when I was a little person, when parents said “what do you want to be when you grow up?” boys would say things like ‘pilot’ or ‘fire fighter’ or ‘astronaut’
these days it seems, in south wales at least, little boys want to just throw rocks at fire fighters 🙁
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/3980117.stm
Up to 60 attacks on firefighters have been reported within weeks
Attacks against fire crews are becoming so common officers may withdraw from all but emergency calls.
In one case, a crew was forced to stop tackling a vehicle fire in Pontypool, south Wales, when youngsters threw fireworks at them.
And on Tuesday, stone-throwing youths barricaded a road and prevented South Wales Fire Service getting to a house fire in Ely, Cardiff.
Attacks are so common, it is said officers had to “like it or lump it”.
Crews are considering attending certain calls only if they have police protection.
A fire service spokeswoman said the Ely incident on Tuesday could have had fatal consequences.
“Youths were barricading the road, chucking stones,” she said.
“Officers called police, the police came and dispersed the youths and they could carry on.
“Luckily nobody was hurt in the fire but, if they’d been trapped in the house, they could have been.”
Jo Staples, a community fire safety advisor with South Wales Fire Service, said there had been 50 to 60 incidents in the past few weeks alone.
“You either like it or lump it – unfortunately, they have to lump it.”
“It’s getting to the stage where fire crews won’t enter [some areas] unless they have got police assistance.
In some cases, fire chiefs have said fires are being lit deliberately to lure crews to an area where they are then set upon by gangs.
One Possible way of dealing with this kind of inbred stupidity would be to film them from the fire engine and trace thier homes then send them an incendiary device and see if they want to throw stones at fire fighters. Anyone who is too stupid to tell the difference between help and hassle probably won’t live long enough to reproduce anyway.
This is really serious stuff – in essence it is the start of a total breakdown in some parts British society.
Whilst its unsurprising many people do not like the Police when they are enforcing laws they do not agree with (such as anti-drugs laws or stopping a party) – is obvious that the Fire and Rescue services are there to respond to a situation at which someones life may be in danger; they often risk their own lives and should always be respected.
Even cops are usually OK when dealing with the aftermath of traffic collisions or violent crime.
Scum who attack fire fighters have often set an uncontrolled fire where they are deliberately burning someone elses property (like a car) to spread fear; I am even aware of a live dog being thrown onto a bonfire recently 🙁
They very often also needlessly destroy empty buildings which we could use for far better purposes – not just raves but projects like USE suggested.
Worse still, if these gangs are not stopped from using fire as a weapon, they could easily attempt to murder people with which they have had a previous disagreement, by firing their house with the inhabitants still inside and attempting to deny access to the Fire Brigade when they arrived to extinguish the blaze.
Incidentally I managed to see some training guides for our local Fire and Rescue service – one of them was “attendance at rave events”.
I was shocked and dismayed at what I read; they actually expect to be attacked if attending a rave (even though they have a policy of not assisting the police to stop parties but only attending for actual fires) – the instructions involve notifying all the senior officers and requesting a TVP escort or assistance – and would only move in if cops said it was safe to do so.
It seems that attacking fire fighters is something ‘to do’ in Northamptonshire as well as south wales.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/neighbourhoodrenewal/story/0,8150,674221,00.html
A town in Northamptonshire is gearing up to become the first in the country to use child curfew orders to tackle juvenile nuisance, banning children under the age of 15 from the streets between 9pm and 6am.
The curfews would give police in Corby the power to take children off the streets and return them to their parents who would have to explain why they were out. If nobody was at home the child would be taken into police protection and then passed on to social services.
Privately, the borough council is strongly in favour of the scheme, which it hopes to have in place within three months.
If the curfew orders are implemented in Corby, the ban would centre around a small area of Oakley Road, where a Safeways superstore was burned down in an arson attack and police and fire services have regularly come under attack from gangs of stone-throwing youths. Muggings and robberies by young offenders in the area have also been on the increase.
Outside the superstore, where since the fire shoppers have had to buy their groceries from a temporary marquee in the car park, it was difficult yesterday to find anyone who would argue against Inspector Forsyth’s views. “It’s the par ents who need the smack not the children,” said Eileen, who moved to Corby from Watford 10 years ago.
Lynn Johnstone, who runs the Danes Holmes communi care centre, also had her doubts. “Something needs to be done to try and tackle the problem, but very often it is only about a couple of dozen kids who are causing trouble. I’m worried the good kids are going to get tarred with the same brush as the bad. We run courses here that don’t finish until 9pm: what is going to happen to the kids who are walking home?”
Does any of us actually want to live in a world where our children can’t go outside?
As part of my job I infrequently work with 15 – 19 year olds that have been excluded from school and aren’t working or in any kind of education or training. They are all from a particular borough of the city that ranks in the top (?) ten areas of deprivation in England according to national indicators (low skill and education base, high unemployment, high crime etc.) but although the young people I see are often naughty and most use drugs, I can’t see them wanting to burn down cars or supermarkets…. and then blockade the fire service.
this is some crazy shit.:(
if some parallel universe were created in which I was 15 years old again whilst remaining in 2004; I reckon I’d last about 3 weeks before I got an ASBO for something or other…
OTOH there is a breakdown in the values of some young people; a lot of them seem a lot more prepared to use weapons and violence (including fire). I never thought I’d hear about stuff like people getting pilled up to fight and even use knives etc…
Then again, is this perhaps a sign they no longer value their own lives?
many teens do not go out not because of asbos but they are frightened of being mugged or raped (often by those their own age), or they are scared to ride bikes etc because of traffic.
but if they stay in they are accused of being lazy.
if they don’t do all the exams at school they are written off as “code zeros” and many can’t get jobs as we destroyed our manufacturing industry through mismanagement and greed (yet other countries such as China and Malaysia are queueing up to buy our remaining factories as British engineering skills are still valued worldwide!)
if they do well at exams someone says “the pass mark is lowered”
uni is expensive now and doesn’t guarantee a job; even the graduates jobs are all going to other countries again because middle england wants it all on the cheap..
thank fuck I am in my 30s now, if I had the teenage pressures of today I probably would be setting things on fire – although I still wouldn’t consider attacking the fire service…
Originally posted by General Lighting
thank fuck I am in my 30s now, if I had the teenage pressures of today I probably would be setting things on fire
being in your 30’s is no reason not to go beserk and destroy everything, GL 😉
How on earth can anyone justify attacking a fireman/paramedic? Police are often subject to assault, they are on the “front line” against protests, riots and are seen as upholding laws that many disagree with, but attacking a fireman is fucking stupidty.
Originally posted by MKP
How on earth can anyone justify attacking a fireman/paramedic? Police are often subject to assault, they are on the “front line” against protests, riots and are seen as upholding laws that many disagree with, but attacking a fireman is fucking stupidty.
in total agreement – I have nothing but respect for anyone who works for the Fire and Rescue and Ambulance Service; particularly after the response to last weekends train derailment in my area.
had I not become a raver I would have considered becoming a control room operator for Berks Fire and Rescue – I don’t think I’m quite up to being a firefighter but I have a fair bit of knowledge of comms protocols and a 55wpm typing speed 😀 – but of course many aspects of my current life style would not fit in with the culture of a uniformed service.
Cops will always have to enforce laws people don’t like but IME the Fire and Ambulance Services tend to be non-judgemental, only dealing with the emergency on its own merits. Of course there is the “blue light” culture where many officers have fairly traditional views and an amount of machismo, but considering the situations they are exposed to that is perhaps hardly surprising..
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