Saturday, August 25, 2007

"An Isolated Incident"

Lancashire, kicking a girl to death : "It's important to remember that this is an isolated incident".

Letchworth : Police said the shooting was an isolated incident.

Carlisle murder : "Cumbria police would like to reassure people that this is an isolated incident and a full investigation is underway".

Swindon : The police are treating the attempted abduction of a young girl in the Oakhurst area as an isolated incident.

Newcastle stabbing : Det Insp Jim Hetherington offered reassurance to people living in the area. He said: “I would like to reassure people that this appears to be an isolated incident.

Cardiff : Police are investigating an "horrific" sexual assault on a woman walking her dog near school fields. The 25-year-old woman was attacked on Tuesday, 31 July, near St Bernadette Primary School in Pentwyn, Cardiff. South Wales Police said it was "an isolated incident" and they were appealing for witnesses.

Maidenhead murder : Windsor and Maidenhead local police commander Superintendent Mike Ismay reassured residents of the town that it was an isolated incident.

Wycombe shooting : Ch Insp Stuart Craik, of Thames Valley Police, said: "This is an isolated incident which is uncommon to the Wycombe area.

Winchester double murder : "I would like to reassure members of the community that this is an isolated incident".

Or take a look at the 39 pages of isolated incidents at BBC News.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

We live on an island. Everything that happens here is an isolated incident. If you are a casuist. (Yes, I mean that in the pejorative sense.)

Anonymous said...

Isolated incident? Clearly acting under political orders from NuLab. I've lost count of the times I've heard ministers talk about 'reducing the fear of cime' rather than reducing crime itself. The police are now a poltical entity.

Not long ago law-abiding people respected the police, even if often frustrated by an apparent lack of action. Now I observe contempt bordering on hatred from those same people. A dangerous state of affairs.

The Sage of Muswell Hill said...

And from each of the "isolated incidents" we have "learned valuable lessons"

Anonymous said...

very interesting article here about gun control and rising crime levels in the uk
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html

note this paragraph:
"The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn't subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible."

interesting! i wonder what the UK murder rate would be if we used the same FBI standard?

Anonymous said...

"Now I observe contempt bordering on hatred from those same people."

Me too. Not what you'd expect from my circle of acquaintances, either...

Anonymous said...

Since the 17th century, casuistry has been widely considered a degenerate form of reasoning. Casuistry functions as specious argumentation or as intentionally misleading.

That is the pejorative sense if you use the island concept.

Well, that typically applies to statements by the police, obviously structured by some central political/publicity control mechanism/department.

But it gets us nowhere forward in dealing with the problem.

And that is probably the true intent of the police, given the abdication of the State of its duties.

But we are more honest, we need to move forward, we seek solutions.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8.58pm.
You're right.
I see more and more statements that amount to casuistry in the arguments provided by the political elite and the police.
Perhaps they feel the public are fools.
They'd be wrong.
Perhaps they feel the public is content with high taxes, lawlessness, lack of opportunites.
They'd be wrong.
The public, I am sure, are aware that the benefits of globalism are restricted to the privileged few in the City, and they also are aware that the trickle down is not happening in gawd-awful-gordons kleptocracy.
They need a change for the better.

Anonymous said...

It gets better

Anonymous said...

"It gets better"

jeez. so basically no coppers on the beat.
why does that not surprise me?

probably all diverted off to man radar guns for speeding tickets.

Anonymous said...

They are a damn sight less "isolated" than they were 20 years ago, too. When liberals claim that crime is falling, how do they explain the rarity of stabbing and shooting murders even 20 years ago, let alone 40? Are they seriously claiming that these deaths were not reported?

The state is not interested in really controlling crime, as (a) they are not really affected by it, and (b) it would mean them having to tear up their cherished liberal worldview. Instead "perception management" is the name of the game, downplaying crimes, hammering out over and over the same lie that it is people's perceptions which are wrong, not our society itself.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 9:39 - I've long said that they are using crime as a tool to frighten, and thus control, the citizenry. You have been taken over lock, stock and barrel by the fascists.

Frankly, between Jack Straw, Harriet Harmon, Gordon Brown,Tony Blair et al, and the Germans, I would have preferred the Germans. They're better looking and had neat uniforms. Better sense of over-all style than ancient Trots.

Anonymous said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6965339.stm

Another one fresh in. Not yet described as 'an isolated incident', so perhaps they are starting to realise that tack isn't working anymore.....

Anonymous said...

I always assumed that the Right were cleverer than the left, but this story seems to blow my ideas out of the window.
The meaning of isolated in this sense means the person has not been involved with other crimes that the police are also investigating at that time.
e.g. Fella killing a man and running away is an isolated incident. Fella killing a man and then killing another man later in the day prevents the second incident being an isolated one.

The conspiracy here is the deliberate misunderstanding of the term.