LA COMES TO MELBOURNE

Ive never had much of an opinion of the filth. Ever since my days as a young man when I raced about on my Powervalve (it's a motorbike - such a motorbike) and was relentlessly harrassed by a bored Police force which had been strengthened after an IRA bomb exploded in the town, and now several years on had nothing to do, my opinion towards them was one of contempt. You have to understand I was stopped three or four times a night and asked to show my licence to these bored cops. A pain in the arse!
(However, let me even the scales as it were by saying that in Ulster - Northern Ireland - in the late 60s, 70s and 80s, terrorism was at its peak and certain areas were virtually war zones – the worst being the county of Armagh, aka “bandit country”, and the border between the north and south where the PIRA (Provisional IRA) constantly ferried weapons across and sniped at security forces, killing dozens. The police and army who were based in this area had to wear flak jackets and carry sub-machine guns. Helicopters and armoured vehicles constantly patrolled.
So dangerous was this place, only unmarried officers were sent there as compensation claims were less than if a spouse or children were removed of a husband/father).
Nevertheless, aside from these dangerous areas, the Filth were nothing but a bloody nuisance.
And the following does nothing to change that opinion.

In Melbourne just recently, a 15 year old boy was shot and killed by four police officers, echoing the style of LA cops who have often shot before asking and regularly beat citizens, well, for fun it would appear.
It has, understandably, caused quite a stir.
This young boy, who had lost his father 4 years previous, had just a few hours earlier been robbed and beaten on a train (where were his protectors then?) He had come home upset, and left again in a state of distress. His mother had called the police, concerned for her son’s safety and asked them to find him and bring him home. She "had faith that the system would protect him from harm. The system failed him".
At some point the boy had acquired a knife. Shortly thereafter the police caught up with him at an empty skate park. He reportedly screamed at them, “kill me or I’ll kill you”. The boy was obviously disturbed but at this point was threatening no-one other than the four, adult, trained (allegedly) police officers. The boy was 5 foot 7 inches tall and weighed just 58 kilos. The cops apparently used capsicum spray on him but again apparently to no no effect. I've seen this substance demonstrated and if used correctly, i.e. in the subject's eyes, it is extremely effective. So our keystone cops must've aimed at his body or something...

Here’s where the travesty occurs: there were four, that’s right, FOUR police officers in attendance and when faced with a clearly disturbed youngster, they shot him seven times in what has been seen as a blatant execution. They claim they were threatened (all four of them? By a small boy?) Are we seriously to believe that four trained police officers, even given two were female, couldn’t disarm a 58 kilogram boy?
Moreover, why the hurry? The boy wasn’t a threat to anyone, except maybe himself; why couldn’t these supposedly trained cops have waited the boy out? Tried to talk him down as it were? He could only attack one at a time so that left three to restrain him. Was there any real need to fire seven shots from three guns into him? (It should be noted that in actual fact, ten shots were fired – three missed – so much for professionally trained police!) And who gave the order to shoot? Which one of these supposed professional police officers decided that four of them couldn’t disarm a slip of a teenager, and had to execute him? For Christ’s sake, I’m fairly confident I could disarm a 58 kilo boy by myself! Yet four cops couldn’t???? What is wrong with this picture?
This reeks of trigger-happy cops. Either that or cops who were trained so badly, they couldn’t handle the situation, in which case they shouldn't be cops. Well, their mishandling of it has resulted in the totally unnecessary death of a teenage boy. I think they should be charged with manslaughter – at least. Of course they won’t be; their actions have already been defended by their Commissioner. “Oh we have to keep the public safe”, he claims. What fucking public? It was the youngster and them – that’s it!

There is something very wrong here, when the people paid to protect us, go off like gun-toting cowboys from the Wild West. And undoubtedly get of scot-free.