I walked down the street toward my car this morning and I noticed a bit of a disturbance ahead.
A lone policeman in a small patrol car had stopped in the middle of the road alongside a group of ragged junkies, all of whom I either knew or recognised from their begging outside Waitrose, a few yards away.
The policeman had his window shut, and addressed them through a loudspeaker from behind the glass.
"Go home", he bellowed, and that really put them over the edge of what must have been an extremely stressful 10 days of begging to people who were trying to stockpile huge quantities of expensive food as they were attempting to raise the next few quid for their next fix.
We no longer have a police station in Bath. I recognised these junkies as homeless because I have seen them sleeping in the doorways of empty shops that can no longer afford the business rates, but this policeman had been shipped in from Bristol or somewhere, so just assumed they had cosy flats.
"WE HAVEN'T GOT A FUCKING HOME TO GO TO!" was the inevitable reaction from them all, and passers-by looked on in disbelief.
"Stop shouting!" shouted the copper through his public address. All he really needed to do was politely ask them to keep a distance of 6 feet from each other and the rest of the public, but the man was such a fool that he ordered them to 'go home'.
You remember when I expressed the hope that the police would use their new powers humanely and sensibly and was attacked (again) for even saying so? Well this is just what I meant.
Ouch. That's just sad.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the homeless and the addicts in my area are faring. Lots of them camp out in the woods behind shopping centers and our police have about the same amount of sympathy for them as yours. I imagine Covid-19 is going to take a huge toil on them.
Ours sleep in empty shop doorways. The night shelter is going to be a dangerous place if it's still open.
DeleteSo is this story about you being attacked or the street sleepers with no home? They should have been housed by your LA by now. Had they come out for an early morning fix and what passers by were out on tge street?
ReplyDeleteThey live on the fucking street. Do you listen to or believe anything I say? Fuck this, I'm going to bed.
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DeleteSome people take being off the streets very seriously. Just whose side are you on? You say you dont want to take it indoors to your beloved. Look after your self and stop fighting everyone else's fucking corner.
DeleteOne minute you say we must all look out for each other and the next you say we must all look after ourselves. I am not fighting anyone else's corner with this post. I am expressing my disappointment (but not surprise - see the Society post in which you commented that if we treat the police with courtesy, they will treat us the same way) that the humane and sensible approach we all hoped for does not seem to apply to homeless junkies.
DeleteThe LA are looking after the homeless. The drug addicts have homes but they got kicked out.
DeleteWell shouldn't they be kicked back in again?
DeleteYou can't label the whole police force because one copper shouted at a junkie through a loudspeaker. The same junky probably spat at him last week, drew a knife, had a fight and missed a bullet from his drug provider and expected, and got, police protection and a social worker and Boots gave him a shot of methadone.
DeleteI was talking about the unthinking behaviour of one copper and one only. I'm not going to have you telling me about what I can or cannot comment according to how you are feeling on any particular day.
DeleteAnd you watch too much TV if you think that is the average life of a junkie.
DeleteI am telling you nothing about what you can and cannot do or say or write, that is up to you. I am giving my opinion and I think that your post stirs up trouble when the police overall are trying to do their job under difficult circumstances and they are damned if they do and damned if they dont. I hardly watch any television and, as you know perfectly well, I know junkies on the street and regularly talk to them and give them money. I also know that they are a hard lot to get back to living normal lives, had homes that they have been thrown out of, and I also wonder what they do actually fear other than not getting their next fix.
DeleteFor god's sake. I said what I witnessed and I said that all he needed to was tell them to break it up. The situation was exactly like the hypothetical one in my other post which you also thought was trouble making. You are going going completely over the top about this simple and relevant story. It is you who is stirring it up. Stop it.
DeleteThat cop is a bit of a fool. I haven't been around the homeless 'hotspots' around here to see how they're getting on with social distancing or not.
ReplyDeleteWhen you think about it, it poses much more of a problem if you have nowhere to live. Our local authorities are supposed to find them accommodation for the duration of epidemic, but the dozens of empty properties around here are in the middle of the high-class retail centre, and they don't want a load of junkies bringing the tone down. They can do that themselves by evicting shopkeepers and restauranteurs. There is one ideal building on four floors which would suit perfectly, but will not be opened up for them.
DeleteI can't argue with a word. I live by the city that a cop shot a twelve year old with a squirt gun. Shot him and killed him. The cop was tried and let off. The city fired him. The boy is still dead.
ReplyDeleteIn general our police are very good - I often admire them and usually respect them - but there are always one or two who don't seem able to make good on the spot judgements every now and then.
DeleteOur armed police are strictly controlled.
I fear that eventually we will find the bodies of the homeless and addicts, because once one of their group gets it, that will be it for all of them. I read the other day of sections of LA completely taken over by the homeless. Sad.
ReplyDeleteThey are not very good at taking care of themselves to say the least.
DeleteI understood from the news that they are desperately trying to house the homeless, but if they can't house them in the good times, how are they going to manage to do it now.
ReplyDeleteThey are not really capable of leading ordinary lives indoors. That's the trouble with heroin addiction.
DeletePolicemen get frightened, too.
ReplyDeleteI hope your junkies are found cover soon, though they may not accept it. Are the soup vans still going out at night?
Of course they do. I just said he should have told them to move apart, not go home. I don't know about soup kitchens.
DeleteIt's a sad old world, here are these so called junkies needing some compassion and understanding. And then I read today in local Yorkshire news could people stop fleeing to their second homes from the towns into the country as they bring the virus with them. It must be very frightening for those with no homes and the streets shut down to be able to cope.
ReplyDeleteThe junkies are a pain in the arse and it's often difficult to show compassion. The St Martin in the Field charity is the best, but junkies are difficult to help.
ReplyDeleteThe police can't do right for doing wrong at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThey have been left alone to interpret rules which have been hastily made up on the hoof. It isn't particularly their fault if they get it wrong, but even members of the public are becoming over zealous out of fear and uncertainty.
DeleteHard times with new laws will bring out the "Warden Hodges" (see Dad's Army) in some people.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteAfter I learned the hard way in Blogland to stay "neutral"
ReplyDeleteI'll ask you a (hopefully) innocuous question, Tom: So The Peter Diamond Series by Peter Lovesey can no longer be set in Bath because you have no Police Station anymore?
In Germany we still have soup-busses (but they become less at the moment) and many homeless people are allowed to sleep at these cold night in the subway stations - but that is still awfully cold.
I have not seen that series, but I would imagine that in a fictional drama you could put a police station wherever you want. Summer is coming...
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