Gardai

[GavinZac]

Moderator: Removed original post that this was a reply to.

[jebus]

One thing I want to know is was this attack racially motivated or otherwise?

A lot of the media attention focuses on the fact that the two dead were Polish.

From what I hear it was just scumbags being scumbags.

As for the Gardai, under resourced they may be, but that doesn't explain the bully boys and lazy attitudes of the officiers I have encountered. I can't even recall one single episode where I have heard of any of them going above and beyond the call of duty, whereas I have and have heard many stories to the contrary, my own latest being Sunday night in Limerick when myself and two friends came across a woman, drunk off her mind, passed out in a doorway just a bit up from the White House bar. One of the lads walked five minutes to the Henry St Garda station to ask for a gaurd to come up and bring your one down to sleep it off in the dry cell, he was told someone would be up in a minute, 30-40 minutes later we had the woman stood up and able to speak, had managed to get out of her that she had a friend in town, had used her phone to call said friend, and had her on her way to Brown Thomas to meet her friend. As for the gaurd on his/her way......

[Lim till i die]

One of the lads walked five minutes to the Henry St Garda station to ask for a gaurd to come up and bring your one down to sleep it off in the dry cell, he was told someone would be up in a minute, 30-40 minutes later we had the woman stood up and able to speak, had managed to get out of her that she had a friend in town, had used her phone to call said friend, and had her on her way to Brown Thomas to meet her friend. As for the gaurd on his/her way......

Hey, they can't be "policing" the whole city.

I reckon she should at least take some of the blame in fairness

[inexile]

From what I hear it was just scumbags being scumbags.

As for the Gardai, under resourced they may be, but that doesn't explain the bully boys and lazy attitudes of the officiers I have encountered. I can't even recall one single episode where I have heard of any of them going above and beyond the call of duty, whereas I have and have heard many stories to the contrary, my own latest being Sunday night in Limerick when myself and two friends came across a woman, drunk off her mind, passed out in a doorway just a bit up from the White House bar. One of the lads walked five minutes to the Henry St Garda station to ask for a gaurd to come up and bring your one down to sleep it off in the dry cell, he was told someone would be up in a minute, 30-40 minutes later we had the woman stood up and able to speak, had managed to get out of her that she had a friend in town, had used her phone to call said friend, and had her on her way to Brown Thomas to meet her friend. As for the gaurd on his/her way......

do you go above and beyond the call of duty in your job??

surely if the girl was that drunk it was an ambulance she needed as gardai have little or no medical training.

you really do not know what you are talking about if you generalise every garda as bully boys and lazy trust me

[jebus]

do you go above and beyond the call of duty in your job??

surely if the girl was that drunk it was an ambulance she needed as gardai have little or no medical training.

you really do not know what you are talking about if you generalise every garda as bully boys and lazy trust me

Well we were there and we decided she probably just needed a place to sleep it off, so forgive me for not listening to your sound judgement on the matter. As for if I go above and beyond in my job, often I do yes, sadly I don't hold a job as custodian of the peace.

As for your other point, I can only give my judgement on my experiences with the Gardai I have needed help from, and I have found them to be either arrogant, wasters, bullies, or all of the above. I have yet to see anyone else list their wonderful experiences of Garda protection

[inexile]

and obviously you knew the best thing for her was to be arrested and placed in a cold cell for the night, which on a saturday night could mean that she would be in a cell with someone else.

if you go above and beyond the call in your own job fair play to you but i would suggest you are in the minority.

i can honestly saw that there are very few gardai that could be called lazy or bully boys, maybe some if the older lads are but the younger generation are very approachable and professional

[jebus]

and obviously you knew the best thing for her was to be arrested and placed in a cold cell for the night, which on a saturday night could mean that she would be in a cell with someone else.

It was Sunday (if you read my posts you'd know this), the night that snow fell, and a cold cell is much preferable to sleeping in a doorway in the snow and, who knows, possibly even dying. What this has to do with the Gardai not being a pack of jokers is beyond me

[inexile]

you brought this example up to try and show the gardai were useless and because i dont agree with you i tried to give you reasons as to why that example does not prove your point

[jebus]

you brought this example up to try and show the gardai were useless and because i dont agree with you i tried to give you reasons as to why that example does not prove your point

Really? Where did you do that? Do you think that because the Gardai have limited medical knowledge that they should ignore someone coming in to them to ask for help for a woman in need? Do you think that excuses them lying to us about being bothered to help us? And what was your other points about us getting her locked up about then? Oh and forgive the edit, but what did you make of my previous examples of Garda ineptitude?

[Billsthoughts]

why didnt you make formal complaint for any of the above?

[inexile]

Really? Where did you do that? Do you think that because the Gardai have limited medical knowledge that they should ignore someone coming in to them to ask for help for a woman in need? Do you think that excuses them lying to us about being bothered to help us? And what was your other points about us getting her locked up about then? Oh and forgive the edit, but what did you make of my previous examples of Garda ineptitude?

what previous examples did you give of Garda ineptitude?

how do you know the Gardai didnt come up to try and help that lady and ye had just gone away?

i was just asking you in your expert opinion on what was best for this lady? was it being arrested and brought to court which is what the gardai do, they dont really give first aid etc.

im not saying for one second there are no bad Gardai but I do think the standard is definitely improving both in their manner and the work they do

[NeilMcD]

Lads jebus is spot on in relation to this incident, if what he says is true which we have no reason to believe it is not. All I can say on this matter is that any of the lads I know who I went to school with, who went on to become guards are ******* and bully boys of the highest order. They are crowd followers and country jocks of the highest order. I do not think all Guards are like this, however the do attract that sort of character for some reason.

I think someone should create an equivalent Ross O Carroll Kelly character of a GAA playing Guard who loves Shania Twain and Bon Jovi and loves playing practical jokes on people and giving lads wedgies etc. These are the characters I went to school with who have gone on to become guards. Alternative music to them was U2 and the Beatles. Sadly I don't think Templemore gets this mentality from their brain and may in some cases reinforce it.


Pete just saw your post, feel free to move my post to a newly made Guards thread.

[jebus]

what previous examples did you give of Garda ineptitude?

go back into the Drimnagh stabbings thread, it's my third post on the first page

how do you know the Gardai didnt come up to try and help that lady and ye had just gone away?

Even if they did they were too late, why tell us they'll be up in a minute and then leave us standing up there with her? (they knew we were waiting, my friend told the gaurd on duty) Past experience tells me they probably didn't bother even coming up.

why didnt you make formal complaint for any of the above?

Because anytime myself or any of my friends have ever tried to make a complaint in the past it has been met with silence or threats, that's why we didn't go back to the Garda Station. I probably will make a complaint to the Ombudsman, but forgive me for not having much faith in that process, in fact I can already predict what way that conversation will go,

Garda Ombudsman: What was the officiers number?

Me: I don't know, my friend put in the request and since he thought she was going to go through with her actions he didn't see any need to take her number, but she was the garda on the desk in Henry St, Limerick on Sunday night if that helps.

G.O.: We really need her badge number

Me: Yes but since my friend didn't think there was going to be a problem he didn't take it at the time

G.O: Why didn't you go back for it?

Me: Well by the time we had helped that woman out and waited for a garda to come it was getting on towards closing time and we wanted to go for a last drink....

G.O.: Oh ye were out drinking

Me: Yes....

G.O: We'll get back to you on this (and that will be the last I hear of it)


I think I will bring this up with the Ombudsman now, purely to see how close I've called that situation, again past experience tells me I've got it spot on

[osarusan]

Lads jebus is spot on in relation to this incident, if what he says is true which we have no reason to believe it is not.

Agreed. The gardai have a responsibility to protect people who are defenseless(even when the reason those people need protection is because they went out and got blind drunk). As LTiD says, the woman is of course responsible for her own actions, but she was in a condition where she needed protection, and didn't get it.

Of course, there may have been mitigating circumstances - the police may have had more urgent matters to attend to, such as a crime of some sort. But it doesn't sound like that's the case. It sounds like a very bad piece of policework, pure and simple.

What I do disagree with is using these examples as evidence to support a sweeping generalisation that all guards are lazy spongers. Or creating hypothetical conversations with the Ombudsman that support the same point.

[jebus]

What I do disagree with is using these examples as evidence to support a sweeping generalisation that all guards are lazy spongers. Or creating hypothetical conversations with the Ombudsman that support the same point.

Osarusan I have yet to see anyone catelogue their instances of fantastic policework as a counterpoint for any of the situations I've been involved in and have posted up here and in the Drimnagh thread. I stand by my assertion that I have yet to encounter a gaurd that I would say I was satisified with when I needed them. I'm sure they aren't all lazy spongers, but I've yet to encounter one I wouldn't put in either that or the bully boy category. And please, hypothetical conversations that are done out of a genuine sense of hopeless humour are not meant to be taken as support for any point, they are just borne out of a sense of desperation from previous encounters

[holidaysong]

Myself and a friend were walking along Bachelor's Walk in Dublin about 5 or 6 years ago when a local scumbag came out of nowhere and punched me in the face and snapped my friend's phone from out of his hand. My friend gave chase along the river and across O'Connell bridge. I followed and when I got to the bridge I noticed two Gardaí at the end of O'Connell Street. I told one of them what had happened and the direction in which my friend was chasing the guy. He told me that I should 'go into Burger King and wash the blood off and face and go around to the Mater to see if my friend turns up'. They then both walked off. I took his badge number though. My friend didn't catch the guy in the end. We did report the incident a few days later and I received a phone call from a superintendent from Pearse Street Garda station. He was wholeheartedly apologetic with what had happened. He personally followed up the incident and contacted me again about 6 weeks later to inform me that the Garda in question had been cautioned and fined as a result of the manner in which he dealt with me.

Although it has left a really bad taste in my mouth about the Gardaí, I was at least satisfied that something was done when I reported the incident.

[inexile]

i saw a copper give a fella money out his own pocket on westmoreland street so that lad could get a bus home, i thought it was a lovely gesture of humanity.

and for doing their job properly what about the garda that gets a smack in temple bar one night while trying to stop a big scrap on his own??

i work in dublin city centre and i pass gardai on foot every day and they seem very pleasant, approachable but to be fair they do not appear to be the stereotypical garda, as in they are young and not fat!! and some of the bangards are quite attractive!!

[kingdom hoop]

what was best for this lady?

In many ways that sums up the story. Active citizenship is highly commendable (fair play Jebus) but the sad thing is that you'd be more surprised to hear of what Jebus did than a case of a Garda not doing what one might expect.* But 9/10 times, people would walk past the lady (probably spit on her as they did) and this example would never arise.

Gardaí will never be perfect, but their job - the void they must fill - is made an awful lot harder because of society dramatically failing to grasp the sense of fellowship that binds us.

The problem, then, is accentuated given Gardaí spawn from the same pond as a self-serving, laissez-faire citizenry. I agree that most Gardaí seem pretty sound, and that's an important point, but at the same time I'd support the view that collectively they need to be seen as offering more than just what a good citizen might, and become more authoritative, commanding figures. How that balance is struck is pretty tricky, however.

*(I suppose we must ask what we expect from Gardaí/a police force before discussing the whole area too!)

[Macy]

If this lady, and my sister in law's example from the other thread quoted below, had been attacked, raped or murdered, what would people's reaction be if the gards had been informed and hadn't bothered their hole? There would be outrage.

btw, no point in making a complaint against a cop, unless you like being pulled everytime you're out in the car, with multiple produce cert orders, and get loads of dubious charges taken against you. They're pretty bloody quick to close ranks once a complaint is made. Look at Abbeylara, Donegal, Reclaim the Streets, the young lad in Tipp, the lad in store street etc etc, to see how quickly they can forget, and there is no appetite by the judicary and politicians to clean it up either.

I will say I know a couple of lads who were going for the cops that I think will be decent if they get in. Like many professions, I think the years they've spent working and studying in the real world will make a difference. Templemore takes people in too young before they have any life experience, and they get indoctrinated with the type of bull that we've read above, and have probably all experienced. They don't have any examples of being the other side of the blue line.

My sister in law woke hearing something in the night, opened the bedroom door and heard someone in the house - she phoned 999. 10 minutes later got a telephone call back to check she was alright! She was in the house with an intruder and their reaction wasn't to rush there, it was to wait a while and phone back

[Billsthoughts]

As for your other point, I can only give my judgement on my experiences with the Gardai I have needed help from, and I have found them to be either arrogant, wasters, bullies, or all of the above. I have yet to see anyone else list their wonderful experiences of Garda protection

I gave an example in the other thread.

Lads jebus is spot on in relation to this incident, if what he says is true which we have no reason to believe it is not. All I can say on this matter is that any of the lads I know who I went to school with, who went on to become guards are ******* and ……..

Alternative music to them was U2 and the Beatles. Sadly I don't think Templemore gets this mentality from their brain and may in some cases reinforce it.

Massive generalisation there even leaving aside the fact you are talking about people before they have even become gardai. Can you explain how what music they listen to might influence how good or bad they are at their job?

Because anytime myself or any of my friends have ever tried to make a complaint in the past it has been met with silence or threats, that's why we didn't go back to the Garda Station. I probably will make a complaint to the Ombudsman, but forgive me for not having much faith in that process, in fact I can already predict what way that conversation will go…….

I think if you make a complaint the garda in question will be investigated and disciplined. That’s my experience anyways. You do have to get the number as it makes it a lot easier for anyone doing the investigating.

In many ways that sums up the story. Active citizenship is highly …..

Have to say I strongly agree with this bit. As a society we don’t really show much sense of civic duty at all. In the example above Jebus is to be commended and he is right to criticise the gardai involved.

I will say I know a couple of lads who were going for the cops that I think will be decent if they get in. Like many professions, I think the years they've spent working and studying in the real world will make a difference. Templemore takes people in too young before they have any life experience, and they get indoctrinated with the type of bull that we've read above, and have probably all experienced. They don't have any examples of being the other side of the blue line.

Have to say this is a very good point as well. Its applicable to a lot of jobs tho. E.g teaching. I think you have to take into account when you are deadling with them its very rarely in positive circumstances. So this is bound to colour peoples attitudes.