An Garda Siochana ( your views)

Terry · 03-03-2006 02:51PM

had someone asked me this question four years ago, i would have called them every name under the sun.
then my father was knocked down in a hit and run incident (he died six weeks later from his injuries). the gardai did everything in their power to catch the wanker who hit my father. you name it, they did it. he was hit by a 650 bike, so they checked out all the bike clubs in the greater Dublin area, even went to wicklow. they put posters up all over my area asking for witnesses, they had the incident reconstructed on crimeline and they kept me up to speed on any development in the case.
the guy was never caught, but they tried their best to find him. i couldn't have asked for more.

_Kaiser_ · 03-03-2006 02:57PM

esskay wrote:

Did you ever think that the local scumbags probably make a lot of cash from robbing/dealing? Maybe there is money or "favours" being exchanged?

Actually...

When one of their informants broke into the house a year or two after we'd moved in and stole a pedigree Rottweiler pup (leaving TV, video, cash and all), it was left to mam to track him down.

She eventually did 8 months later, but when she went to Coolock station to get them to take the dog back, they suggested she "let him keep her as you wouldn't want her back at this stage". My grandfather had to go to the then Minister for Justice before they'd take the dog off him. HOWEVER.. said informant was never charged - not even for receiving stolen property!

Interesting footnote.. one of the 2 former inspectors involved on the above case was later done for bringing drugs in through Dublin airport, so no - where Coolock Gardai are concerned, NOTHING would suprise me anymore! :mad:

rondeco · 03-03-2006 03:01PM

connundrum wrote:

Its amazing how Guards are still getting away with givin everyone a few digs when they're in custody, that 13 year old kid died in a cell from gettin kicked around the place. ..

You were there, were you?

Boggle · 03-03-2006 04:17PM

Some gardai are very good people - or at least start off that way. Ive seen several people who, despite going into the gardai with the best of intentions, have completely changed in terms of thinking that they are above other people. In fairness, some of the problems are due to the system and the difficulties imposed on them - imagine a gardai trying to persue for the posession of a stolen dog?? He/She'd be killed ofr wasting time...

At the same time I have to mention a few incidents - such as seeing photo's of gardai in the local station pissed as fup on a sat night from drinking confiscated whiskey(while still on duty). Other incidents such as going drinking together and driving home safe in the knowledge that if stopped all they have to do is flash the badge out the window and having a Xmas party in johny Fox's while ensuring that the bar stays open as long as they want are other examples of specific incidents I know of.

Of course I won't mention the points my brother managed to dodge just cos he subsequently discovered he works closely with the gard who caught him...

On the whole, there are problems but they are somwhat amplified due to the crappy system that they have the misfortune to be (just a small) part of...

tabatha · 03-03-2006 04:20PM

i think that they let power go to their heads as soon as they get through the door. they need to be taken down a peg or two and learn how to do their jobs properly. i think templemore has a lot to answer for.

Dilly1 · 03-03-2006 04:26PM

esskay wrote:

Originally Posted by Kaiser2000
Oh ok then... *WARNING: LONG RANT*

As anyone who caught the PrimeTime special on anti-social behaviour a few months back will have seen, my mam lives in Coolock and has been the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation by local scumbags for the past 18 years!! Not ONCE has ANYONE ever been charged or even questioned about it!

The local cops are by and large WORSE than these scumbags.. why?
?

I have had this problem in Leixlip

But I decided to take the law into my own hands, I battered one of them.
Just as the Garda never charge anyone for the CONSTANT vandalism by Leixlip scumbags, no one cared that this guy got battered, so what goes around comes around. Just get to know them, remember their faces, then catch them on their own and have a 'crack at the title' .. or pay someone else to do it, the Garda dont care cos their hands are full as it is.

please NOTE: this is just a suggestion, and I deny everything that was just mentioned

Terry · 03-03-2006 04:36PM

so it was you who kicked the crap out of me?
that's good to know.
your post has been forwarded to Leixlip garda station and will be seen by them the next time the station is open. that gives you about six weeks to come up with an alibi.

el tel · 03-03-2006 04:41PM

Kaiser2000 wrote:

Oh ok then... *WARNING: LONG RANT*

As anyone who caught the PrimeTime special on anti-social behaviour a few months back will have seen, my mam lives in Coolock and has been the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation by local scumbags for the past 18 years!! Not ONCE has ANYONE ever been charged or even questioned about it!

The local cops are by and large WORSE than these scumbags.. why?

EXAMPLE 1:
Junkie scumbag next door kicks the front door in one morning. Cops are called. Yer one is screaming in her driveway at him: "yea I f*ckin did it!!". Garda response: "I don't want to go down the road of charging her!" - and he didn't.

EXAMPLE 4:
When scumbag in example #1's car is stolen, a Garda car shows up at the door within 5 minutes and her car is back in an hour!! THEN 2 cars AND a van show up to make sure she's happy (and one of the Guards is caught on our surveilence camera making the smart-assed remark "sure maybe Norma (my mam) got it on tape!").
When this same scumbag clipped my wing mirror 2 months ago after tearing up the road, leaning on the horn, and FAILING TO STOP (hit and run btw), the local cops refused to charge her despite the whole incident being captured on camera and a copy of the tape and statement being presented by me. Why? There's no evidence to show anything happened. A inspector down there remarked to my mam that I'd "wasted an hour of his time on a incident that didn't happen" - thus calling me a liar!!

The Gardai in this backwater half-assed country (and I take no pleasure in saying that) are rotten to the core from top to bottom with no independent oversight or accountability. It's the EXCEPTION rather than the rule that you meet a decent one!

Btw.. if any mods wish to verify any of this feel free to PM me..
To everyone else, sorry for the rant but thanks for reading this far!

I wouldn't be surprised if Scumbag neighbour is a police informant and hence the preferential handling he gets. No wonder many people go straight to Sinn Fein to sort out problems with anti-social behaviour.

_Kaiser_ · 03-03-2006 04:48PM

Dilly1 wrote:

I have had this problem in Leixlip

But I decided to take the law into my own hands, I battered one of them.
Just as the Garda never charge anyone for the CONSTANT vandalism by Leixlip scumbags, no one cared that this guy got battered, so what goes around comes around. Just get to know them, remember their faces, then catch them on their own and have a 'crack at the title' .. or pay someone else to do it, the Garda dont care cos their hands are full as it is.

please NOTE: this is just a suggestion, and I deny everything that was just mentioned

Unfortunately if you read over my Example 4, you'll see they're VERY quick to come running when it's one of the scumbags that calls! :mad:

Dilly1 · 03-03-2006 04:49PM

julep wrote:

so it was you who kicked the crap out of me?
that's good to know.
your post has been forwarded to Leixlip garda station and will be seen by them the next time the station is open. that gives you about six weeks to come up with an alibi.

HAHAHA

This is ireland mate !! its like the Wild West, full of cowboys and chancers

Although on a serious note, is the increase in vandalism due to young people
having low or non-existent moral values, poor education or being off their heads
on drugs and drink the whole time ?. or are the Chav's just producing too many
offspring ?. maybe a cull is in order !.

smithy1981 · 03-03-2006 05:10PM

Some good, most bad.

As someone mentioned earlier a young boy (13) was beaten by guards in a cell in clonmel. He died from the injuries. Some might argue the cops that beat him to death might represent a minority of guards that are bad eggs, but what about the rest of the guards in the station that night. Not one has come forward. Not one tryed to stop it. They are all guilty of that most terrible crime. I realise this is only one station, but i reckon it the same in most stations. Bottem line in my opinion is MOST guards think they are above the law.

Savman · 03-03-2006 05:46PM

esskay wrote:

Did you ever think that the local scumbags probably make a lot of cash from robbing/dealing? Maybe there is money or "favours" being exchanged?

Of course there is, maybe I'd be the same if I was a pig and give the cesspit of scumbags some leeway, I dunno.

Muggy Dev · 03-03-2006 05:46PM

Some bad.Most good,but there are problems.Most of these originate in Templemore.While we aspire to community policing in this country the Templemore culture breeds (inbreeds?) a real sence of alienation before the new recruits hit the beat.Add to this the endless routine of non enforcement tasks that need to be undertaken each day,a system of law that favours the criminal at the expence of the victim and a management whose decisions on issues big and small defy believe.

Put it this way........its a bit like complaining that your car is not running well when your two back tyres are flat.

Under the circumstances I think the Gardai do a remarkable job.Just like the Doctors and Nurses in our filthy and overcrowded hospitals and the Teachers in our overcrowded and dilapidated(sic) schools. But it would appear that all is well because everyone has a job and is making pots of money:(

Interest rates are now on the rise.The market has factored in further increases of one quarter % for each quarter for the next 18 to 24 months.

Jacobs announced plans to shut their factory in Tallaght yesterday with the loss of 300 jobs.I think these jobs will probably be saved in the short term but it is a salutory warning that it wont take much huffing and puffing to blow the Celtic Tiger house down.

Where will our public services be then?:eek:

Savman · 03-03-2006 05:54PM

julep wrote:

had someone asked me this question four years ago, i would have called them every name under the sun.
then my father was knocked down in a hit and run incident (he died six weeks later from his injuries). the gardai did everything in their power to catch the wanker who hit my father. you name it, they did it. he was hit by a 650 bike, so they checked out all the bike clubs in the greater Dublin area, even went to wicklow. they put posters up all over my area asking for witnesses, they had the incident reconstructed on crimeline and they kept me up to speed on any development in the case.
the guy was never caught, but they tried their best to find him. i couldn't have asked for more.

Sorry to hear that. I can only speculate that hit & run drivers make a stoopid decision in the heat of the moment to leggit and as such could be any joe soap in that circumstance. That's not condoning it, its just I'm referring to a different type of person that the Gardai fail to protect us from, i.e. Mickah and his posse smashing windows and assaulting folk for fun :rolleyes:

Terry · 03-03-2006 06:04PM

Savman wrote:

Sorry to hear that. I can only speculate that hit & run drivers make a stoopid decision in the heat of the moment to leggit and as such could be any joe soap in that circumstance. That's not condoning it, its just I'm referring to a different type of person that the Gardai fail to protect us from, i.e. Mickah and his posse smashing windows and assaulting folk for fun :rolleyes:

he still had time to turn himself in afterwards. not the point anyway.
i see where you're coming from and it all boils down to laziness on the part of some gardai. they don't want the hassle of all that paperwork.
bigger prisons and a swifter court system are the solution.

R0ot · 03-03-2006 06:18PM

well im from donegal and ive seen how corrupt they are with my own eyes

Slutmonkey57b · 03-03-2006 09:45PM

I've had numerous dealings with the police and never found them anything other than helpful.

Nightwish · 03-03-2006 09:59PM

I've met some ignorant cops and I've met some really nice ones. I know a few people in Templemore and they're still normal!

Chucky the tree · 03-03-2006 10:10PM

Nightwish wrote:

I know a few people in Templemore and they're still normal!

Give it time...

seamus · 03-03-2006 10:12PM

smithy1981 wrote:

As someone mentioned earlier a young boy (13) was beaten by guards in a cell in clonmel. He died from the injuries.

I very much doubt that. That's pure speculation and is being looked into. The kid was a local troublemaker, and could very easily have had a major beating by someone else the day before his arrest (or indeed that day), or have taken something which caused him to die.

The issue with the Clonmel case is that he was allowed to die. Afaik, Gardai are supposed to check on every prisoner at least once an hour to ensure that they're OK, but this kid was locked up and then not checked on till the next day. For most normal people, we'd be grand, we'd sleep that time, but this kid already had internal injuries or had ingested something which killed him.

The Gardai need to be viewed as a workforce. If your workforce has low morale, are overworked and underappreciated and are generally shat upon from a height, then greater sections of your workforce will be corrupt, lazy, inefficient, and generally complacent. Improve the morale and you will quite quickly improve the quality of the force, with the exception of some die hards. If people enjoy their job, they will do it well. If people don't like their job, or feel that no-one cares about them doing their job, they will do whatever it takes to make the job bearable for them, be that petty corruption, abuse of power, or downright bullying.

It's not helped by the Irish attitude of being a chancer, and seeing what you can screw the system for. With every scumbag and cowboy seeing any form of authority as scum, you can't blame the Gardai for being a little heartless at times.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that with a proper political will, we could easily have an outstanding Garda force using it's current members.

jesus_thats_gre · 03-03-2006 10:33PM

Chucky the tree wrote:

Give it time...

I know 8 people who have gone through it.. All seem ok to me..

KdjaCL · 03-03-2006 10:37PM

They do a job i wouldnt do, and if they beat scumbags to death well they are just casualties of war really.

So i have nothing but total respect for them in saying that i dont:

1.Get caught Breaking the law so feel the need to call them **** for catching me.
2. Think im a hard ass scumbag and feel they oppresss me when they beat the **** out of me for no reason other than being a scumbag.

kdjac

greg678 · 03-03-2006 10:40PM

Under resourced and under major strain.......trust me i know.........

Chucky the tree · 03-03-2006 10:56PM

seamus wrote:

The Gardai need to be viewed as a workforce. If your workforce has low morale, are overworked and underappreciated and are generally shat upon from a height, then greater sections of your workforce will be corrupt, lazy, inefficient, and generally complacent. Improve the morale and you will quite quickly improve the quality of the force, with the exception of some die hards. If people enjoy their job, they will do it well. If people don't like their job, or feel that no-one cares about them doing their job, they will do whatever it takes to make the job bearable for them, be that petty corruption, abuse of power, or downright bullying..

One of the main reasons they arent appreciated is because they are seen by alot of people as being useless. Look at this thread, alot of people arent happy with them. Maybe if they changed their attitudes they would be appreciated. I know they might turn around and say "we will workhard when we are appreciated". Vicious cirlce i suppose.

seamus wrote:

It's not helped by the Irish attitude of being a chancer, and seeing what you can screw the system for. With every scumbag and cowboy seeing any form of authority as scum, you can't blame the Gardai for being a little heartless at times.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that with a proper political will, we could easily have an outstanding Garda force using it's current members.

I dont think the irish attitude is hugely different alot of other nations. Also is pretty much impossible to change the attitude of a whole nation.

Proper will from the Senior members of the gardai aswell as the Goverment is needed. They(gardai) seem very stuck in their ways and arent too interested in change it seems.

LegacyUser · 03-03-2006 11:20PM

Like I said earlier, bad behaviour always gets more media attention then good behaviour.
Bad news gets more coverage then good news.

Think about it, if you have a good experience with the gardai, or any business or organisation, your not very likely to post a thread about it, or tell all your friends about it, BUT, if you have a BAD experience, you let the world and its mother know about it.

YES. some of the gardai are absolute arse holes, so are some builders, some bin men, some teachers, some priests, some taxi men, some sales men, some mothers, some fathers, some boyfriends, some girlsfriends.... you get where I am going with this.
However, the majority of gardai, builders, bin men etc are good, hard working people, unfortunetly, human nature insists that they dont get the attention or praise they deserve.
We just don't/won't discuss them in a positive light.

viota · 04-03-2006 12:30AM

the garda are a bunch of arrogant power hungry bastards lets leave it at that

miju · 04-03-2006 12:46AM

i've had about 7 or 8 run in's with the Gardai twice on the wrong side

gas thing is that we i was on the wrong side of the law the gardai were nothing bu t polite and understanding and to be honest i cant really fault them in their attitude / professionalism

however, the rest of the times i've had occasion to be in touch with the gardai as a victim they were nothing but of an ignorant, abusive bunch who didnt give a **** about me, so much so had to go through family connections to get things sorted on at least 4 occasions

they do seem to be a law unto themselves though, if memory serves me correctly, didnt all the gardai at the mayday riots suddenly have memory lapses? i also remember when i used to work in Dept Of Justice got stopped a few times showed my ID and was waved on :-)

Dooom · 04-03-2006 01:07AM

I've had about 5 run-ins with the gardai, mainly for little stupid things; being too drunk, messing around too much in public etc.

All of the times I've been co-operative with them, and didn't give them any hassle or cheek. And all but 1 of the times, they were polite, totally nice and had a decent sense of humour about things. Ironically they were actually quite sound guys to deal with!
The other 1 time, the 2 guys who stopped me were complete w*nkers. Completely ignorant, insulting me and basically thinking they were gods. Now those lads I wasn't the most co-operative with and argued the hell out of a few things.
Didn't quite go the best for me, but tbh it was all I could do not to deck one of them for being sucj total a*seholes.

Actually the cops in America are some of the nicest people I've ever met. Been in New York and San Francisco and both times, if I had to ask them for directions, was just told to quieten down a bit after a few drinks or the one fight I was witness to and was asked a few questions, they were so polite and overall really..nice for lack of a better word.
They also have far more respect from EVERYONE, than here. Anytime there's someone comits a crime, they don't walk a few feet away and wait for the cops, and plead innocence with a smug look on their face. They run like Jaws was behind them.
Maybe it's due to the fact that who's gonna f*ck about when there's a few guys with guns in the vicinity that are allowed use them legally.

Also, on Cops for instance, even when they're talking to obvious scum, they're still pretty nice about it. Not as nice as they'd be towards ordinary decent folk, but still nice enough.

slipss · 04-03-2006 01:08AM

muppetkiller wrote:

I'm going to actually go Pro Garda here...
Firstly the problem isn't the Gardai it's our crazy justice system that causes all the problems.

Why would risk getting hurt pulling appart two scumbags with knives when if you do and arrest them they'll be back on the streets in about a day and you'll have to do a 50 page report on the incident.

Protect the innocent and let the scumbags wipe each other out...
Bring back the Chain gangs that what i say..

Yeah I totally agree with you, let the scumbags wipe each other out, the gaurds are always right, and if anyone disagrees with us, well we could just group them all together, concentrate them if you will, in some sort of camps, that'd solve all our problems. I say we round up all the "scumbags" and intern them (that always works) and if they still don't act like democratic civilians we could just put them in chambers, maybe pump some sort of gas in. Thier only "scumbags" after all, who cares? This surely will offer a solution to all this finally.

drdre · 04-03-2006 01:30AM

i think they are corrupt, i have no proof but thats my opinion
also they are just money scammers, they have checkpoints everywhere nowadays eith camers, and now once that private camera company puts up cameras then we will have big problems as they will be like the stupid clampers

An Garda Siochana ( your views)

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