City of London Police in action

[marinyork]

Best off avoiding the police in my experience. They are often factually wrong and won't budge but'll let things go if you don't annoy them.

 

[Bman]

Mmmmmmmmm

Person arrested.

All the other arrests were avoidable. They just had to keep their scummy, foul mouths shut and not grab at officers (on the video) and they wouldn't have been arrested.

I have been a police officer in such circumstances, and you ALWAYS get a 'chav a go' hero that wants to 'sort it out'.

When a person is arrested, interfering will get you arrested - it's called obstruction.

If someone is arrested, that's their problem IMO.

I certainly wouldn't risk a night in the cells just to show I 'stuck up for a mate' who was a big enough tosser to get arrested in the first place.

Agreed. I would never be the one who challenges the police like they did. It just seemed that the police were a little heavy handed.

But again, saying that, i dont have to deal with mouthy chavs night after night.

 

[joebingo]

(1) Fact, you saw it. Unless you are making it up.
(2) You think, therefore you are speculating, and that is not really fair to the police, or the 'cyclist'.
(3) How do you know this?

Is your name ironic?

Generally, every time I've dealt with the police, they've been nice enough (even if I've been absolutely wrecked and tried to nick a beer from a shop ), there has been the odd occasion where I thought that the way a situation was handled with exacerbated it 100 fold.

That's not including protests, where they seem to bring out the TSG for no reason whatsoever and create a tense atmosphere by having a lines of armed thugs hitting shields with batons and 18 year old girls with fists.

 

[tightwad]

I recently observed some of West Midlands finest, in full riot gear, causing a riot in the confined area of a football concourse. They are good at their job as they managed to cause a good riot. Some innocents were hurt, wrong place wrong time - apart from that -both sides of the battle seemed to be enjoying themselves.

 

[hackbike 666]

That was the reason I tried to keep well away from the City of London protests.

It did get a bit dicey though when I cycled through Bank that time though.

I've had this a few times....they think just because you are dressed like a looney cyclist you are part of the mob.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Best off avoiding the police in my experience. They are often factually wrong and won't budge but'll let things go if you don't annoy them.

A sound assessment of many encounters, all of us are fallible after all, and advice my b-i-l, a roving custody sergeant, wishes more would follow.

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

Best off avoiding the police in my experience. They are often factually wrong and won't budge but'll let things go if you don't annoy them.

You wait until one cuts you up and then realises you have recorded a police officer or police vehicle on a camera, and are therefore a terrorist.

 

[Tynan]

coppers are alright if you;re sensible and fit their idea of the good 'uns

go away at football and they'll treat you like a criminal if you;re lucky and like an animal if it's Wet Midlands cops, they're utter peanuts

Tynan is just finishing a conditional discharge for 'drunk approaching a sporting arena in the opinion of a policeman' plucked out of a crowd of hundreds of people beween pub and ground and trated like a terrorist and set free on the mean streets of Middlesboro at midnight, when the coaches had left along with the last train

cops have got some way to go to wipe that one clean, and me a middle aged white married man with kids, kinda their core support I like to think

 

[andyfromotley]

with my vast experience of police officers i think its fair to say there are some peanuts, some good uns and everything in between. Bit like the rest of society really.

It makes me a little sad that people feel (justifiably or not) that they ave to be respectful to police. They are no more or less entitled to respect than anyone else. Like all human encounters things tend to go better if people can be civil to one another, although thats not always possible. I always tried to avoid using the 'attitude test' and preferred instead to use the 'lawfulness test' regardless of how people treated me.

 

[Crankarm]

The police - when you need them - no where to be seen, but when you don't they are sticking their noses in.

There may be one or two good police men and women but tbh they leave quite quickly. There is definitely a certain type of person that becomes a copper. Unfortunately the experiences I have had with them reporting cycling incidents or where I have needed them on other occasions their response and lack of professionalism has been awful. You only have to look at their behaviour on the day they killed Ian Tomlinson at the protests in London. Sure they have a very difficult job, but they certainly don't help themselves which I think is down to this institutional boorish nature they seem to have. I know a sweeping generalisation but most I have had contact are like this. Still it's about £1000 a day for false imprisonment I believe and then more if they assault you if their arrest of you is unlawful.

Didn't West Midlands police allow a former paratrooper to die on the floor of the custody suite as they stood nearby making monkey noises and shouting racial abuse? Shocking case. Then there was the Stephen Lawrence case ............ Obviously one hopes that not all officers are racially motivated but one has to wonder when they are labelled as institutionally racist.

The other thing I don't like is they all stick together if there is an enquiry where there are serious allegations against them. Many officers seem prepared to lie to get themselves or their mates off the hook. You can't trust a bobby these days. For that you have to go right back to Jack Warner and Dixon of Dock Green.

 

[Cubist]

I really love sweeping generalisations! How many times do we all sit wringing our hands at how the press distort the truth, and people with single issue axes to grind distort the true picture?

Don't want to argue, not my style, but please please base your attitudes on your own real experiences, not third hand reports. I have long since learned that it pays to treat all people as I find them, not as others tell me to expect them to be.

 

[marinyork]

Says who? People do post from their experiences, if people posted them they'd sound like made up stories. Nobody would probably believe the goings on on Sunday night here if I posted them, which I'm not going to.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Says who? People do post from their experiences ...

To be fair to Cubist, Crankarm's post reads more like the unedited highlights of a particularly hysterical week's Daily Wail headlines rather than a tale of his own experiences.

 

[marinyork]

Fair enough but Cubist's been around long enough not to take everything crankarm says seriously. Anyway he's not the only cyclist to have complained along those lines about cambridgeshire plod.

 

[Crankarm]

To be fair to Cubist, Crankarm's post reads more like the unedited highlights of a particularly hysterical week's Daily Wail headlines rather than a tale of his own experiences.

Er ...... outrageous slander!!! They are based upon my own experiences.

Obviously the three high profile cases are not - Stephen Lawrence although used to live about 1.5 miles from where he died was shameful advert for British policing and the former paratrooper who died in custody and Ian Tomlinson are all cases where some one has died either in police custody or they were owed a duty of care by the police who failed miserably.

As for my own comments regarding contact with police officers they are based on my own experiences and impressions of them. As I say there are undoutedly good police officers but the proportion must be so small as all but 2 of the ones I have had dealings with over the years are either so prejudiced, ignorant, on a power trip or so slothful they would lose a race against a tortoise.