Should the Cheif Whipp be arrested for swearing at the police.

[Silk]

For what it's worth, I think the bloke's been an arrogant arse, but it hardly warrants arresting him over. If it had, he'd have been nicked at the time.

Probably serves the nation far better by letting them all know what a tool the man is

If I as an ordinary member of the public called you names, would I be arrested? If the answer is yes, then so should he.

 

[dingodan]

I wolud suggest that particular comment would constitute an offence of making threats to kill, but you could argue, and indeed have done, that it's only words

You generally have the luxury of being able to sit back and look at the facts of a matter with the benefit of hindsight, whereas the police as a rule don't, they end up having to make decisions on the spot based on their own individual perception and perspective at the time. There is very little black and white, rather a lot of (fifty?) shades of grey, and at least two sides to every argument.

I'm not saying we always get it right, far from it, but I will say that 99% of the time, those decisions are made honestly and with the best of intentions. You just don't hear about all the right calls that go on every minute of every day. The media are only interested when it goes wrong or someone feels that they've been unjustly arrested.

You are speaking some truth, but on the ground the reality is a little more crass, but I don't blame individual police officers, although in some cases they do just plain behave badly.

This kid is dragged off a bus and arrested for telling the police to F Off. This kind of thing happens a lot.



What gets to me is that this is so often more about the Officers feeling insulted and having their authority undermined. In a conflict situation it is always basically one or both parties feeling dishonored or disrespected.

So in these cases often the young people feel disrespected by the "checking up" of the police, who frequently act like they are teachers in a playground (not their fault it is how policing is today), and when the young people resist being accosted because they feel like they are minding their own business and have done nothing wrong, the police feel disrespected and like they are having their authority challenged, and in order to reaffirm their authority, to both the young people and themselves, they feel the need to act.

I think it is sad, but I also think that the responsibility is on the police to rise above it, they should know better. More importantly, they should feel less insecure, they should feel less like it's "us vs them". I also think that uniforms and positions of authority affect people. (see Milgram and Zimbardo).

I think the way the job works makes some of these problems inevitable, policing is pretty impossible when you are sent out to "maintain order" by enforcing thousands of statues, most of which the police do not even know in any detail. So the job becomes vague and ambiguous, which I also think is dangerous.

I think sometimes the police need reminding that their role is to keep the peace, because there are plenty of occasions were in fact, it is they who breach it.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

If I as an ordinary member of the public called you names, would I be arrested? If the answer is yes, then so should he.

Unlikely. I'm expected to be able to withstand a bit of bad language, because I'm used to it. So if somebody calls me something, I'd be unlikely to arrest them unless it was something particularly offensive and there were other people around who could be upset by it. That's why the MP hasn't been arrested, because it's just him, and the coppers, and nobody else there to say "won't somebody think of the children".

If you think people are arrested every time they call a police officer something nasty, you'd be very wrong.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

You are speaking some truth, but on the ground the reality is a little more crass, but I don't blame individual police officers, although in some cases they do just plain behave badly.

This kid is dragged off a bus and arrested for telling the police to F Off. This kind of thing happens a lot.

Personally I think that's not a great example if you're trying to make a point. The police are presumably on that bus because somebody has called them, one would imagine because of the behaviour of some of those lads. There are other people on the bus, as evidenced by the video, and the police officer quite clearly tells them to watch their language twice, or risk arrest. One of the kids then decides to show off in front of his mates and shout f...k off, so he gets lifted. I have no issue with that at all, he didn't need to do it, and he was told not to, yet still he gave it the big one. You and I aren't really offended by swearing...well personally I can't stand the C word, but everything else is, in context, just every day stuff. But for a lot of people it's not. Little old ladies, if I can stereotype slightly, familes with children. They don't want to hear lads gobbing off, and it's not nice for them. The copper there isn't being rude to the lads, nor is he in any way disrespectful that I can see. It certainly didn't warrant some mouthy teenager deciding to gob off.

We don't know the context, and we don't know what went before this. For all we know the lot of them could have been abusing the driver and passengers.

We do "rise above it", as you put it, every single day. I drive past kids in town who give it the biggun, but I ignore it, because they're just looking for attention. I don't leap out and chuck them on the floor. I am fully aware that there are a few idiot coppers who seem to have slipped through the net in the attitude test, but as a general rule, there are many, many more occasions when the public breach the peace than the police do.

 

[drew]

Freedom of speech is an admirably aspiration but lets not forget that someone somewhere in America has expressed their freedom of speech and as a result of it numerous innocent people are now dead. Probably not the person who made the film and probably not members of their family. Everyone is quite happy to bang on about their rights to do something but neglect to remember the responsibilities associated with those rights.

 

[happypig]

Freedom of speech has to have limits and the limits are when a normal person would take offence. There is case law which has ruled that police, by the nature of their job, should have higher tolerance of naughty words.
On the other hand, one expects politicians to have, and show, more respect for people doing a job, whether police or not.

 

[Don Quixote]

Been blown out of proportion by the media, but the government can't allow this to go on any longer. He will "resign" shortly I would imagine.

 

[JetsetJimbo]

Been blown out of proportion by the media, but the government can't allow this to go on any longer. He will "resign" shortly I would imagine.

I don't think it's been blown out of proportion at all. It demonstrates the attitude that too many of the privately-educated hereditary millionaires in Cameron's cabinet have towards anyone who isn't, well, a privately-educated hereditary millionaire. This sort of thing needs to be exposed, people ought to know that their government thinks they're plebs.

Edit: And the fact that Mitchell is seemingly in conflict with two police officers over what he supposedly said is quite interesting. He's basically calling the police officers paid to risk their lives to protect his, plebs and liars. It's got too much in common with Cameron's "calm down dear" flashman-like patronising attitude, and Gideon Osborne's tax cut for the rich: this is a government of millionaires, for millionaires.

 

[martyn20]

He said something incredibly stupid in the heat of the moment and he has apologised, time to move on, there are far more serious issues facing the police and the country right now.

 

[Stoo82]

I don't think it's been blown out of proportion at all. It demonstrates the attitude that too many of the privately-educated hereditary millionaires in Cameron's cabinet have towards anyone who isn't, well, a privately-educated hereditary millionaire. This sort of thing needs to be exposed, people ought to know that their government thinks they're plebs.

The irony is that you have just blown this out of proportion!

 

[dingodan]

Personally I think that's not a great example if you're trying to make a point. The police are presumably on that bus because somebody has called them, one would imagine because of the behaviour of some of those lads. There are other people on the bus, as evidenced by the video, and the police officer quite clearly tells them to watch their language twice, or risk arrest. One of the kids then decides to show off in front of his mates and shout f...k off, so he gets lifted. I have no issue with that at all, he didn't need to do it, and he was told not to, yet still he gave it the big one. You and I aren't really offended by swearing...well personally I can't stand the C word, but everything else is, in context, just every day stuff. But for a lot of people it's not. Little old ladies, if I can stereotype slightly, familes with children. They don't want to hear lads gobbing off, and it's not nice for them. The copper there isn't being rude to the lads, nor is he in any way disrespectful that I can see. It certainly didn't warrant some mouthy teenager deciding to gob off.

We don't know the context, and we don't know what went before this. For all we know the lot of them could have been abusing the driver and passengers.

We do "rise above it", as you put it, every single day. I drive past kids in town who give it the biggun, but I ignore it, because they're just looking for attention. I don't leap out and chuck them on the floor. I am fully aware that there are a few idiot coppers who seem to have slipped through the net in the attitude test, but as a general rule, there are many, many more occasions when the public breach the peace than the police do.

This does kind of make my point. The police are not there to protect people from being offended.

Everything you say I sympathize with, but the test is not "were they asked nicely?", or "they didn't have to do it", or "they were warned". The question is, "Has a crime been committed?".

So often I see the Police approach people were there is no crime, and where nobody has even reported anything. A person might ask the officer, "Officer, have I committed a crime?" and the officer will respond, "that is what I am trying to find out". The emphasis is then on the "suspect" (who is not actually suspected of anything yet) to answer for who they are, were they have been, what they are doing, it is on them to prove their innocence. So, in these kinds of situations the presumption is guilt, when it should be innocence. The burden of proof is supposed to be on the accuser not the accused.

If those officers entered the bus having had a crime reported, or having been given evidence of a crime being committed, they could just make an arrest. If there is no reason to suspect an actual crime, and have no evidence to warrant an arrest, then however distasteful people might find a person or their behavior, or however "dodgy" they might look, they are entitled to the same protection under the law as anyone else.

For all of the good intentions of wanting to keep society nice and polite and prevent old ladies from being offended, these kinds of approaches actually undermine the rule of law and make things worse.

To be fair it does now appear that some of these things like swearing or not giving your name, have actually now been classed as crimes, or at least offenses of some kind. But you can always write new laws, the question is will new laws make society politer? will new laws prevent old ladies from being offended? What it actually ends up doing is creating a society without the rule of law, where people are presumed guilty rather than innocent, and where you are not able to feel free from being interfered with even if you know you have done nothing wrong.

I would like to see the kind of improvements that you are arguing for, like for people not to be anti-social etc, but these kinds of approaches (legislative ones) actually make things worse in my opinion.

I do appreciate that you do a difficult job under difficult circumstances, I wish the police were not so politicized because that is one of the main reasons that short-term, ill thought out, but politically expedient policy is reached for, rather than logic, reason and a strict understand and respect for the rule or law, justice and peace.

 

[Camicus]

I loved his apologie along the lines of Im really sorry but your lying about what I said. In other words Im not really sorry at all and the your a lying pleb. He should be sacked for that alone

 

[Wardy]

This does kind of make my point. The police are not there to protect people from being offended.

Everything you say I sympathize with, but the test is not "were they asked nicely?", or "they didn't have to do it", or "they were warned". The question is, "Has a crime been committed?".

So often I see the Police approach people were there is no crime, and where nobody has even reported anything. A person might ask the officer, "Officer, have I committed a crime?" and the officer will respond, "that is what I am trying to find out". The emphasis is then on the "suspect" (who is not actually suspected of anything yet) to answer for who they are, were they have been, what they are doing, it is on them to prove their innocence. So, in these kinds of situations the presumption is guilt, when it should be innocence. The burden of proof is supposed to be on the accuser not the accused.

If those officers entered the bus having had a crime reported, or having been given evidence of a crime being committed, they could just make an arrest. If there is no reason to suspect an actual crime, and have no evidence to warrant an arrest, then however distasteful people might find a person or their behavior, or however "dodgy" they might look, they are entitled to the same protection under the law as anyone else.

For all of the good intentions of wanting to keep society nice and polite and prevent old ladies from being offended, these kinds of approaches actually undermine the rule of law and make things worse.

To be fair it does now appear that some of these things like swearing or not giving your name, have actually now been classed as crimes, or at least offenses of some kind. But you can always write new laws, the question is will new laws make society politer? will new laws prevent old ladies from being offended? What it actually ends up doing is creating a society without the rule of law, where people are presumed guilty rather than innocent, and where you are not able to feel free from being interfered with even if you know you have done nothing wrong.

I would like to see the kind of improvements that you are arguing for, like for people not to be anti-social etc, but these kinds of approaches (legislative ones) actually make things worse in my opinion.

I do appreciate that you do a difficult job under difficult circumstances, I wish the police were not so politicized because that is one of the main reasons that short-term, ill thought out, but politically expedient policy is reached for, rather than logic, reason and a strict understand and respect for the rule or law, justice and peace.

But we do not know what happened before the video was shot? Someone may have been hit, someone may have been robbed we just do not know. Something happened to warrant someone to call the police. So a crime may well have been committed. Just because it is not shown on the video does not mean it did not happen.

 

[dingodan]

But we do not know what happened before the video was shot? Someone may have been hit, someone may have been robbed we just do not know. Something happened to warrant someone to call the police. So a crime may well have been committed. Just because it is not shown on the video does not mean it did not happen.

I know, but under those circumstances you make an arrest. I would actually expect if an actual crime had been reported (i.e. where there is a victim making a claim) those lads would have all been taken off the bus straight away.

The fact is that the arrest that was made was made for disobedience, not to protect someone from harm or to uphold the law where it was broken.

I watch a lot of police interactions and I can tell you that what I am describing is pretty standard, I could post plenty more videos but I don't want to labor the point, and I don't want to seem like I am being overly critical of police officers themselves, I think they do as their superiors expect, and as they have been trained. But I think that these things are not really in accordance with some important principles of law which, at least at one time, we considered very important.

Some officers are worse than others, and some are bloody great, we just need more of the latter and less of the former.