ESSEX Police officers face being spat at, punched, and in one case having blood thrown over them as the number of assaults on police increases.<\/p>\n
Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh has publicised injuries to five officers over the course of one weekend, tweeting: \u201cBusy weekend for Essex. Sadly five of my officers injured – driven at, bitten, assaulted and spat at. They walk towards the danger…Proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation says the problem is getting worse \u2013 with one officer shot at last weekend just days after the shooting of a Metropolitan Police officer in London.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe\u2019ve had other police officers assaulted over the last weekend in one form or another, whether that is being punched; or we\u2019ve had officers being spat at and it\u2019s gone in their mouths, blood being thrown over officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s worrying. There is an increase and we need to find out why. Is it that people maybe are going to notice that there aren\u2019t police officers around? Is that a reason that people are feeling comfortable doing this because they know that police officers aren\u2019t around? Or is it just the mindset of certain individuals has changed in society?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Smith said the federation is working to build up an accurate picture of the number of assaults on its officers \u2013 including asking officers to report all assaults and whether or not they are armed with Taser.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re asking officers to tell us if they\u2019ve requested a Taser and they haven\u2019t been able to get one, or if a Taser would have helped in a certain situation so we can collate evidence to take back to the force,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaser won\u2019t solve everything but if that piece of personal protective equipment helps us stop one assault then it\u2019s worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Smith praised the professionalism of Essex officers in the face of assaults, but said it was a \u201cworrying\u201d time for police.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThey deal with it as always \u2013 professionally. We do our job. We carry on doing our job against everything that\u2019s thrown at us but of course it\u2019s getting harder and harder.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn individual may be in a situation where there would have been two or three people. If someone wanted to resist arrest, three of you can restrain them but with one person that now becomes the police officer protecting themselves. It\u2019s very worrying for officers out there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people who put themselves in the way of danger should be protected by their government. They\u2019re protecting the public, which is of course the government\u2019s primary role and the police are doing it on their behalf.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police should be backed by the government, not attacked constantly by the government in one way or another.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers feel let down by MPs. They feel let down that they\u2019re not being supported and getting the funding they need. They\u2019re feeling let down because they don\u2019t feel that they\u2019ve got the back-up and the support of other officers because they\u2019re not there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing worse than hearing an officer asking for help and you can\u2019t get there to help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX Police officers face being spat at, punched, and in one case having blood thrown over them as the number of assaults on police increases. Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh has\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2361,"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\/2360"}],"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=2360"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2364,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions\/2364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}