Police vehicles parked on double yellows

[Captain Deco]

Originally Posted by SoggyFox

Hold on, i don't think lots of people think that at all and you've probably gone a little too far with that. I would say the vast majoriity of people on these boards respect the job you guys do but a small but vocal minority ruin the debate with their posts.

funny old thing, the above works both ways, a tiny minority of the police force ruining it for the vast majority.

i posted earlier about being stopped a number of times and a spurios reason being used, am i screaming 'police state' no, i understood the necessity but the reason made me laugh.

for me this hole debate boils down to the arguement of......

you are there to uphold the law but are you above the law?

Of course we are not above the law, we choose to uphold it. Should we be perfect.....well....we can't be that. The Police is made up of the very people it protects, and god knows we have our share of arseholes just like the public(sometimes I think we have too many of the arseholes actually).

As for you being stopped - well....the reason wasn't spurious at all, but if you were stopped and searched already , you would have been given a search record. I have stopped loads of people in the same circumstances as you mention, and when they have mentioned a very recent stop check/search I have asked to see the stop record. That's enough to satisfy me, and off they go....no search needed.


As for my comment of "lots" of people thinking the police are fascists etc.....well.....my experience of the public says otherwise. I have been involved in countless incidents where my actions have been deemed:

Racist, fascist, bullying, intimidatory, excessive, secretive, dishonest, agenda driven, personal benefit driven and such like.

Now I am not saying that the 60 million people in the UK think we are all nazis, but a lot of them that I have met feel that the police are one or more of the above list. Am I any of those things - no. Do I think that all those on YD think this as well - no....not all, but some may. As Mark said earlier - for a diving forum we do have a lot of the "poor coppers have a hard life, but god aren't they a bunch of bastards" threads.

[Conor]

I am genuinely curious who the 'cops are bastards' people are, as I don't think I am one of them and would like to know which threads to avoid in future as we may just be being trolled.

Could someone PM me with the culprits?

[SoggyFox]

Originally Posted by scubajay

I have been involved in countless incidents where my actions have been deemed:

Racist, fascist, bullying, intimidatory, excessive, secretive, dishonest, agenda driven, personal benefit driven and such like.

my stop and searches were many years ago and i wasn't given anything on any occasions just told thank you and you may go and they were over a 2 week period.

as for the above, i think thats more indicative of the people your dealing with, alcohol fueled on a number of occasions no doubt and all of them being subject to complaint or 999 call, so its not the best cross section of society to base your analysis from.

how many of them did you go onto arrest or how many of them had you arrested?

[Captain Deco]

Originally Posted by SoggyFox

my stop and searches were many years ago and i wasn't given anything on any occasions just told thank you and you may go and they were over a 2 week period.

as for the above, i think thats more indicative of the people your dealing with, alcohol fueled on a number of occasions no doubt and all of them being subject to complaint or 999 call, so its not the best cross section of society to base your analysis from.

how many of them did you go onto arrest or how many of them had you arrested?

The searches: I thought they were all on one night....my mistake.

The rest: well......let's see. I recall arresting a man who was just about to stab someone with a 6 inch carving knife - one of the big knives for cutting meat - and I was told by 2 passers by that the only reason I had arrested him was because he was black. These people felt the need to cross the street to tell me their point of view, having watched the knife incident develop and having done nothing to stop it or call for help. One of them complained, but it went nowhere.

I also arrested a male for trying punch me after I stop checked him. He later alleged I broke his arm in 2 places and I was subject to a crown court hearing with a potential jail sentence for GBH and false imprisonment. I arrested this guy in July 2004. I am returning to work after the hearings etc are all over with me being found not guilty at a cost of £250,000+ to the taxpayer, on the 19th February 2007. I also had to pay a £500 fine this month for this matter, for using "ill chosen words" (after I had been subjected to racist abuse from the male I asked him if he had a problem with me because I was white).

Although I don't condone coppers being bad at all, surely we are allowed to be treated like you would like to be? I know that when I talk to the public I treat them as if they were related to me - politley, with humour (if applicable) and compassion. Sadly, in return I get all manner of shit, and after the hassle from 2004-2007 you can't really blame me for being a little snippy.

Conor - I was generalising, and you know what I meant.

[msdkeith]

If your stops were many moons ago they probably took place under the old sus laws that got libertarians so hot under the collar.

The fact that targetted searches in certain areas had a proven record of success in reducing certain types of crime should not be allowed to get in the way of a good liberty rant.

Call me old fashioned, but if the rights of certain individuals to go around mugging and assaulting people were infringed by regular searches carried out by suspicious young officers I think I could be pretty relaxed about that.

Take the Stockwell shooting, I don't blame the guys who pulled the trigger, they were acting on information received (and probably feel pretty sick about killing an innocent man). I blame the prats who couldn't implement the procedures and have since been devoting a lot of effort to ensuring that the truth remains veiled.

If the MOD is prepared to spend 4 years lying through their teeth about a 'friendly fire' incident in Iraq we have an idea what official priorities are.

Incidentally, just to put things into some sort of perspective, there was a letter in the paper today about a 'friendly fire' incident back in 1944 which didn't come to public notice until 1994, suppressed for 50 years. The RAF attacked a small Royal Navy minesweeper flotilla, sinking 2 ships and killing 117 men. One incident, but it killed more than we've lost in the entire Iraq campaign. The official reaction was just to stifle debate and bury the whole thing for 50 years.

People should stop being quite so starry-eyed about 'rights' and remember that all the freedoms are hedged with 'responsibility', though we seldom hear the libertarians shouting about that side of the equation.

Our police operate on the basis of consent largely and they are fairly constrained in their operational behaviour. If our force was armed as a matter of course and there were secretive detention camps tucked away in the hills we might have cause to worry but this isn't the case.

As to police parking on yellow lines for whatever reason, whether operational or pure whimsy, I have to say it doesn't strike me as an issue. Most of the people complaining about police behaviour couldn't do the job themselves but that doesn't shackle their opinions....and quite right too, this is a free country. Just remember that our freedoms come at a price, nothing is ever free.

[SoggyFox]

Originally Posted by scubajay

Although I don't condone coppers being bad at all, surely we are allowed to be treated like you would like to be? I know that when I talk to the public I treat them as if they were related to me - politley, with humour (if applicable) and compassion. Sadly, in return I get all manner of shit, and after the hassle from 2004-2007 you can't really blame me for being a little snippy.

i completely agree with the treat others as you expect to be treated yourself, which is why i laughed at my last search, whats 5 minutes to stop and let it happen i'm not guilty of anything (much).

i had to laugh - what are "ill chosen words"?

[Captain Deco]

PM sent

[Conor]

Originally Posted by scubajay

Sadly, in return I get all manner of shit, and after the hassle from 2004-2007 you can't really blame me for being a little snippy.

Mate you have definitely earned the right to rant

[SoggyFox]

Originally Posted by Conor

Mate you have definitely earned the right to rant

what scares me more is it appears that i'm agreeing with Conor more and more, and he's a limp wristed lefty guardian loving tree hugger.

or is he agreeing with me...........

[Conor]

feck off ya fascist