Bored cops bully kids

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OP
OP
swee'pea99

swee'pea99

Squire
Ok, CopperCyclist & I have agreed to differ, and that's fair enough.

A few words of final 'disagreement' with recent posts, and that'll be my last word.

I'm no police hater. I just want them to do the job they're paid to do. Bad policing ruins lives, and drives a wedge between the police and the policed, making it harder for good police to do their jobs. I think there's a lot less bad policing now than there was in the good old days, when all too many policemen used to exploit their uniform to indulge a taste for racism and homophobia on a routine basis - but only because people protested, and stopped it happening. Good police - and good policing - are an absolute essential to any healthy society. Bad policing is at least as toxic as crime.
I must say I am impressed how much detailed knowledge you have of an event at which you were not actually present
I don't have, or ever claimed, 'detailed knowledge'. But if my daughter tells me the bookcase came down as a result of the police's actions, I believe her.
BUT if I came home and told my mother seven cops were called she wouldn't be so gullible to believe that we were gentle 16 year olds behaving ourselves.
The OP made out like her daughter had gone to nothing worse than a scrabble evening and then admitted she knew alcohol and probably drugs were there. So I'm guessing as the mom has a tendency to leave minor details out so probably does the daughter. And those fruity drinks contain high alcohol levels.
If you allow your kids to go to a party with drugs and alcohol, don't be surprised if 7 cops turn up when it gets out of hand and blame the cops. Get real. That's my point.
Show me where I said anything about scrabble. I never 'admitted' I knew alcohol and even possibly 'drugs' - ie, a bit of cannabis - would be there. I took it as read at all times that drink, and more than likely a bit of spliff, for those who indulge in such things, would be involved. I never suggested otherwise. But I don't 'admit' it. There's nothing to 'admit'. That's what 16 year old's parties are like these days. I allow my kids to go to such parties, because if I didn't, they wouldn't go to parties, period. And also because right about now is the time I would expect her to be trying stuff out. She's 16, not 12. She's an adult, or near as dammit; this is what adults do. Frankly, I'm not sure I'm the one around here who is having problems with grasping reality.

And you can sneer at my gullibility all you like: I know my daughter, and I know that the story she told me is, in all essentials, true. You may call that gullibility; I call it a sign of a good and honest parent/daughter relationship that I have been at pains to maintain. Perhaps you think I should, as an earlier poster cited, 'treat her like a 10 year old', or ban her from parties where her friends and peers will be having a good time and learning the basics of adulthood. I don't.

When cops bully people - and are allowed to get away with bullying people - it's a recipe for disaster: for the people bullied, for the police themselves, and for society at large. The police do a tough enough job, without building up resentment among the people they have to police. I applaud the police for what they do. I wouldn't want to have to do it. But they have chosen to do it, they get paid to do it, they should do it and do it properly, and not do something else altogether.

As I say, that's me done. I've said my say; others have said theirs; I doubt we're going to see eye to eye on this one. And I have work to do.
 

Paul99

Über Member
The first cop at the door, once it was answered by a 16 year old girl dressed as a bunny rabbit and in no obvious distress other than that caused by the sudden and unexpected arrival of a mob of police, could have seen very quickly that nothing dangerous or sinister was in progress. No shooting, no screaming, no signs of anything untoward - just one frightened teenager, and music playing in the background. At that point, the 'policing' thing to have done would have been to ask if everything's ok, point out the importance of not causing a nuisance, and leave.
I have never seen any report that even vaguely resembled that.

Let's be clear: the police have no business invading anyone's home on the uncorroborated say-so of any Mrs Muggins, or any legal basis for doing so. Which is what they would certainly say if they were ever faced with any such accusation. Unless they have good reason - not a phone call from Mrs Muggins, but screams, say, or other actual evidence of someone being at risk of violence, they have no right to enter a private property without a warrant. They had nothing even approaching that in this case. They had the exact opposite. They had call from a member of the public, and the evidence of their own eyes, which showed that call to be unfounded. They had every reason to believe that no-one was in any danger whatsoever.

They didn't do what they did out of concern for anybody, or anybody's property. They did it to throw their weight around. And I'm disappointed by anyone in uniform trying so determinedly to defend their indefensible actions.

@swee'pea99 you seem to be very specific in some of your details, yet you were not there, and you have openly admitted that you don't know if what your daughter has told you is the whole truth.

Yet you continue to insist that the police were being 'bullies' and acting outside of their remit. If you were there and had had first hand experience of any of this then I might be able to agree that this was the case.

But to be honest since your OP made out your little angel and her celestial friends having their teddy bears picnic rudely interrupted by the stasi, and your later admissions that she is actually socialising with regular underage imbibers and drug takers, I think i'll give the police the benefit of the doubt.
 

glasgowcyclist

Charming but somewhat feckless
Location
Scotland

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
Perhaps you think I should, as an earlier poster cited, 'treat her like a 10 year old',
I mentioned another parent did it, and I definitely didn't recommend it, far better that you know what is going on and that you can have open discussions about it. I think you are right to assume that she is at an age where those things are going on at places she goes to whether she gets involved in it or not.

Are you going to contact the police to see what they have to say about their actions? Again you will get the reported version of the events but it might be interesting to find out their view of the events.
 

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
But if my daughter tells me the bookcase came down as a result of the police's actions, I believe her.

Doesn't sit right

If the job was getting out of hand, the coppers might have cracked a few heads with some collateral bibliographical damage.

Unlikely the 16-year-old was so startled by the police 'bursting in' he knocked over the bookcase.

Far more likely the lad pushed it over himself and took the opportunity to pin the damage and injury on someone else.

It's what I would probably have done at that age.
 

spen666

Legendary Member
....

Lastly, and let me make this very very clear: whatever the call, and even if there was fruit-flavoured cider and even if there was a spliff or two involved, the actions of the police on this occasion were nothing to do with protecting people or property: they were bullying, pure and simple. And the police have no business bullying people


Amazing how you can be so sure of what happened and why when
a) you were not there
b) you are relying on a version of events from only one of the two sides of the story
c) you have not given the other party a chance to explain.


You and other would be complaining about the police if they had knocked at a door after a report of a crime and simply accepted the word of the person answering the door that all is ok. The victim could be laid seriously hurt in another room. How can the police determine this from the front door.




Quite frankly neither you nor anyone posting in this thread has enough information to make any fair conclusion as to what happened or why
 

Vapin' Joe

Formerly known as Smokin Joe
Whether I like it or not, my 16 year old daughter lives in a community where drinking is pretty much universal, and the use of cannabis - tho' very far from universal - is widespread.
FFS, just get over it. If this incident is what you call a crisis I hope you never come across a real one. What do you want to do, sue for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or something?

BTW, Cannabis does happen to be an illegal drug.
 

buggi

Bird Saviour
Location
Solihull
@swee'pea99 you seem to be very specific in some of your details, yet you were not there, and you have openly admitted that you don't know if what your daughter has told you is the whole truth.

Yet you continue to insist that the police were being 'bullies' and acting outside of their remit. If you were there and had had first hand experience of any of this then I might be able to agree that this was the case.

But to be honest since your OP made out your little angel and her celestial friends having their teddy bears picnic rudely interrupted by the stasi, and your later admissions that she is actually socialising with regular underage imbibers and drug takers, I think i'll give the police the benefit of the doubt.
What he said. My point about scrabble and then later admission is exactly that. You may not have used those words but you implied it was a quiet evening and then later admitted you knew that drugs were possibly part of the scene. Having spent time living next door to regular parties being held by teens where both alcohol and weed were a common feature, i think you really need to get to get real about just how teenagers act when adults are not around, they can be pretty confrontational when doped up or drink. Of course they want to try stuff but perhaps if parents were a little stronger with their children, the law wouldn't have to be. Just because her friends do it doesn't make it legal or right, yet you don't even seem to have broached that with her, you have immediately took her side without checking the full facts and enforced her attitude that she is right and the cops were wrong. Perhaps if a few more parents took their responsibilities a but more seriously, situations like this wouldn't arise in the first place
 

spen666

Legendary Member
The Op reminds me (rather fondly) of the mother of one of my regular clients who used to come into my office complaining the police had framed little Johnny ( btw he was mid 20s) and that she knew for a fact he hadn't done the crimes he was arrested for.

She even once stood up in court and shouted this out. Ignoring fact little Johnny was caught literally climbing out of window with a TV from house he was burgling. Johnny had legal representation at police station, fully admitted that offence and then took police and his solicitor to where he had stashed stuff from a burglary earlier the same evening.

In court little Johnny was telling his mother to shut up as he was guilty, but still mother protests his innocence and claimed he was at home and not out burgling. Not sure how that fitted with his arrest, but hey....
 

cd365

Guru
Location
Coventry, uk
In my experience of the Police dealing with 15/16/17 year olds there is a tendency to bully them, to get them to accept a caution for the most flimsy of evidence and one word against another. In one of the instances I had when my lad was growing up, he was being forced to accept a caution for assault, the actual charge was one lad had said he pushed passed him, the other boy's mum had caused a stink, there was no witness, no injuries just one boy's word against another. I actually had the office try and convince me that he should just accept it because it could go much worse for him in court! I'm assuming that the CPS just laughed it out of their office. I've explained to quite a few beat bobbies that accepting a caution can harm a child's ability to get a visa, for example to the USA. But it looks good on their crime clean up stats.

So yes, the police do bully children, it happens a lot more than you realise. I've had a few other parents mention how they allowed their child to be cautioned because they were told they had to!
 

cd365

Guru
Location
Coventry, uk
The Op reminds me (rather fondly) of the mother of one of my regular clients who used to come into my office complaining the police had framed little Johnny ( btw he was mid 20s) and that she knew for a fact he hadn't done the crimes he was arrested for.

She even once stood up in court and shouted this out. Ignoring fact little Johnny was caught literally climbing out of window with a TV from house he was burgling. Johnny had legal representation at police station, fully admitted that offence and then took police and his solicitor to where he had stashed stuff from a burglary earlier the same evening.

In court little Johnny was telling his mother to shut up as he was guilty, but still mother protests his innocence and claimed he was at home and not out burgling. Not sure how that fitted with his arrest, but hey....
No even similar to the OP.
 
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