As a police officer of more than 25 years – and as a lifelong Liverpool FC supporter – the events of Water Street on Monday evening were impossible to watch with anything other than a sense of abject horror. An occasion of joyous celebration turned, in just a handful of moments, into one of unspeakable trauma.
Whenever I see footage of police officers running in the opposite direction to a fleeing crowd, I remember my years in blue. The painful privilege of policing is to venture repeatedly into the hurting places: at the scenes of crimes, and of every kind of catastrophe. And, in those places, to see things that you can never unsee.
