Police may call Summernats drivers 'morons', but I call that unprofessional

‘but I doubt the Summernats naysayers would have caught the nuance’

Zoya….you are doing the same thing. Get out of that glasshouse of moral indignation and sample the real world. It wouldn’t surprise me to see that 90% of SummerNats attendees agree with the police observation.

Totally agree with the premise that police need to maintain a professional and even handed approach to all members of society. Snarky name calling is very unprofessional. I am sure our brown shirted European police from an earlier nasty period of history also used such derogatory terms to describe those regarded as undesirables. Slippery slope stuff!

I would suggest Zoya’s suggestion that “He took care to differentiate the group he was aiming at from the rest of the car enthusiasts, but I doubt the Summernats naysayers would have caught the nuance” is suggesting that this group is not sufficiently bright (‘morons’) to note the difference. Ahh, the challenges of the subtleties of language use.

Well said. ACT Policing could do with some basic human rights training.

I’m inclined to agree. It’s a cultural issue – it start with mouthing off at one group of people and ends with tasering an elderly woman in a walking frame. Or it ends with a magistrate throwing cases out of court because the police officers used undue force or were acting maliciously without due cause. There’s been a lot of that over the last few years.

The language used by the Police was a highly professional statement of fact. Check the Oxford definition if you’re fragile about what ‘moron’ means. If you’ve ever seen a mother doubled over in the foetal position with grief, carried out by her family after her son’s funeral, you’ll understand the Police are only trying to wake us up to what we are too complacent to work out ourselves. That’s all they’re trying to do – save us from ourselves. Get serious about what can happen when cars are involved, take responsibility, do something about it, like they are trying to do for us. It will take way more than traffic fines to stop the smashed up loved ones happening every day in cars.

Shane, if there indeed were only two arrests, then the police were clearly showing lenience given other articles published and the news. And there were a LOT of burnouts in the suburbs, which was also covered in the news (and observed in my travelling Southside).

Sadly I find that many of Zoya’s articles are merely published to create controversity and solicit a flurry of comments, rather than for informative and responsible journalism.

So, a police officer described a category of Summernats participants in a negative way. Did that stop him and his colleagues from performing their duties responsibly? No, and frankly I doubt that many posters here would have wanted to have taken their place. Even the hired security guards acted up violently against the crowd and required intervention.

I’ll support the running of Summernats, but I don’t appreciate those who leave burnt rubber and tyre parts at suburban street intersections nowhere near the event, nor those who squeal their tyes from speedbumps and fishtail down my street. Support the police, and stop trying to find faults in them – they’re human too, and it’s a hard job to do.

An excellent article. 10/10 from me.

Additionally, what’s funny is that it’s those who believe in evolution who have the lowest IQ of all. For if

1. evolution implies no intelligence behind the world; 2. Humans have intelligence; 3. Intelligence is smarter than no intelligence

Then it follows that humans should absolutely be smarter than the world and should have absolutely solved all its problems, including illness and death, and even created newer and better worlds – which clearly they haven’t done.

So, if anyone needs to go back to school, it’s the cops and not necessarily the Summernats attendees – and not least because it was the former and not the latter who were dumb enough to help enforce COVID restrictions, which were obviously a bad idea right from the start, and far more problematic than a little burnout

Understandably the police are pretty angry, especially after their brand new $300,000 BMW M class patrol car was written off at the event (strangely not mentioned in the news at all).

Why they needed a $300,000 patrol car would be anyone’s guess. If the AFP have money to be throwing away put it towards better wages for frontline officers.

Why they would take such an expensive luxury police vehicle to such an event known for its disorderly behaviour is anyone’s guess.

But at the same time could you imagine the outrage if they’d labeled the attendees ‘morons’ when old parliament was set alight costing millions.

Yes the event attracts its fair share of knuckle draggers but when you are a public service you have to treat all members of the public equally.

Love or hate the Nats, it brings in 100,000 people on a weekend when most of us aren’t even here, it is the largest event that we host, and the largest money spinner the ACT has.

100% agreed, Zoya. Well said.

I completely agree Zoya and have written similar sentiments in a few forums.

It is imperative that police uphold the law in a fair, impartial, unprejudiced manner, and that they been seen to do so. Policing requires the trust of the community, and it is difficult to trust a police force which does not appear to be fair.

The comments were, in my view, contrary to the AFP’s own values and code of conduct which require fairness, so I have lodged a formal complaint about them.

As you noted, the culture within the AFP is brought into question by comments such as these. It is important that junior officers don’t get the impression from senior officers that carrying prejudices into the conduct of their official duties is acceptable or tolerable in any way.

I agree with this article 100%. When police leaders/spokespersons espouse that certain societal groups are sub-human I think we have a problem. Yes I know a small minority of the Summernats crowd are very annoying but they’re still human.