Saturday 22 February 2014

Sign Of The Times...

On Wednesday it emerged that during the attack, and while paramedics and police officers tried to save Gazzard's life, bystanders were filming on their mobile phones. Gloucestershire police appealed for anyone with footage of the incident to hand it in to officers and not share it online.
I

I just...
Chief Inspector Neil Smith said officers were monitoring social media websites for any sign of the footage. "I am told there were members of the public who were videoing on their phones during the incident, especially when the officers were trying to save this lady's life,"
Smith said. "I would like to put in the press very strongly that individuals who took part in any filming do not put this on social media and do not put it on the internet. "I am sure anyone related to the lady who has died would not like to see this footage uploaded to social media websites. It would not be a respectful thing to do, especially when the family are in mourning."
You really expect the ghouls to understand the concept of respect?
"I would like to reassure members of this community, both residents and local businesses, that this is an isolated incident. These offences don't happen in Gloucester regularly," he said.
"This incident was very tragic, however; both victim and suspect knew each other. They were in a previous relationship. That doesn't lessen this horrific incident but it would be good for us to reassure the local community."
The same local community who you have to warn against sharing these images? How does that work, then?

4 comments:

The Blocked Dwarf said...

As much as I dislike 'rubber neckers', I dislike, more, Police Officers trying to 'censor' the internet for reasons of not upsetting people (if it's for evidence/legal reasons then that is a different matter of course) and surely the officers have better things to be doing with their time than 'monitoring' social media?

andy5759 said...

I've got some phone footage of things going on around the neighborhood, in the pub and at the shops. I informed the police, they have not needed anything I filmed. Yet.

Many such hair/nail/tan establishments are modern brothels or cash launderers for travelling drug dealers. Just mentioning, like.

Woman on a Raft said...

Unfortunately, a flick through the TV channels will show numerous programmes where the police and paramedics film real-time events and then re-package them as infotainment.

TV has unwittingly normalized this behaviour.

JuliaM said...

"...I dislike, more, Police Officers trying to 'censor' the internet for reasons of not upsetting people..."

Tough call.

I mean, yes, the ghouls are ghouls, but no-one's going to hold a gun to the family's head to make them watch anything put up...

"Many such hair/nail/tan establishments are modern brothels or cash launderers..."

It does have the distinctive signature of a chav-on-chav murder...

"TV has unwittingly normalized this behaviour."

Maybe unwittingly. Maybe not.

At least the police have to get permission. Always fun to see who didn't give it... :)