Essex Police Federation has highlighted the good fortune that a police officer hasn\u2019t been killed this week \u2013 after four colleagues have been struck and injured by cars.<\/p>\n
Laura Heggie, Chair of Essex Police Federation – the body representing thousands of police officers in the county – said the incidents in Cheshunt and Harlow over the past four days were \u201cshocking\u201d and had potentially lethal consequences.<\/p>\n
All four officers sustained injuries \u2013 soft tissue and bruising – following the incidents, but luckily none are thought to be serious. Although the mental scars on the officers will remain.<\/p>\n
Laura said her message to people who might consider using cars as weapons against police officers was: \u201cThat moment of madness is going to have a consequence on the rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cPeople need to be aware of the risks of what they do. Is it worth potentially killing someone for the sake of getting away from the police?<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it goes from what is a minor offence to potentially someone losing their life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully most people might never think of picking up a gun or a knife and using it on a police officer, but using a car against a police officer has potentially got the same outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laura added that police officers are out there bravely protecting the public and they should expect to return home safely at the end of their shifts.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cOfficers are doing their job, they\u2019re out there doing what they\u2019re paid to do and protecting the public. And these are another two examples of where officers are putting themselves in the way of danger. There should be no expectation that they go to work and get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Courts also had their part to play in handing down tough sentences to offenders who assaulted police officers, Laura said: \u201cThe courts should take into account the seriousness of these incidents and the potential outcome, not just the actual outcome. The risk and the disregard people doing this show for police officers is shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laura said that Essex Police Federation will be supporting the officers involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Essex Police Federation has highlighted the good fortune that a police officer hasn\u2019t been killed this week \u2013 after four colleagues have been struck and injured by cars. Laura Heggie,\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169979,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169917\/revisions\/169979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/169958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}