Dalian Atkinson dead

Nice touch with the umbrella Trotters and well done for getting the colour right.

RIP Dalian,

I was at Wembley when he opened the scoring in our 3-1 Coca Cola / League cup win! He could be frustrating as he blew hot & cold but what a player on his day! Sad loss

RIP Big man

His goal against Wimbledon is still one of my all time favourites

This is a shocker, regardless of what went on in the build up to it. Desperately sad.

RIP Dalian Atkinson.

Apparantly he was tased, kicked when down and tased again. What kinda shit is that.

For maybe 6 months one season, we had the most feared partnership in the country with Dalian & Deano, RIP Sicknote

Very sad news.

Joppe84 wrote:Apparantly he was tased, kicked when down and tased again. What kinda shit is that.

Yep, the truth is starting to come out now with brave witnesses describing what they saw. It's f#cking disgusting and i hope those officers are fully punished for their actions if indeed that story is accurate.

AstonThriller wrote:

Joppe84 wrote:Apparantly he was tased, kicked when down and tased again. What kinda shit is that.

Yep, the truth is starting to come out now with brave witnesses describing what they saw. It's f#cking disgusting and i hope those officers are fully punished for their actions if indeed that story is accurate.

You don't know that this is "the truth" as none of us were there. His Dad seems to have been the closest to the situation and mentioned none of that. No point speculating on anything until the facts are known. Let's just remember him for the player he was.

Terrible loss. RIP

Sad news indeed.

mefromhere wrote:

AstonThriller wrote:

Joppe84 wrote:Apparantly he was tased, kicked when down and tased again. What kinda shit is that.

Yep, the truth is starting to come out now with brave witnesses describing what they saw. It's f#cking disgusting and i hope those officers are fully punished for their actions if indeed that story is accurate.

You don't know that this is "the truth" as none of us were there. His Dad seems to have been the closest to the situation and mentioned none of that. No point speculating on anything until the facts are known. Let's just remember him for the player he was.

True. It was at his father's house and the first quotes came from Atkinson Snr of Dalian being "of his head on drinks or drugs" and behaving aggressively.

The truth isn't close to being clear yet.

VTID85 wrote:Sad news indeed.

Very sad. I remember being at Wembley watching his goal against Man Utd and celebrated for a week after. RIP Dalian. Holte Ender in the sky

Well I've got to be honest the eyewitness account from the lady who lived opposite and said she saw it all sounds brutal and pretty damning of the police. Check out the item on the BBC news website. She seems very sure of what she saw.

Absolutely unbelievable.
Brought a tear to my eye.
RIP big man and thank you for the memories

I just don't get why they would need to tase someone multiple times. Makes no sense. Surely the police can handle the man after being tasered once. There were even two officers were there not?

If you can't handle one 50 year old bloke after tasering, maybe you shouldn't be in the police.

I get the arguement that a taser is better than a gun (English cops don't carry guns anyway, do they?).

But tasering shouldn't be the first resort. It should be the last. Whilst we don't know the full story yet, it doesn't sound to me like they spoke with him, tried to calm him down or, between two of them, took him down.

Do they not teach that sort of stuff in the police force anymore? Or is it a case of spending one day teaching take-down techniques and the rest of the week learning how to use a taser?

It's pretty clear from the witness reports - including his own father - that he was highly emotional and very possibly intoxicated. But since when is that deserving of the death penalty?

Is it a case that the cops saw a black fella, decided he was a wrong 'un and just stuck some volts through him thinking no-one would care or make a big deal out of it?

I bet when they found out he was a former football star, the cops thought "oh fuck, what have we done?". But it shouldn't matter if tasering the bloke was going to cause Twitter to explode or not. Lighting someone up like that, shooting them, hitting them with cap spray, etc should be a last resort or only used if the other bloke has a weapon and is clearly serious about using it.

Having a 50 year old wobbling toward you off his face should surely be manageable for 2 cops without having to resort to this.

Either way, I'm sure we'll get the full story soon enough. But then, we're talking about the same cops that managed to cover up the Madeleine McCann evidence so maybe we won't.

The police force has gone to shit in recent years. My old man was a cop for 20+ years and walked away because of the state of it all.

During his time he and his partner managed to disarm a bloke with a gun and a bloke smashing up shops in Brum with a sledgehammer (2 separate incidents). Both times did not require a weapon, both times resulted in them knicking the guys without any harm to any party.

The standard of policing in this country has plummeted over the last 15 or so years

That is scary to read Dan mate honestly i have seen this type of drop in the standard of policing myself in our local area where gangs of kids were forming the police was scared of them and once in a blue moon after this gang went on a rampage wrecking stuff they would appear with a riot van driving round slow and then disappear for another month, they seem to be more interested in handing out speeding tickets and fines for anything than actual policing thesedays.

An old fashioned Bobby walking his beat would have handled this on his own and no one would have been seriously hurt.

The world is advancing at an incredible rate but in many ways we are sadly moving backwards.

BillytheKid wrote:That is scary to read Dan mate honestly i have seen this type of drop in the standard of policing myself in our local area where gangs of kids were forming the police was scared of them and once in a blue moon after this gang went on a rampage wrecking stuff they would appear with a riot van driving round slow and then disappear for another month, they seem to be more interested in handing out speeding tickets and fines for anything than actual policing thesedays.

It is a combination of lower standards of training coupled with them lowering the standards required to join the force, from what I've been told.

When he left the police 15 years ago it was because he said they were dropping the standards lower and lower, and starting to let in people those doing the training didn't feel were up to scratch (but they weren't listened to). Now consider where these new recruits from 15 years ago will be? The ones doing the training. Hence the standards drop ever lower.

The Police force has never been perfect or flawless. There has always been those cops who aren't up to the grade or are corrupt, but it seems a lot worse nowadays in terms of cops who simply aren't fit for purpose.

Shocked by this sad news RIP Dalian.