PC Beth Vinnicombe and PC Sophie Crawford attended a number of incidents during their shift (Picture: SWNS)
Two female police officers faced sexist attacks online by trolls during a live streamed operation.
PC Beth Vinnicombe and PC Sophie Crawford, who are patrol officers for Devon and Cornwall Police, attended 999 calls during a shift in Plymouth.
Under the hashtag DCPoliceLIVE, the force updated its followers on Twitter about their shift, in which they responded to a suspected burglary, helped a drunk man and attended a medical emergency.
But trolls rushed to the comment section to abuse the officers ‘just because they are women’.
One said: ‘You couldn’t honestly send these two to an emergency, one drunk fella could step on them by mistake, let alone a criminal attempting to flee from a crime.
‘So then you would need to call male backup, taking twice the amount of officers on one call.’
Another commented: ‘They couldn’t arrest a drunk squirrel.’
Many sexist messages were posted about their work as patrol officers (Picture: SWNS)
Chief Constable Will Kerr criticised those behind the comments made towards the two, describing them as ‘outdated’.
He stressed they ‘bring into focus the issue of misogyny within our society’.
‘I was not particularly surprised, just more disappointed than anything else,’ he said.
‘The reason we did this last weekend was because quite a few members of the public have a genuine interest in what we do and what officers do when they are on patrol.
‘We thought “well let’s put a normal crew out on a late shift and just follow them in live time’ and explain to the public and the communities what we actively do”.
Their Chief Constable Will Kerr criticised those behind the comments (Picture: SWNS)
‘The two officers PC Vinnicombe and PC Crawford got a normal range of calls we would get in the evening time such as road blockages and accidents from vulnerable older people.
‘But I was really disappointed because this is normal crew for us to have two female officers out in the car at the same time.
‘I am really disappointed by the stupidity of some of the comments, some very sexualised comments against them which are just unacceptable.
‘But also some nonsensical comments like those officers could not do their job physically or properly or professionally just because they are women.
More: News
‘I can tell you that I’m in my 34th year of policing and it is complete nonsense.’
Chief Cons Kerr said it was important to challenge such views, even in his own organisation.
He added: ‘If we accept these types of comments and don’t call them out, then typically this cause, particularly when it’s linked to hate, can actually be the root cause of more serious matters if you don’t challenge it.
‘So I am challenging it within my own organisation.
‘This is an issue as a whole and policing isn’t immune to this but you can’t just sit back and say nothing about this.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
‘I am really disappointed by the stupidity of some of the comments, some very sexualised ones.’
