This, er, arrest, reads - and looks - like something from a TV cop show:
www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3594884/Call-in-the-cops-We-span-classredbarebspan-the-cops.html
A bit heavy-handed, but hey-ho, these things can happen.
Just as interesting is they've been dobbed in to The Sun by another copper who's leaked the video.
Police officers in that respect are rather like journalists - there's nothing they like better than seeing colleagues in hot water.
It seems this incident is all a £5.5m anti-corruption inquiry could come up with, which is reassuring.
Perhaps the Met should have more of their officers out arresting criminals instead of trying to arrest each other.
Last edited by: Iffy on Mon 23 May 11 at 09:25
|
1/ It was silly to film your own efforts in this way
and
2/ The management are really not keen on the workforce carrying unaproved weapons, ie 1 Baseball Bat!
|
...It was silly to film your own efforts in this way...
Not only that, but they were showing off soundtracked copies of the film around the nick.
My guess is this crime team, or whatever the Met call it, thought they were some sort of elite force.
Something similar happened in a CID department in the West Midlands year ago - they had ties made with, I think, a dagger motif, and coined some enforcer-style name for themselves.
Both sets of coppers meant well - they were out to get the bad guys - but all of them had straw for brains.
|
>> A bit heavy-handed, >>
A bit? Totally OTT #&*$$#
>> Perhaps the Met should have more of their officers out arresting criminals instead of trying to arrest each other.>>
Perhaps though if this is anything to go by some of them are no better than criminals - and before anyone jumps down my throat, I know it's a small minority.
|
The breaking the windows bit is a legitimate tactic in a car stop, so done to disorientate the driver and prevent a drive-away. Its not a Met thing its used by every force in the land when deemed appropriate. Its proven it works.
The richard head smashing the screen with the baseball bat while his colleagues have their heads in the car and then making as if to brain the suspect is a bit OTT tho. I see another one was carrying a pickaxe handle. I know the police issue extendable batton is useless for that kind of thing, but at the end of the day that crime squad went equiped with unauthorised weapons.
|
|
I suppose a number of people would see the proper way for the Police to deal with this scenario would be to write a strongly worded letter to the Guardian.
|
No PU, the car was in a queue, no way of driving off, so simply surrounding it and asking the guy to get out would have been a good start, then trying the door and smashing the driver's window only if necessary.
|
|
In the manner of Sergeant Wilson ? :-)
|
|
They probably hadn't had any dinner.
|
"The men claim they believed their suspect was armed and had previously threatened to shoot an officer."
Presumably, if this was the case, Firearms Officers would have been there. They were unashamedly photographing and filming the event. I would imagine that this was a sanctioned policy...which makes sense..
|
...They were unashamedly photographing and filming the event. I would imagine that this was a sanctioned policy...which makes sense...
Agreed.
Where they fell out of bed was putting the Fast Cars soundtrack on the film and then using it to boast to colleagues.
|
Cheddar, get in the real world. Have you any idea what some criminals can be like, given half a chance? Half a chance is what they cannot be given. And yes, it could be driven away, or a damn good attempt at it, by ramming backwards and forwards. Just because you wouldn't do it doesn't mean they wouldn't, especially if they have their liberty to lose. Although I take it you speak from personal experience of dealing with the more serious criminal, hence the request that should have been used to: 'get out of the car please'. Pleeeese. Police are there to deal with these people, not pussyfoot around in case some clueless liberal loony is offended. When your car is stolen after someone breaks into your house whilst you're asleep, you'll expect those involved to be treated with kid gloves, will you? By the way, those that burgle to steal cars are typically active in gangs and committing up to 30 burglaries a week. Your £30 grand car will be sold for £250 (yes you read that right) so that they can feed their habits and entertain the girls on Friday night. They certainly don't give a pfd about their victims, but they'll utilise every facet of the criminal justice system to evade conviction and get the taxpayer to pay for it all. In my opinion they make absolutely no useful contribution to society whatsoever and extract the maximum from the rest of us. Of course, I've no experience whatsoever of the people I talk about never having met any of them....
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 23 May 11 at 19:47
|
They have to deal with some really violent unpredictable types these days, they never know what might happen to them next. Still, serves them right for nicking the car...
|
|
I don't see anything wrong with the police actions in the video. If you need to arrest someone who is thought to be prepared to offer violent resistance you have to go in quick and hard. I had a mate in the Met who suffered a permanent neck injury after a car he had boxed in after it went down a dead end repeatedly rammed his vehicle in an attempt to force it's way out.
|
Seems the Sun are short of decent news and making a mountain out of a molehill in respect of this incident. I cannot comment on the corruption inquiry.
Baseball bats and pickaxe handles are the implement of choice for breaking windows in a 'hard stop' scenario. Issue batons are just not up to the job. Text book tactics. Surprise and disorientation are the only way of dealing with someone who has a ton of metal to use as a battering ram.
The incident was being videoed and photographed for evidence gathering purposes. These people are not your nicking a tin of salmon merchants from the corner shop.
If someone makes a complaint of whatever; which is so easy to do and a common tactic just to cause grief, for a third party to report that an investigation is taking place is factually correct and sows the seed. The fact that the complaint is spurious and without foundaton is secondary to the headline.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Mon 23 May 11 at 23:46
|
Just looked at the footage and it seemed quite a controlled operation. I can see why they hid the windscreen to smash it as it prevented any thoughts of trying to drive your way out of this.
Full marks to the police from me.
Or did the Ikea employee genuinely own the supercharged MINI Cooper S?
|
It seems the punter did not complain, but someone in the police has brought the matter to the attention of professional standards - if that's what they call it down there.
So five of them face an internal disciplinary hearing.
What irks me is they've been suspended - no doubt on full pay - since February 2009 and the hearing is not until July of this year.
I couldn't care less if they are sacked or given the Queen's Police Medal, just don't take years to sort it out.
|
|
I might suspend myself if I can (a) get full pay for not working for 18 months and (b) probably keep my job anyway. So what can I do to achieve this... thinking cap on ;-)
|
Were it my house they'd burgled and my car they'd stolen, I wouldn't have lost any sleep if the pickaxe handle had "accidentally" made contact with their heads.
Whatever they went through here is likely to be nothing compared to what they have put others through during the course of their "careers".
|
...I might suspend myself if I can (a) get full pay for not working for 18 months...
rtj,
The arrest was February 2009, so it's actually 27 months - and counting.
Beggars belief, doesn't it?
It's only ever the likes of teachers, coppers and health service and council executives who find themselves on these long suspensions.
Public money again.
Sure, the copper who gets filled in on a Friday night lives in the real world.
But his managers don't.
|
Sweeney! - Zero
