Waterboarding used on pot suspects, says London police officer
London’s metropolitan police are waterboarding marijuana suspects, says a police officer.
Six members of London's metropolitan police force are the focus of a criminal investigation after a corruption probe revealed allegations by a serving officer that detectives waterboarded suspects allegedly caught with a "large amount" of marijuana...UK cop accuses colleagues of waterboarding pot suspects (Via Dose Nation)"[British] papers gave varying accounts of the exact technique used by police, with the Times saying that officers poured water on a cloth and placed it over a suspect's face to simulate the experience of drowning," reported the Associated Press. "The Daily Mail said police officers repeatedly dunked the suspects' heads in buckets of water. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear."
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When the police tell kids that marijuana is dangerous, this is what they mean.
"The officers, who include a detective sergeant, were originally suspended over allegations they stole property during the drugs raids,” noted Sky News. “The officers are members of the Enfield crime squad based at Edmonton police station.”
bets they were torturing on behalf of organized crime wanting information on their competition?
That wouldn't surprise me in the least, actually.
so, recent events seem to have established the police in the UK torture for private companies while suppressing environmental protests (with government sanction) and likely also torture for the mafia. I have an idea! Ordinary citizens should take up a collection. The money could be pooled and taken to the police and the police could then sell their torture to the highest bidder.
oh good; i'm glad the US isn't the only country using illegal techniques on people who don't deserve them.
Once again England takes something from America and makes it more awesome. This is just like what they did with Rock and Roll!
Kudos to the whistleblower. He's a hero and deserves to be recognized as such, for doing what's right.
"The Daily Mail said police officers repeatedly dunked the suspects' heads in buckets of water. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear."
Probably because the Daily Mail explicitly has a borderline-fascist "law and order" ideology, and is targeted at an audience who implicitly believe that it should be OK for the police to rough suspects up a little if their intuition tells them that they're bad people. Saying or implying that the police are torturing suspects (bad), rather than merely meting out impromptu justice (good) would alienate their audience.
Let's not jump to conclusion. Maybe they were just trying to help the suspects change out their bongwater.
what has jack baur done to our liberties!
Anyone want to hear about forced nudity and humiliation as a tactic in Houston jails?
I wonder whether these people would be more hesitant to waterboard the 70-someodd year old grannie who got caught dealing here.
This is going to be the next follow-up to Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes: a police detective wakes up from an accident to find that he has been transported back in time to last week, and is shocked (shocked!) to find discrimination, corruption and human rights abuses occurring on his manor.
Anyone want to hear about forced nudity and humiliation as a tactic in Houston jails?
I'd rather hear about forced nudity and humiliation as a tactic in my apartment, but only between consenting adults.
I'm sorry, I really can't help myself. Actually, this sort of thing is common in a lot of municipal jails, and is a serious issue.
@11
they have bigger problems
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/23/houston-police-mum-on-marijuana-prisoners-death/
They weren't waterboarded.
They just feel down the stairs, head first a in to bucket.
I'm curious about what a "large amount" of pot is. Are we talking "buying ahead for a week" large or "dealer getting a shipment" large?
Unbelievable. This is disgusting.
Better phrasing would be...
as opposed to...The first is a lot more accurate. The second implies it's policy. The first implies it was a rogue event (which hopefully it was).
I get the hunch this kind of thing has gone on in police departments world wide since time immemorial. Only lately did it actually get a name ("Waterboarding").
Well, the Mail has a strong history of never letting trifles like the truth getting in the way of a more dramatic story. I'm not saying the Times is perfect, far from it, but the mail is nicknamed the Daily Hate for a reason.
Takuan - recent events seem to have established the police in the UK torture for private companies
What are you referring to here? Work has kept me too busy to keep a close eye on the news recently.
and likely also torture for the mafia
You got from possible but unfounded to "likely" how? Any evidence? Or is it just that your dislike of them means that anything bad you can think of must be true?
There are plenty of rational reasons to worry about police behaviour, and be furious about this report, but let's try to keep shrill hysteria and baseless accusations out of it. If nothing else, it makes you sound like an angry conspiracy nut and weakens by association the position of anyone arguing lesser, evidence based points.
This is typical bad police behaviour the world over and pretty much always has been. The entire number of waterboarding incidents that the US military/intelligence services are even likely to have done in any given year would barely equal those perpetrated by, say, one precinct house in a medium-large city in mainland China.
Some of the Canadian cops, notably the QPP, are fond of applying baseball bat blows onto a phone book placed on someone's stomach. It hurts a lot and might even bust up some internal organs but it doesn't leave bruises for the TV cameras. (Wonder what they'll use when everyone uses the Information Super-Highway to look up telephone numbers: family bibles?)
The weren't torturing them. They were just growing them hydroponically.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/22/british-police-use-u.html
and what particular captains of carbon based industry give the marching orders to the UK government is irrelevant. The net effect is cops torturing protesters into submission because stopping climate change might hurt profits.
besides, they set the tone.
Strange and cruel means to help alleviate dry-mouth!
But seriously - that's the thing with torture - once its in the air (ie that torture 'works'), it gets all over everything, like a spray or mist of fine shit (if it works with terrorists why not with ALL 'criminals'?).
actually I take that back, sometimes instead of torturing for money, they do because they CAN.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6THfDGy1hN4
well.. except when they do it for fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIBpfs6x3dQ
Lamest police force in the world.
Weren't they supposed to be the best, only about a decade ago?
Silly Euros. At least we Americans only torture foreigners.
Great. Lets pretend this has been happening since the dawn of time and that this is some shocking revelation. Lets also pretend that the police will get more than a hand-slap and this this will end. While we're at it lets pretend no one knew about this, that it is isolated to London or even to the western hemisphere and that it isn't go on right this second.
Torture is not more shocking because it happens in countries currently on the good-guy list. Everyone has lived the lie of "we're the good guys and we don't do things like torture" for far too long.
@30
welcome to the internets
@Takuan:
I'm not disputing that the police have done some terrible things, or that in recent years the policing of protests in general has become oppressive and anti-democratic.
My point is that wildly guessing at motives and making accusations (e.g working with the mafia) with no evidence is irrational and thus counter-productive. By making baseless accusations like the Mafia connection, you damage the whole cause because it becomes easier to dismiss all dissenters as crackpots and paranoiacs. Go with what you can prove (which is plenty), not with whatever pet story that you happen to find emotionally satisfying.
baseless? I'd call it an educated guess. Let them prove otherwise.
As I've mentioned before, I think we should cancel the UK's membership of the European Union.
At least until they learn to behave like a civilised country.
http://www.timescolonist.com/Life/Liquor+banned+aboard+Victoria+buses+Canada+police+video+cameras/1727401/story.html
#33, Takuan: Burden of proof is on the accuser. You've said so yourself elsewhere.
accuser!?? I ain't "accusing" bloody anything. I'm TELLING them: you want to treat everyone as guilty? fine, you are guilty too!
heh!
http://policecareer.com/index.htm?pmc=ye
Interestingly, I just finished reading this unrelated story about a British man who says he was tortured in Bangladesh at the direction of the UK government. According to that story,
I have a lot more trouble believing that after reading this.
I wouldn't be stunned at all if Takuan were right. Elements within the Met, particularly the CID and Drug Squad, have long been intimately connected with organised crime.
Poor Takuan, makes a "guilty until proven innocent" accusation, gets called on it, and then resorts to definition games about what "accusation" means and finally falls back to a "et tu" fallacy.
Tak, you're playing a partisan game. Your "bad" guys are the cops and your side are the "good" guys, and then you define anything that your side does as "good" and "just" and "justified". Which is little different than what they're doing. The approach is exactly the same, the only significant difference is you've redefined the sides of who is "good" and who is "bad".
But you're both playing the "Anything we do is OK because we're 'good'" game.
You wanna condemn their approach, then you'll have to find a morality and justice that isn't dependent on which team you're on.
@Anon 29: Jose Padilla
And now we're at this point. Humanity just never fails to disappoint.
"find a morality and justice"
torture is wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hNmI5gUJHo