Shoot your local fireman

[MargeB]

I thought this Glasgow air rifle incident was a repeat of one in Fife last year where some baffoon accidentally let his airgun go off with his infant nearby....but no! Someone just explained to me that there is a regular practice among some pikies to start up a fire, wait for the fire brigade to come round, and then, (wait for it) to start SHOOTING at them. What the heck? And this is on the basis that the firemen can't go anywhere, they're fighting fires. Turns out this latest sad death was the result of a misaimed shot on a fireman that went astray and hit this poor child. Is this for real? Does it occur often?

[ianess]

It's most definitely for real and even if it happens once it's once too often.  Why on earth in our so-called civilised society do we allow these things to go virtually unpunished?   Lack of law enforcement is the problem, not the number of new laws.  Making the punishment more appropriate to the severity of the crime could be a vote-winner at election time as well.  Would a take-over of the police by the Army help?  I'm not suggesting a military coup but can't help feeling that the Armed Forces would take a different approach to the problem.

[5029]

Yes it is for real.  Where i come from, firefighters are regularly attacked and have bricks thrown at them in the estates

[gazzawazza]

MargeB, I must admit I didn't know anything about this incident but I can tell you that some braindead idiots think it's a great idea to target firefighters.

I myself know one person who has been shot in the face whilst attending a rubbish fire.  Fortunately it just lodged in his cheek and required a minor operation to remove it, but an inch higher up and he would have lost an eye or even worse. 

We've all been bricked/kicked/punched/spat at/abused many times not to mention the booby-trapping of derelict houses with petrol (to try and cause an explosion when we're inside putting the fire out) or rubbish or car fires with gas cylinders, but usually it only happens in certain places and we're more on our guard when we go into these areas.  

They usually consists of a group of teenagers surrounded by younger kids (ranging down to any age, believe me) and girls are just as foul-mouthed and unruly as the boys.  Add to this the fact that these low-lifes take any opprtunity to steal anything off the appliance and you've got a real job on your hands.  We can have an appliance with a crew of four at a car fire and we end up having two people firefighting and two just trying to protect them and our equipment.  Just recently a firefighter was knocked out cold and suffered concussion when he tried to stop a thug taking a defibrillator from his appliance. 

[gazzawazza]

(Continued) We're told we mustn't respond or do anything to inflame the situation.  These idiots would just love to be battered by a firefighter and claim for compensation.  I can see the headlines now, "Innocent youth attacked by thug fireman."

One of the worst apects of all this is that the parents know this is happening yet still do nothing to stop it.  In fact I was once at an incident (a derelict house which had no doubt been set light to by the group of thugs who were present).  A group of adults sat watching from their front gardens as they drank their beer.  During the incident we were constantly being bricked yet the adults did nothing.  In fact they only intervened to threaten my myself and another firefighter for stopping their offspring from "playing."  I might add that the "playing" consisted of a group of ten+ teenagers pulling  the hosereel like in a tug-o-war.  They didn't care that the firefighters inside the building needed the hosereel to protect their lives... 

[Ducati]

I am absolutely (and possibly naively!) flabbergasted that this sort of thing goes on: I assume these pond life are council house dwelling chav scumbags and their parents are lazy, work shy, benefit claiming spongers. Hearing this sort of thing makes me very very angry - these sub-humans do not contribute anything to society and are just a waste of the air they they breathe. Utter utter scumbags.

[gazzawazza]

You've got it in one Ducati!

[libertie]

Agree with all that's been said, unfortunately according to latest reports the moron arrested for this incident is a 27 year old male, so making air pistols etc available only to 18 yr olds or over would make not the slightest difference here - maybe they should start giving them IQ tests instead!!

[natalie_1982]

Heaven help us Chav scum Council House dwellers.  I do work as it happens, I also live on the biggest council estate in Europe, and I wear bright white trainers, but I do not attack firemen and I don't know anyone who does.  It's easy to point the finger, but the article above was referring to pikies (and I may have this wrong as different areas use the term differently) not Council house tenants, I know a pikey as a gypsy, think Brad Pitt in Snatch, or a traveller.

Why do people do this in the first place?  I don't really understand, do the police get this problem?  Taxi drivers and bus drivers round our way get it all the time, and I've even heard of it happening to midwives but I've never heard of fire brigades being called out.  I am gobsmacked I have never heard of this before.

[MargeB]

Yeah, my source was impeccable, they call them out. I'm not condoning it for a minute, but these people have nooooothing to do, perhaps creating more facilities would start reducing problems). I mean, you've got to be pretty bored to go to the hassle of setting a fire, calling the firebrigade, then playing Lee Harvey Oswald from a tenement block.
"Pikey" I think does refer to gypsies, I meant chavs in general.
Thanks gazzawazza (or G8?) for the answer. I do know that one can sue an employer if they do not do enough to protect you when you are in the process of carrying out your work, so maybe there will be some changes here. And I thought postmen had it bad!

[stevie21]

Ducati, I think you're stereotyping a huge swathe of people there and I can't agree with that but I most certainly do agree that the above report is true and that it's almost beyond comprehension that people even consider doing this!

Something has to change. Whether the culprits are educated so that it's no longer considered acceptable to do this or just that they're absolutely hammered by the police, their parents are punished if they can't be (they're fined and/or lose any state income that they have) and it stops through fear I don't care. Just as long as it stops.

It does seem to be another example of some parents not taking responsibility for their kids' actions. As a friend says, when I was young I would have gotten into trouble for something "because I was probably nearby and somehow involved" (even though I wasn't). These days (certain) kids do wrong and parents want to defend them to the hilt and lay any blame elsewhere.

[rock1873]

I remeber a  few  years ago working in the Drumchapel area  of Glasgow, we had  to deal with a lot of kids  turning on the  fire  hydrants. One mother asked when her  brat was locked up with the water key ,"How the f*** are my weans going to keep cool in the heat !!!!!"

 

God help us for this  attitude

[gazzawazza]

Sorry Natalie_1982 it certainly wasn't my intention to label all council house dwellers as scum but the problem is definitely worse in certain areas and all of these areas tend to be council owned. 

I know there are "decent" people living in council houses (I'm from council house stock myself) and where they are surrounded by scumbags I really do feel sorry for them. 

I don't suppose there can be many things more soul-destroying than watching a once nice area nosedive as the council puts lots of bad eggs in one basket when that basket happens to be where you live.  These poor people feel trapped and have no way of selling their houses because, well, who wants to buy a house in the middle of a cesspit? 

My mam and dad sold and moved out of their former council house just in time twelve years ago.  This lovely area, of which I have fantastic childhood memories is now nearly as bad as the estates you see on telly in those "neighbours from hell" type programmes, and houses which were up for sale before my mam and dad moved are still up for sale and haven't been sold by their original owners.