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The only good thing about them pulling me was that I could be sure that anyone that had been drinking at my pub got away before they got back to their stake out.
Why is that good?
Willard - so basically what you are saying is, that drink driving is totally acceptable?
If a member of my family was injured through the actions of a driver over the prescribed limit, I myself would be doing time at HMP Hilton, and I don't think I stand alone with this.
Haven't had much experience with them but the only times I have they've been alright. They were actually apologetic about having to give my mate a warning for possession of a bit of weed - they stopped the car and searched it as it matched the description of a car that had been seen leaving a burglary 😆
At uni two of them came round to the house when a mates bmx got stolen. Sat around chatting for a while til my he could dig up some photos of his bike to give to them.
Saying they do a difficult job dealing with a/holes as an excuse for treating members of the public like shit is bollocks
In my job I have to deal with difficult and sometimes violent people and if I went round talking to people like shit I'd get sacked, and I'm not on the salary or pension the the police are, no excuse for it IMO
The only good thing about them pulling me was that I could be sure that anyone that had been drinking at my pub got away before they got back to their stake out.
Very poor and perhaps they know this view and want to catch you to teach you a lesson ..its what I would do.
Drink driving is utterly unacceptable
Yes I go along with that it costs nothing to be polite!
From past experience I have learned that if you are polite from the start they are polite also.
Was wondering when salarys and pensions would rear its head, and do you not think they contribute to there pensions?
Take it from me frontline police are worth every penny they get!
From past experience I have learned that if you are polite from the start they are polite also.
Not necessarily so.
Attitude test spring to mind.
In my job I have to deal with difficult and sometimes violent people and if I went round talking to people like shit I'd get sacked
+1
Been stopped on the bike & in the car once. When on the bike they were ok, had been reports of two guys riding away from a burglary at Smithy Bridge, we were near Hollingworth lake so understandable. Did have to strip off to prove my lack of tattoos though.
In the car they were complete tools, started asking if I had previous for drugs (not known to the rozzers at all), 'was I sure'; claimed I had no insurance, told them to ring Direct Line as I pay about 700 pa for the privilege. Started spouting stuff about 'benefit of the doubt' and left.
When that guy jumped in front of my train both civil plod and BTP turned up as the train was full of football fans. The civil plod turned up first (about a dozen) and were worse than useless, they had no idea what to do, what was to happen at the scene and were a danger to their own safety. BTP were considerate and professional.
Plod do (rarely) request breath sample from train drivers, whether it's within their remit is debatable, but if they did ask to bag you, whether they should or shouldn't, it'd be wise to comply, refusing to provide is instant dismissal. Our alcohol limits are far lower than the road ones (allowances have to be made for cough medicine, mouthwash etc!). We get random or 'for cause' D&A screenings by BUPA / Mediscreen.
THEY THEY THEY.The police force are a collection of individuals in fact as we have no national police force they are a collection of collections of individuals.
Some are dedicated courteous and on occasion heroic. Some are mindless thugs some are rude.
They should not be lumped together for condemnation or praise.
They certainly should have their conduct subjected to scrutiny and criticism. The manner of some officers on routine stops as set out above is appalling. What those officers need to understand is that for many they are the first real life contact with the police and often that contact shapes the future perception of all police officers.
"Their reason was that the car had shown up as being from out of town, 4 lads inside in beanie hats, laden down with who knows what - "
konnabunney the stop described above seems bang on reasonable to me.
Bren2709....thats what i was thinking too.
So many people these days talk to the Police like that idiot cyclist who ran a red light and got pulled over by the cycle Copper (the video was doing the rounds recently) and wonder why the Police come across as rude when often the Officer is simply responding in kind but people have so little insight into their own conduct that they cant see this....
....there seems to be a section of society who are very much law abiding but take offence at being pulled over by the Police for the usual drink driving checks etc....the Police arent mind readers and dont know if you have committed an offence until they speak to you, the way some people moan you'd think they expected a formal written apology for passing a breath test.
Been stopped several times over the years and breathalysed a couple of times, got no problem with this....every time it was during the weekend at night and i was usually the only car on the road....theres a better than average chance a vehicle like that is coming home from the pub, a club etc and may have an intoxicated driver at the wheel....was pinged last year too for using the phone while driving, always found Police polite and actually up for a laugh if you just admit what you were doing (if you were doing something wrong) and speak to them like they're human.
They deal with so much crap and so many scummy people that they are naturally guarded when initially speaking to anybody and this sometimes comes across as rude...in work mode i spend a lot of time with Surrey and Hampshire's Police and in 12 years have never met a Copper than i thought was a nob.
*doppel post*
As Crankboy says:
‘Remember people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’ and no doubt that is why so many people on here had made large sweeping generalisations as unfortunately one bad experience goes a long way to tarnshing a whole police force. Sad but hey what can we do? Hope that your next encounter with the police is a positive one where you will rave about how professional, supportive, courteous and polite we were.
Hope that your next encounter with the police is a positive one where you will rave about how professional, supportive, courteous and polite we were.
I'm not holding my breath, though I do recall TJ starting a Police appreciation thread some time ago.
It’s a funny old world we live in; On the one hand most people see the need for a Police service and I think most people, including officers themselves, want a transparent, accountable service. Most people agree that low crime rates are about prevention, as they would rather not have to wake up to find their house ransacked and car gone. Yet on the other hand, at least reading this and other threads of its ilk on STW, it would appear that people want this to occur in isolation of everything else, and with absolutely no Police interaction with themselves.
Ok, how is this to happen? Should we avail ourselves of Hollywood technology and setup a ‘Pre-crime’ unit? Should we look at our chrystal balls and guess who the criminals are (unfortunately mine are mere skin and grissle, so no fortune telling here)? Should we sit in the station drinking cups of tea, only coming to your house when you’re out so you don’t have to be degraded by an oik in uniform telling you of all people about crime prevention. Should we just send the SOCO team after the event, and not turn out at all?
C’mon – tell the Police how to do their job. You pay our wages after all (as I’m sure some of you have told the Police in your rare experiences).
Mildred - cops get jaded and develop a very jaundiced view of society and therefore tend to forget to give the benefit of the doubt which can piss off innocent folk stopped. Having said that the only times I have seen a cop being tough with people is when they start it with a bit of attitude. The "yes sir no sir three bags full sir" approach is well worth doing if you want to get off with something / not get into a confrontation.
As for how to change it? It appears there are real issues witht eh met so a review of them and look to why there are so many more issues wit the met than other forces.
"No fault" investigations into bungled incidents so as to get to teh truth. better training. However its a closed society so its hard to stop attitudes from reinforcing within it. Its hard for anyone to challenge teh attitudes shown by many cops.
It all gets a little bit freudian when you start talking about the Police. I've been a Police officer for a number of years and worked on a number of specialist units as well as normal response teams. If I were to say I'd dealt with an IT professional who was surly, rude, unhelpful and smelled slightly of gorgonzola so I am certain everyone who works with computers is a ****. People would think I was an idiot. I like it to call it Daily Mailitis.
Ultimately lots of White middle class people think they should be allowed to do whatever they like and are never wrong. They expect a Marks and Spencer style customer service from the public sector and cannot abide anyone telling them that their behaviour was wrong or illegal. This most often manifests itself, in my experience, around the use of alcohol. Some people are mature enough to see that their actions or behaviour are unacceptable. Some people aren't.
It's also one area of public service that people seem to think they know all about and could do a much, much better job at. The reality of course is that is compete turd. The British police service have some of the most highly skilled and professional specialist officers in the world. Other countries look to the UK for advice and guidance and find it difficult to comprehend that we deal with the level of threat we do whilst being largely unarmed.
That's not to say that there isn't a proportion of police officers who are complete tools. Unfortunately you are much more likely to remember them.
By way of an example. I once arrested a nice middle class young man from Surrey who was on a night out in London. He was complaining vociferously that I should not have arrested him and demanded he speak to a more senior officer immediately. When I arrested him he struggled violently and ended up getting very slightly injured, after trying to headbutt me. He questioned my sexuality and suggested I was overly familiar with members of my own family. This lovely young chap had smashed a glass bottle on the bar and stabbed someone in the eye with it, causing permanent disfigurement and blindness in that eye. He felt that this was entirely justified for the following reasons:
1. "he f@£king deserved it, he was chatting to my girlfriend"
2. "do you know who I am? My dad runs XYZ company"
I can almost guarantee that from now on he will tell anyone who will listen how horrible the police are and how badly he was treated. The reality is somewhat different.
Hmm. But before you get carried away with just how wonderful and lovely you might think the police are, from your not particularly objective viewpoint, I would like to point out that myself and many, many other people I know have suffered verbal, physical and racial abuse from police officers, some have even suffered sexual and homophobic abuse, and quite a number have been wrongfully arrested and/or suffered disproportionate levels of violence from police officers.
I have a friend who was related to a man who died in police custody, a case in which coroners' reports conflicted very heavily with police officers' accounts of the incident, and one where there has never been an open public enquiry.
Add to that the countless incidents of police officers abusing their position and generally acting as a law unto themselves, and you end up with not a great deal of respect towards the police, from a great number of people.
A friend of mine is currently suing the police over serious abuses of police powers, a major breach of trust and a proper shocking case of the police acting way outside any moral or ethical boundaries, with absolutely no justification whatsoever.
If any police officer wants my respect, then they have to earn it first. That starts with being polite and courteous towards me, something which in my experience has sadly been lacking all too often.
1.He deserved it, as he was walking away from us at the time, not being at all agressive or violent, and with his hands in his pockets. Clearly a great threat and the appropriate response was to violently attack him.2. Don't you know who I work for? An organisation where my colleages and senior officers will lie on my behalf, to try to cover up my unlawful behaviour.
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Just for a bit of balance, like...
As for how to change it? It appears there are real issues witht eh met so a review of them and look to why there are so many more issues wit the met than other forces.
After the riots in the summer, when for several weekends in a row cops from all over the UK were patrolling in London, the response from the MET was quite interesting. The feedback they got from their local communities, after cops had been walking around their towns and estates with no agenda other than just chatting to people and getting the craic, was very positive, and in there own words, a bit of an eye opener for them as far as police/community interaction goes.
The 'eye opener' for me was the way the police just stood back and let much of the rioting and looting happen....
cops had been walking around their towns and estates with no agenda other than just chatting to people and getting the craic
That's what they should be bloody doing anyway; if you had more policing like that, more regular patrols of high-crime areas, a lot of people would feel a lot safer. We rarely see any bobbies on foot round here; the odd patrol car once or twice a day, at least a twenty minute response time if you report violent crimes happening, and police turning up two or even three days after a person has reported a crime, to take some details! FFS..
After the publicity exercise was over, and the media had lost interest, things went back to normal again...
That's what they should be bloody doing anyway; if you had more policing like that, more regular patrols of high-crime areas, a lot of people would feel a lot safer.
I agree with you. That's how it's still done in some places.
It would appear we have two police forces - the Met and the rest so that is interesting what you say great ape. My Uncle was a senior bod in the met and a decent funny bloke as far as I knew him but he was deffo the sort of cop where suspects would fall down stairs.
Elfin I think we would both have to accept that neither of our viewpoints is particularly objective. You are clearly vehemently opposed to the police and start from a viewpoint that we must all be violent, racist, homophobic, killers as you're nicely balanced and wide-ranging examples above demonstrate. I am in no way trying to justify rude, unnecessarily violent or illegal behaviour from police officers. I'm trying to add a bit of balance to the discussion. All I can say is that I have a MUCH broader experience of the police than you do. And to top it all off I'm really quite a nice guy, fairly left wing, and I don't beat people up. Imagine that!
Elf - di / do you use the "yes sir no sir three bags full sir approach?" or do you / did yuo display a little bit of " why you hassling me, i pay your wages , go and catch a real criminal"
glitchy bumpy thingy
TJ stop breaking the internet
Sorry sir
*tugs forelock*
"It would appear we have two police forces - the Met and the rest " I made it 57 police forces but it was not a scientific count.
Crankboy - the point I was triyingto make is thata lot of the worst of the issues seem to be in London / the met. ~So why does say Greater manchester have less them and us than London?
deviant - Member....there seems to be a section of society who are very much law abiding but take offence at being pulled over by the Police for the usual drink driving checks etc....the Police arent mind readers and dont know if you have committed an offence until they speak to you, the way some people moan you'd think they expected a formal written apology for passing a breath test.
Probably fair. But, in my case I had no objection to being stopped- I just objected to the coppers being disappointed that I hadn't been drinking, and not being satisfied with their own hardware telling them so.
TJ publicity is part of it if it happens in London it's news and gets carried if it happens out of London less so. People still recall Blair Peach but Christopher Alder? The Alder case made the news but then went away.
Also the met have a more complex policing task.
Also they appear to have a greater disconnect with the public they serve which appears to be the Greatape's point.
the police are by role isolated and form a club they tend to live either out of their area or in ghettos. (massive explanation and justification deleted) This isolation is i believe more exaggerated in London.
Plus in London everyone appears to be rude and believe they won't be held to account so there will be a feedback loop exaggerating hostility.
this is poorly argued i know but I'm hurrying to go home.
Also they appear to have a greater disconnect with the public they serve which appears to be the Greatape's point.
Thats my point - but why? learn the lessons from other areas
the police are by role isolated and form a club they tend to live either out of their area or in ghettos.
Indeed - apart of the issue
thegreatape, can you post a few more pics like that please, to get this tedious thread stopped. I would, but don't want to get banned over Christmas, any other time of year would be fine, but the last time the whole website disappeared at Christmas, I was a tad lost (sad, I know). I'd be very grateful if someone would then report thegreatape and this thread.
I've always aspired to a 5 page+ thread, but this is really not what I had in mind, please make it stop.
You are clearly vehemently opposed to the police and start from a viewpoint that we must all be violent, racist, homophobic, killers as you're nicely balanced and wide-ranging examples above demonstrate.
Where did I say the police are [i]all[/i] 'violent, racist, homophobic, killers'? Hmm? Please, feel free to point that out to me cos I've missed it...
TandemJeremy - MemberElf - did / do you use the "yes sir no sir three bags full sir approach?" or do you / did you display a little bit of " why you hassling me, i pay your wages , go and catch a real criminal"
As long as they're courteous and polite, then I've got time for them. If, as has sadly happened far too often, their opening comments are rude and aggressive, they'll get little change from me. I just say to them 'have some respect when talking to me please, politeness and manners cost nothing'. 😀
Now on yer way yer black bastard
😆
If I were to say I'd dealt with an IT professional who was surly, rude, unhelpful and smelled slightly of gorgonzola so I am certain everyone who works with computers is a ****.
That's probably a far more accurate stereotype than all policemen are vicious bullies 😉
That an answer to me elf - not trying to trip you up - genuinely interested. the "yes sir" approach has always worked for me. Including being chased by a cop in a car for 3 miles - I was on a motorbike in a hurry in traffic and didn't even know he was chasing me full blues and twos 🙂 Got away with that one
I got stopped years back driving a van late at night.
I spotted the police car behind me so kept an eye on my speed making sure not to give them an inch as I sailed through town in a 30mph zone.
I then went into a national speed limit zone so upped my speed but still kept at the legal limit. The police car went out of view i.e pulled off only to re appear minutes later all over my bumper with head lights on full tilt trying to get me to speed up to over the limit. They finally stuck on the blue lights, pulled me over and questioned me what speed I was doing.
I knew full well what speed I was doing at all times because of them insighting a reaction. So stated I was doing 30 in the 30 so why did they pull me?
"Well thats a sign of a drunk driver" i.e keeping to the speed limit!
Knob head reaction... How can you win with that?
He was dying to nick me and tried everything to get me to speed up to do so.
I have a few mates in the force.
But like any job there are people that shouldnt be front of house, plainly abusing power to innocent folk.
Your motorbike not have mirrors TJ or did you stay in one lane. 😉
Down the centre of a busy road - nose to tail trafffic each way =he was so far behind I couldn't see him stuck in the jam
Hmm for the record I have no objection to being stopped, quite happy to assist in getting the enquiry over with quickly so we can both get on.
My only point was no matter what I have done to behave in this way in the past it is quite often met with bizarre aggression.
@Nonsense: You seem to be complaining about mass generalisation of the Police, and then you issue several paragraphs of your very own generalisations which come across as mildly arrogant. That's close to the kind of attitude I'm getting at.
I've no doubt many/most people encountered do not deserve respect or courtesy, and I'm not demanding it either if I'm honest, I'm just noting the curious absence of it. It's just about professionalism isn't it? Or am I being a tad old fashioned?
I'd get short shrift from my employer if I acted with such disregard for common courtesy and respect for random members of the public.