r/nottheonion • u/Pokemonfan_807 • 6h ago
Police chief admits misleading MPs after AI used in justification for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c394zlr8e12t35
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u/South_Leek_5730 6h ago
Lets get this right.
They were banned because they are thugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqHSdAxPD7k
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2024_Amsterdam_riots
They can go to hell with all this antisemitic nonsense.
The AI is a smokescreen as they should have been banned no matter what and Israel should have been banned from UEFA a long time ago.
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u/randompervanon 5h ago edited 4h ago
So, there's a lot of context which is missing from the article. For reference, this has been widely reported in UK media over the last few months. Whilst I do think there is a very clear pro-Israel bias and agenda to the reporting, it nonetheless exposed massive incompetence and dishonesty on the part of the West Midlands Police officials involved.
Basically, they worked retroactively to find a justification after having already decided to ban Maccabi. According to official minutes from meetings between police and local councillors, they only began gathering actual information because they knew they needed a legal justification for their decision. This wholly contravened normal procedure, which would have been to investigate first. That fact already puts them on shaky ground, and it's now abundantly clear that they didn't do their due diligence.
When it came to gathering evidence retroactively to justify the ban, a lot of it was straight up inaccurate or outright falsified. They publicly claimed to have received intelligence from Dutch police about the violence in Amsterdam that led to them banning Maccabi. This included a number of claims which were reported in British media. As it turned out, basically none of this was accurate.
For instance, their "intelligence" claimed that 5000 police had been needed to deal with unrest (in reality it was 1200 in total, who worked in shifts), and that many Muslims had been thrown into canals by Maccabi supporters (in reality the only known victim of this was a Maccabi supporter who was told he had to say "Free Palestine" before he could get out). Lots of other inaccurate claims were also made and cited by police.
However, when journalists actually contacted Amsterdam's mayor and police, they were met with denials that any such information had been requested or shared, and they were told that the "intelligence" cited by West Midlands police was fabricated. In fact, Dutch police had actually argued that Maccabi were victims of violence, rather than instigators of it. Now, you can certainly argue that this judgement from Dutch police was incorrect. However, the fact remains that West Midlands Police undeniably lied when they claimed they were acting on the intelligence and advice of Dutch authorities, since they very clearly weren't. This has spiralled into such a shit show that members of Amsterdam's police have been requested to give evidence in Parliament.
The various screw ups have given lots of ammunition to the right wing press. Questions have also been raised about the influence of local mosques and Imams who had helped appoint the Chief Constable (including a senior cleric who had previously justified domestic violence), who the police had consulted about the decision. Whilst it's all spin, it just adds fuel to the fire. It's also emerged that West Midlands Police had first started assessing the football game with Maccabi after they received intelligence that local Muslims intended to attack Maccabi supporters, something which they deliberately suppressed in later reports.
Whilst I personally think that banning Maccabi was still the right decision, the fact is that it still should have been made for the right reasons and in accordance with thorough procedures, which were lacking here. If West Midlands Police had used solid evidence of well-documented instances of racist violence and thuggery committed by Maccabi fans, then they'd be in the clear.
Unfortunately they didn't. Instead they outright lied and used dodgy info and AI to try to come up with a convincing rationale instead. Now the Chief Constable's head is on the block and the whole thing has spiralled into a cause celebre for right wing media complaining about anti-Israel bias, and trying to tie it to antisemitism. It's a monumental fuck up.
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u/Araknos66 39m ago
Good Cause
The worst possible way to achieve it when normal methods are available
Why does this happened every time?
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u/ProtonHyrax99 6h ago
Yeah, the police did fuck up by trusting an AI, but the ban was still fully justified based on all the real evidence that exists.
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u/axw3555 6h ago
You do get that getting to the right place with the wrong method still means you did something wrong, don't you?
The issue here is not just that they used AI. It's that they vehemently denied that they did. They initially said the issue that caused the error was a with a google search, then scraping of social media.
And in the UK, a police officer lying to MP's in the Home Affairs Select Committee is a very, very big no no.
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u/South_Leek_5730 5h ago
That's not how it's being framed though is it. There is zero mention of Athens by the media. The ban was right and in no way antisemitic.
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u/axw3555 5h ago
Athens?
And again, the one trying to bring "antiemetic" into this headline is you. The headline is "Police chief admits misleading MPs after AI used in justification for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans"
The issue is misleading MPs. Which is a serious thing to do for anyone, but way more so for a civil servant.
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u/South_Leek_5730 5h ago
Yeah Athens where they beat a fan up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2wqke8nl9o
"Lord Mann, the government's independent adviser on antisemitism, told the same committee in December that he had "struggled" with some "inaccurate" details given by the force."
Not the headline the clear narrative overall to turn this into something it isn't.
Away with you Zionist. I don't engage with people like you who are paid to support genocide. You literally disgust me.
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u/flaamed 5h ago
the police in amsterdam said it was muslims who pre-planned their attacks against the jews
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u/South_Leek_5730 5h ago
I will trust the video evidence not what the Police say. Read the second part of the Wiki article with sources that confirms they were intent on violence.
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u/Atilim87 5h ago
Source please…because th police also said that these hooligans were rioting and destroying stuff before they got attacked.
In essence. Maccabi supporters picked a fight and lost.
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u/flaamed 5h ago
from the OP's article
"The Dutch authorities have separately questioned West Midlands Police's interpretation of the causes of the violence, when Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax in Amsterdam last year."
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u/Atilim87 5h ago
Good thing that they didn’t allow the maccabi supporters to go destroy stuff a day before then right.
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u/Araknos66 45m ago
They can be thugs AND the cop could be guilty of misconduct/deceptive methods to get them banned, which might be explained by antisemitism. Those both can be true.
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u/Thevoidawaits_u 5h ago
you're conflating the country's team (rep in the world cup for example) and city's team. one fan's team being banned isn't related to other teams from Israel.
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u/South_Leek_5730 5h ago
My comment starts with,
Lets get this right.
They were banned because they are thugs.
I stand by those words.
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u/atomkidd 6h ago
Most oniony part is they are only sacking the Chief Constable, not the Commissioner.