and secure the lock.
Like he said, so much for growing up, going clean and taking on a mortgage.
Another thing about warrantless entry regarding the police. Around the late ’90s a woman I knew had a son who was a bit of a lad, stealing things mainly, who got himself arrested early one morning. The woman and her husband heard somebody downstairs about 4 am, and when her husband went to investigate he found two strangers looking round the front room. It turned out they were plain-clothes policemen, who said their lad had been caught with keys in his possession, and the law allows them to search the premises to which the keys unlock. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t been arrested or it was their house, the police were able to search it as their lad had his keys to the home.
What an outrage. How can these laws be passed and the population aren’t even made aware of their effects? When did we become such a police state that the law can behave like the lawless?