Can you direct me to the point in the video where the scum bag attempts to hit the officer?
The behaviour of UK police officers.
- Thread starter Nessie
- Start date
Can you direct me to the point in the video where the scum bag attempts to hit the officer?
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
Exactly. The officer has decided to go in with force by drawing his baton on the approach. He is going to strike, no matter what happens.
The use of force is trained as a sliding scale where the police raise or lower dependent on what the suspect does. The PC does the opposite to that.
It is fine to have the baton drawn, just in case the housebreaker does decide to use the crowbar. But a verbal warning the police are there and will use force is required is what the police are trained to do.
I think you have it the wrong way around. It used to be that our police used violence and got away with it, today they can no longer use "fell down the stairs" to explain the cuts and bruises. We are seeing the remnants of this attitude lingering but it is dying as modern attitudes and technology means they can't get away with as much inappropriate violence as they used to.
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
The police are still using violence and getting away with it, though with things like CCTV in cell areas, they just have to be more careful. Beating suspects in interviews has stopped, since all are now taped, videoed and solicitors get access prior to interviews. Their first question is always "how have you been treated?".
In my experience, the police are as almost as aggressive as they used to be, but they do have the same level of aggression targetted at them.
It used to be an almost nightly activity, arresting fighting drunks. Big fit cops (the ladies included) dealt with such with tiny batons and bendy cuffs. Now there are far fewer fighting arrests, but smaller, unfit cops deal with those arrests with expandable batons, tazers and hard cuffs as if they are fighting for their lives.
The aggression of old lingers on, when it need not be like that.
The scum bag, as you put it, was not given the opportunity to use the rather vicious looking crowbar he had in his hand. In the circumstances, while the response is at the more violent end of the spectrum, I don't think it actually is excessive.
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
Can the police then arrest anyone using violence who is in mere possession of an offensive weapon?
Of course not. Why would you think that's what I meant?
I haven't been out in a UK city or big town very recently but when I used to, I was shocked at the level of drink-fuelled violence against the police, fellow revellers and passing members of the public.
I tried to Google up some statistics and was unsurprised to find that the level of violence against police officers as collected in official home office statistics, 23,000 attacks a year is orders of magnitude lower than that extrapolated from a Police Federation poll of members 2.4 million attacks per year or nearly 20 for each officer.
http://polfed.org/documents/Welfare...CEANDINJURIES-SummaryReport-25-01-2017-V1.pdf
The vast majority of attacks are verbal rather than physical however so maybe they should be taken with a pinch of salt. The headlines that accompanied the report gave the clear impression that officers were being physically attacked several times a year.
Home office statistics show that the number of assaults without injury have been consistent for the last 10 years or so:
https://assets.publishing.service.g...chment_data/file/629788/Hosb1017-assaults.pdf
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
But you said hitting him with a baton, dragging him to the ground and sitting on him is not excessive, when he had a crow bar in his hands which he was using to jemmy a door.
He was not even facing the cops with it in his hands. Even then he should be given the chance to put it down.
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
When I started in the police in the late 1980s, it was every weekend there was multiple arrests for fighting drunks. By the time I finally stopped working weekend nights in the mid 2010s, it was only occasionally. Plus, the former was a nice rural town in the Highlands and the latter a rough larger town in the Central belt.
Yet assaults in general have fallen
https://www.ons.gov.uk/resource?uri...nglandandwales/yearendingmar2016/58db689c.png
Edited by kmortis:
Changed to link to comply with Rule 5
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...tins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmar2016
Last edited by a moderator:
So, you agree, not mere possession.
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
But not using it in any way directed at the police. An offensive weapon is made, adapted or intended. A crowbar comes under intended, since it not made as a weapon and it has not been adapted in any way.
When using a crowbar to jemmy open a door (a job it is designed to do, amongst many others) it is not intended as a weapon.
So, how is the police officer justified to use a high level of force (baton, pull to prone and hold down) to arrest?
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
I am saddened that this has been considered an accident. A police officer chases and arrests a male who then swallows drugs and chokes to death. The police officer does nothing to render medical assistance and delays calling for such;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44551132
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44551132
BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
I believe that being engaged in breaking into a domicile with a crowbar rates at least one good (non-fatal) whack with whatever hard object is close to hand.
You are free to engage in whatever behavior is acceptable by local community standards where you serve, but I find no objection to striking an individual in the act of breaking and entering in the course of effecting an arrest.
You may wish to engage the poor soul in a lengthy philosophical discussion prior to taking them into custody, but most offenders caught in the act are more inclined to flee or fight than go along with the Mr. Rogers version of LE tactics you seem to be endorsing.
Grabbing from behind would seem appropriate.
There is a lot wrong with UK police oversight - and remember Nessie has an insider's view. It's just that there are good statistics, better oversight, and the smallest police forces are either highly specialised and still with hundreds of officers (for example the Civil Nuclear Constabulary - which has weapons up to 30mm cannon on ships carrying nuclear waste) or historical relics, with very limited activities (like the Ports police forces).
BStrong
Penultimate Amazing
In 15 yrs otj and doing training exchanges with other departments here and trips outside the U.S. doing training down south, I never encountered a LEO so fixated on non-lethal use-of-force while effecting an arrest than the op.
There is never an excuse for excessive force, but I've yet to meet anyone in LE and few members of the general public that questions the need to use force against an armed suspect that has used lethal force - the op is doing just that in another thread, essentially arguing that once the actor stops shooting there's no reason to use lethal force to stop the actor.
That's a position only a certain type of individual could possibly hold, and it sure isn't based in or on sound law enforcement or public policy - I can't imagine even the most progressive S.F. city legislator trying to sell the idea that if a shooter only kills 3 or 4 people in front of witnesses and stops shooting LE shouldn't use force - lethal or otherwise - to stop the shooter.
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
I have been in exactly the same situation as shown in the video. I just quietly walked up behind the criminal and the first he knew I was there was because I had taken hold of the crowbar. I spoke to him calmly and quietly. He realised he had been caught and he was quite passive. I found criminals who were not subject force and the situation was kept calm, we also clam themselves.
IME cops are no where near as good now at being clam and using the lowest level of force to resolve a situation.
I think the video would have been far more impressive if the cops had just lined up behind the criminal, one of them tapped him on the shoulder and then just took the crowbar off him.
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 16,177
UK police are like that. We are all about arrests and rarely if ever think the correct option is to kill the suspect.
I was unarmed my entire career (as are most UK police officers). For the first 10 years or so, I did not have an expandable baton and CS spray or body armour. I had a woolly suit and a short baton.
About 90% of career included weekend night shifts, the most likely time to have a fight. I was rarely office bound and made thousands of arrests (I know in custody I processed around 3000 prisoners a year when I was full time there).
I also spend about 10 years working alone in rural Scotland, sometimes on islands where I was it. The nearest assistance was hundreds of miles and a flight or ferry away.
I had to use calming and passive tactics and talk people down. I drew my baton a couple of times but never struck anyone with it. I never used my CS spray. I talked people in sieges and with knives to just give up.
I know lots of other cops who were just like me and would resolve situations at what was called "the lowest level possible", meaning minimal fuss or use of force.
I accept that shooting a shooter is probably the best tactic in the USA. My preference is to contain and negotiate, which is the UK policy, but that does not fit with the US mind set.
The suspects with a gun incidents I attended (there was never an actual shooting incident with an active shooter on the go, when I was on duty) were all containment duties to trace the suspect and keep others out the way till armed officers and/or negotiators arrived. Any reports of shots fired were usual false alarms or people not knowing there was lamping for foxes or a hunt nearby.
The Glasgow householder filming the ned almost breaking into their home with them upstairs must have been relieved to see the cops arrive in the nick of time. I'll bet the householder doesn't care that they gave him a dead leg ["charley horse"?]. Neither do I.
You mightn't care, but you should.
It isn't about the individual - it is about the system. The burglar was caught in the act. Justice and due process should deal with him. Overly aggressive policing leaves to cases like the death of Ian Tomlinson, who happened to walk in front of the wrong police officer.