Merseyside Police’s response to a car ploughing into celebrating crowds has been a timely reminder of the force’s capacity for great humanity at the very worst of times, says former Met chief superintendent John Sutherland
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As a police officer of more than 25 years – and a Liverpool FC supporter my entire life – the events of Water Street on Monday evening were impossible to watch with anything other than a sense of abject horror. An occasion of joyous celebration turned, in just a handful of moments, into one of unspeakable trauma.
Whenever I see footage of police officers running in the opposite direction to a fleeing crowd, I remember my years in blue. The painful privilege of policing is to venture repeatedly into the hurting places: at the scenes of crimes, and of every kind of catastrophe. And, in those places, to see things that you can never unsee.
In my two and a half decades spent policing in London, I worked with endless vast crowds: at Premier League and Champions League football matches; at the Notting Hill Carnival; on New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square; at central London demonstrations. It is a challenge at the best of times, keeping tens of thousands of innocent people safe as they sing and protest and dance and march.
I remember watching on helplessly as good-natured crowds at Carnival surged expectedly into streets too narrow to accommodate them. It was only the swift and skilful intervention of my colleagues from the Mounted Branch that prevented a tragedy. And that was on a day when nobody meant any harm.
I have been there on the other days, too: with Chelsea and Manchester United supporters intent on fighting one another outside Stamford Bridge; when violent protesters tried to storm the Houses of Parliament; when criminals tried to use the cover of crowds to commit unspeakable acts; when packed pubs emptied out onto night-time streets in a flail of fists and feet.
And, on each occasion, it was police officers who stood in the places in between, and who picked up the pieces when the dust had finally settled and everyone else had left the scene.
The morning after the horrors of Liverpool’s victory parade, they were there again, on the other side of the blue and white cordon tape, attempting to make sense of it all; seeking answers and explanations for victims and their families; trying to shut out the speculation and the noise, to get to the truth of it all; and keeping an eye out for their colleagues in the process.
Because it would be impossible to do the job of a police officer for any length of time and to remain untouched – unaffected – by the things that you see and the things that you do.
I was reminded once again of that famous old Fred Rogers quote: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” On Monday night in Liverpool, that is what police officers were doing. And not just them of course, but their colleagues from the other emergency services, alongside countless ordinary Liverpudlians.
The Merseyside Police response has been criticised in some quarters, not least its decision to release details of the suspect’s ethnicity and nationality, in an attempt to quash online disinformation. This was in direct contrast – a “complete step change”, as some have described it – to the response to the Southport knife attack last summer. It was the right call to make, and a sign of the times we live in.
Once again, in Liverpool, we have seen the very best of humanity – and of the police service in particular – in the very worst of times.
John Sutherland is a former chief superintendent of the Metropolitan Police. His latest thriller, ‘The Castle’, is published by Orion Books