Dear reader, it’s all intrigue at the Observer these days. Amid a flurry of anonymous letters, photos of abused officers, voice-mails of screams and more, this one stood-out… And yes, it appears someone with a ‘sense of humour’ is going round adjusting gang signs. It seemed a good header for this article…
We received a letter, typed and printed on ordinary paper with no obvious prints that our team could find (yes we know how to dust for prints!). When we checked our CCTV some dude all covered up, slunk away into the shadows again.
It’s quite a long opinion piece, so we’ve put both pages here and then I’ve put my comments in where I can.
So, thank you anonymous author who probably works for Hathian PD for writing this. I appreciate the time you spent in both calling me out and also responding to the ‘Hathian Against Corruption’ messaging. (For any readers who need the last on this, refer HERE)
So, after editor bashing a bit we get onto the meat of it. No apology from Heckler… No surprises there so now turning to page 2…
The author appears to go through the HAC demands and then try and respond to them one at a time… Except they seem so full of anger that it is more a rant than a rebuttal of HAC’s ideology. Which might be understandable? But still… hardly professional if this is a serving officer (or former officer!) A few stand-outs…
“You innocent little lambs you” Well, like lambs to the slaughter, perhaps those who suffer predations from anyone, should just meekly comply. It seems to me that there is no clear answer other than to stop hurting each other for fun, profit or whatever else… Suggesting as HAC does that some solutions are inevitable, or as this author does more explicitly, or as some gang members just do with their fists and blades… it’s all so sad for our City. What with the FDH, HGH and HPD all at loggerheads with the vain Mayor again as well… it’s not a great time.
“They are frauds and criminals”, Well yes, some of them surely are criminals and bad ones at that. But that is no different to HPD blaming the Mayor for criminals being out on the street to hurt them after a week over and over again. Where does responsibility stop, who will stop the violence?
So onto the (I promise) final page…
Well… so this appears to confirm it’s from an officer. It seems that law and order has truly broken down… Bad cops are on the street, bad criminals as well. They hurt each other and then when they want to hurt more they now turn to threats.
My issue though with this part of the letter (and yes, I am sensitive to what I publish) is that sometimes Oxygen is the right way to bring attention to things. The author says that people hide, yet I’ve seen abusive cops hide (and perhaps keep hiding until dragged out into the light). I’ve seen cops build torture basements only for this newspaper to expose them.
Still, there are some fair points. Without Oxygen, perhaps they cannot flourish, so maybe, despite the stream of invective from ‘someone’, we will reduce our coverage. But I fear… that through every crime and misdemeanours that the genie is out of the bottle and it is lost to history who started (except if we pin it on Katrina) but now, the genie fights to consume itself.
((Thanks for all involved in the HAC, HPD, Mayor and other storylines that are coming together. Reach out to Krystal and other Emergency Services leads if you want to see how you can help. Reach out to the Mayor via Daiyu!))
