Tributes to Raoul Moat

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has expressed disappointment in the level, 17000 at the time of writing this, of supporters of a tribute website to Rauol Moat on Facebook and the flowers and other tributes outside his home and at the spot where he shot himself.

This raises profound issues which should be of great concern to the police across the country. They are these. There is something alarmingly aggressive and unfriendly about the way a modern police force, when fully mobilised, goes about its business. Huge areas are sealed off. People are either trapped in their homes or public places or cannot get to where they want to go. Armed police are not like the old style cop pulling a snub nosed revolver. They are kitted out in a quasi military ensemble with automatic weapons with authority to shoot to kill if needed to protect the innocent.

Here is the nub. Has the issue of safety first and public protection got out of hand? The police are supposed to be of the public, for the public, but the public, as in the war, have to accept some risk and use common sense. At what point do the police become a Militia? How much does all this cost? Does the public any longer see the police as on its side? At all levels and for different reasons, I sense major disquiet. Politicians will make supporting noises, but confidence is shaken, whether it is a murder hunt or crowd control. Reform is needed.

This is what sympathy for the sad and sorry figure of Raoul Moat is all about. He was armed and dangerous. He had killed and maimed the innocent. Yet too many felt he was fighting for a cause. We have to ask how we got here and where we go now.