Police Officer Smashes Windscreen

[roofer]

Raygun said:

roofer said:

Why should he admit to anything ? To keep you and your little band of brothers happy ? It's the Internet, for him, it has consequences, for you, it has none, apart from demonstrating you are a knob.

i suggest they don't reply at all then , I'm sure you being a copper's nark could relay their true beliefs.

Edited by Raygun on Sunday 25th September 05:49

Huge LOL ! Coppers nark ? The coppers beat me on more than one occasion, cost me 7 years of my life. They won on the day, but I never held it against them, they were better.

But do I disrespect what they do ? No. It's a game. So I respect every last one of them, but I'm old school. Best man wins.

You? You're nobody, just a profile on the internet. Go away.

[anonymous-user]

La Liga said:

ep, it's much easier to report and the encouragement to report is greater than it's ever been.

Now that I disagree with. Dial 101 only as local stations are closed, and get randomly transferred to an empty seat and if you're lucky leave a message but inevitably never get a response.
More significant crimes rarely have an information line despite the technology being a piece of piss

[anonymous-user]

roofer said:

Huge LOL ! Coppers nark ? The coppers beat me on more than one occasion, cost me 7 years of my life. They won on the day, but I never held it against them, they were better.

But do I disrespect what they do ? No. It's a game. So I respect every last one of them, but I'm old school. Best man wins.

You? You're nobody, just a profile on the internet. Go away.

Did you share a cell with Lukewarm?

[spookly]

vonhosen said:

spookly said:

vonhosen said:

spookly said:

XCP said:

I have idea how old you are but I wonder if you would be surprised to hear that officers nowadays are much better and more professional than they were when I joined in 1980?
At that time there was much more violence dished out, and much more racism and homophobia. Of course in those days the likelihood of anyone filming an interaction with the police was virtually nil, so there are no youtube archives to back up my claim.
Nevertheless attitudes towards the public have improved immensely since those days.

You may well be right that there is less violence dished out. Or maybe not, who knows.
Everything would be anecdotal except statistics, which won't be comprehensive either as many examples of bad policing are not reported.

Increasing IPCC complaints doesn't point towards an improvement. Especially when 20% or so relate to bad attitude/heavy handedness.
60% increase in complaints over 10 years doesn't really sound like an improvement.

It doesn't show the opposite either, because it's entirely possible that it may just show greater confidence in reporting due to it being taken more seriously & actually investigated (just as an increase in rape allegations doesn't mean there are now more offences, again just greater confidence in the service being provided promoting more people reporting them).

Yep, which is why I edited it to add something to this effect before I saw you had wrote this.

However, a 60% increase in 10 years still does not look good.

As I said, unless you believe it shows increased confidence in accountability & therefore increased reporting, because then it is a positive thing & that headline 60% figure reveals nothing about whether the source problem has actually increased or not.

Yep, hence why I pointed out the unreliability of the stats myself.

But a 60% increase is very large. The likelihood that the problem is decreasing when the stats show a 60% increase isn't great is it. I agree that reporting could have increased.
But I'd dispute that the effect of increasing confidence in accountability would show that marked an increase.

Without a watertight case, which is rare without evidence like this video footage or plenty of unrelated witnesses, I wouldn't be confident that any complaint would be upheld. That is the biggest problem here, is that police can get away with things like this and when they aren't being filmed even if a complaint is made these isn't any evidence to dispute their version of events. If officers stick by each other and don't report their peers then the situation is allowed to continue. A more interesting statistic would be the number of officers that have had complaints made about their behaviour by fellow officers.

Take the case being discussed as an example. With no video footage PC Savage could just claim that the guy was trying to drive off again, was swearing and cussing at him and threatening violence, etc etc. With the video footage none of that is going to wash is it? If the video footage didn't exist do you think PC Savage would have given an honest account to an investigation? Do you think his colleague would have supported PC Savage's version if he was lying?
The overall outcome from something like this which isn't filmed is that the police can make up whatever circumstances they want to justify what happened. They can stretch their version as far as plausible to make a justification. With the video footage there is now a far smaller window of possibilities for justifying his actions, and I think most would agree it doesn't look good.

[spookly]

singlecoil said:

spookly said:

singlecoil said:

spookly said:

However, a 60% increase in 10 years still does not look good.

A policeman walking down the street would not look good to you.

That is quite a dumb thing to say.

There is a wide gulf between a policeman smashing an innocent persons car and screaming at them, and a policeman just walking down the street...

What identifies you as a person with an aversion to the police is not so much what you say about good v. bad cops, it's the way you are willing to condemn the policeman we are talking about before you have all the facts. You are, to use a current expression, quacking like a duck and walking like a duck. As are several others on this thread, despite their insistence that they are not ducks.

In your slightly backward, precious and tender opinion, then maybe that would be true.

I am not condemning him and saying he is guilty legally, that is for the investigation to decide. I am pointing out that my belief is that he has acted in a way that is something I do not want to see from a policeman - ever. I don't think there is any circumstance where I want to see a police officer lose their st. That is the antithesis of how I think policing should be conducted.

My own father was a policeman for 35 years. I have no problem with the police in general. I an not anti-police.

I do have a problem with individual police officers who cannot keep their cool, are on a power trip, or any other way they fail to meet their own organisations standards or operate within the law.

Good cop = good. Bad cop = bad. If the good cops don't deal with the bad cops and police themselves then after a while we end up with too many bad cops. It isn't hard to understand, is it?

[vonhosen]

spookly said:

vonhosen said:

spookly said:

vonhosen said:

spookly said:

XCP said:

I have idea how old you are but I wonder if you would be surprised to hear that officers nowadays are much better and more professional than they were when I joined in 1980?
At that time there was much more violence dished out, and much more racism and homophobia. Of course in those days the likelihood of anyone filming an interaction with the police was virtually nil, so there are no youtube archives to back up my claim.
Nevertheless attitudes towards the public have improved immensely since those days.

You may well be right that there is less violence dished out. Or maybe not, who knows.
Everything would be anecdotal except statistics, which won't be comprehensive either as many examples of bad policing are not reported.

Increasing IPCC complaints doesn't point towards an improvement. Especially when 20% or so relate to bad attitude/heavy handedness.
60% increase in complaints over 10 years doesn't really sound like an improvement.

It doesn't show the opposite either, because it's entirely possible that it may just show greater confidence in reporting due to it being taken more seriously & actually investigated (just as an increase in rape allegations doesn't mean there are now more offences, again just greater confidence in the service being provided promoting more people reporting them).

Yep, which is why I edited it to add something to this effect before I saw you had wrote this.

However, a 60% increase in 10 years still does not look good.

As I said, unless you believe it shows increased confidence in accountability & therefore increased reporting, because then it is a positive thing & that headline 60% figure reveals nothing about whether the source problem has actually increased or not.

Yep, hence why I pointed out the unreliability of the stats myself.

But a 60% increase is very large. The likelihood that the problem is decreasing when the stats show a 60% increase isn't great is it. I agree that reporting could have increased.
But I'd dispute that the effect of increasing confidence in accountability would show that marked an increase.

But you are still just looking at the headline number to support your position/prejudice & not reflecting on what reasons there could actually be for it.
60% is a headline grabbing figure but you have to look deeper & consider all possibilities if you want to attach much meaning to it.
For instance 6 is 60% of 10, but then 10 isn't a large number to start with particularly if the 10 that you started with was 10 from 100,000 interactions.
Or if, for example, of your 6 extra complaints 5 were for not arriving within 10 minutes when called & 1 was because of the noise sirens make.
i.e. If none were relative to the complaint you were now looking at & attaching the rise to.

You also need to consider issues such as availability of mobile phones.
People complain far more readily if making complaints is easier & takes less effort on their part. Mobiles have made a huge difference to our lives & the number of incidents alerted to Police have escalated rapidly due to the them. Why would you expect the number of incidents/interactions to increase markedly without complaints also doing so?

Note
Figures just used to illustrate a point only & have no other value/meaning.

Edited by vonhosen on Monday 26th September 09:14

[RobinOakapple]

One has to admire, but only in a very negative way, the persistence of the lynch mob here. I expect their strategy is to grind down anyone who doesn't have their monochromatic view of this situation until they get fed up of posting on this thread.

[spookly]

vonhosen said:

But you are still just looking at the headline number to support your prejudice & not reflecting on what reasons there could actually be for it.
60% is a headline grabbing figure but you have to look deeper & consider all possibilities if you want to attach much meaning to it.
For instance 6 is 60% of 10, but then 10 isn't a large number to start with particularly if the 10 that you started with was 10 from 100,000 interactions.

Yes, agreed. But the starting point is in the 10's of thousands, not 10. The trend is upwards.
And, I think we also agree that it is possible reporting has increased. The trend is still in the wrong direction. If reporting has changed in proportion to the number of events that could prompt a complaint to this extent (impossible to measure) then it either renders the figures useless. If the figures are not assumed to be useless then the trend is towards more incidents.

vonhosen said:

Or if, for example, of your 6 extra complaints 5 were for not arriving within 10 minutes when called & 1 was because of the noise sirens make.
i.e. If none were relative to the complaint you were now looking at & attaching the rise to.

Go back and look at the stats. There is a breakdown of what complaints related to. 20%+ relate directly to unfairness, heavy handedness etc.
You can throw the stats under a bus and say they are useless, which would be a fair point. But if you think the stats have any use whatsoever then they are not pointing in favour of your assertions.

vonhosen said:

You also need to consider issues such as availability of mobile phones.
People complain far more readily if making complaints is easier & takes less effort on their part. Mobiles have made a huge difference to our lives & the number of incidents alerted to Police have escalated rapidly due to the them. Why would you expect the number of incidents/interactions to increase markedly without complaints also doing so?

Ha ha. Mobile phones make it easier to complain? Whatever.
So 10 years ago we didn't have mobiles? Hmmm. 10 years ago I was working for a pan European mobile operator.
The police do not make it easy to complain. They could have an app for that. But they don't.

Suggesting that mobiles have made reporting easier is a joke on several levels:

• Mobiles existed and were prevalent 10 years ago, I've had a mobile since about 1993 when I was a student
• If you are going to take things seriously enough to make a complaint, you'd still do it with a landline
• Police aren't providing an app or webpage to allow reporting, so most reporting is still by telephone

In fact, if the police did provide a webpage or app for reporting then it would provide more transparency as a central log of all reported incidents would not be able to be fudged, or certain complaints ignored/fobbed off. I wonder why they haven't provided a national police complaints site?

Either those stats, produced by the IPCC and police, are useless or they show a trend that is towards increasing reported incidents.

[spookly]

RobinOakapple said:

One has to admire, but only in a very negative way, the persistence of the lynch mob here. I expect their strategy is to grind down anyone who doesn't have their monochromatic view of this situation until they get fed up of posting on this thread.

Pot, meet kettle.

Let's see how your argument stacks up, eh?

• uses emotive words (lynch mob) to try and pigeonhole people into a group and label them - check
• suggests that said pigeonholed group have a monochromatic view because they disagree with them - check

I'm guessing that you weren't on the Oxford debate team.

Why don't you try disputing the words and facts put forwards? Or if you disagree with an opinion someone has formed then feel free to suggest one of your own and be prepared to explain why you hold that opinion.

Seems to me that the 'lynch mob' as you call them are providing facts, statistics and logic to back up arguments they are making. They are also justifying why they hold the opinions they have expressed. They are also playing the ball, not the man. Maybe you should try the same thing.

If you reduce your argument to stereotyping people into groups and using emotive words to demonize them then it just shows the weakness of your argument..... come on RobinOakapple.... surely you can do better than that?

[carinaman]

Where does police officers incriminating themselves being captured on mobile phones, or 'smart phones' that 80% of us have, sit with 'citizens in policing' where members of the public that haven't even had the training Specials patrol the streets as 'citizens in policing'? Those 'citizens in policing' won't be recording offences committed by police officers?

Has Leon Fontana done 'citizens in policing' by recording that incident and putting it in the public domain?

[Greendubber]

spookly said:

RobinOakapple said:

One has to admire, but only in a very negative way, the persistence of the lynch mob here. I expect their strategy is to grind down anyone who doesn't have their monochromatic view of this situation until they get fed up of posting on this thread.

Pot, meet kettle.

Let's see how your argument stacks up, eh?

• uses emotive words (lynch mob) to try and pigeonhole people into a group and label them - check
• suggests that said pigeonholed group have a monochromatic view because they disagree with them - check

I'm guessing that you weren't on the Oxford debate team.

Why don't you try disputing the words and facts put forwards? Or if you disagree with an opinion someone has formed then feel free to suggest one of your own and be prepared to explain why you hold that opinion.

Seems to me that the 'lynch mob' as you call them are providing facts, statistics and logic to back up arguments they are making. They are also justifying why they hold the opinions they have expressed. They are also playing the ball, not the man. Maybe you should try the same thing.

If you reduce your argument to stereotyping people into groups and using emotive words to demonize them then it just shows the weakness of your argument..... come on RobinOakapple.... surely you can do better than that?

Significant amount of irony there....

[carinaman]

Greendubber said:

spookly said:

RobinOakapple said:

One has to admire, but only in a very negative way, the persistence of the lynch mob here. I expect their strategy is to grind down anyone who doesn't have their monochromatic view of this situation until they get fed up of posting on this thread.

Pot, meet kettle.

Let's see how your argument stacks up, eh?

• uses emotive words (lynch mob) to try and pigeonhole people into a group and label them - check
• suggests that said pigeonholed group have a monochromatic view because they disagree with them - check

I'm guessing that you weren't on the Oxford debate team.

Why don't you try disputing the words and facts put forwards? Or if you disagree with an opinion someone has formed then feel free to suggest one of your own and be prepared to explain why you hold that opinion.

Seems to me that the 'lynch mob' as you call them are providing facts, statistics and logic to back up arguments they are making. They are also justifying why they hold the opinions they have expressed. They are also playing the ball, not the man. Maybe you should try the same thing.

If you reduce your argument to stereotyping people into groups and using emotive words to demonize them then it just shows the weakness of your argument..... come on RobinOakapple.... surely you can do better than that?

Significant amount of irony there....

Irony isn't an offence is it?

Good to see a sworn officer playing the man and not the ball. Very professional standards.

Was PC Savage playing the man or the ball?

[Greendubber]

carinaman said:

Greendubber said:

spookly said:

RobinOakapple said:

One has to admire, but only in a very negative way, the persistence of the lynch mob here. I expect their strategy is to grind down anyone who doesn't have their monochromatic view of this situation until they get fed up of posting on this thread.

Pot, meet kettle.

Let's see how your argument stacks up, eh?

• uses emotive words (lynch mob) to try and pigeonhole people into a group and label them - check
• suggests that said pigeonholed group have a monochromatic view because they disagree with them - check

I'm guessing that you weren't on the Oxford debate team.

Why don't you try disputing the words and facts put forwards? Or if you disagree with an opinion someone has formed then feel free to suggest one of your own and be prepared to explain why you hold that opinion.

Seems to me that the 'lynch mob' as you call them are providing facts, statistics and logic to back up arguments they are making. They are also justifying why they hold the opinions they have expressed. They are also playing the ball, not the man. Maybe you should try the same thing.

If you reduce your argument to stereotyping people into groups and using emotive words to demonize them then it just shows the weakness of your argument..... come on RobinOakapple.... surely you can do better than that?

Significant amount of irony there....

Irony isn't an offence is it?

Good to see a sworn officer playing the man and not the ball. Very professional standards.

Was PC Savage playing the man or the ball?

Did I say it was?

Just suggesting the poster should maybe practice what he's preaching so stop trying to turn it into something its not.

[RobinOakapple]

spookly said:

I'm guessing that you weren't on the Oxford debate team.

You are correct, it wasn't the Oxford debating team (I think you mean the Oxford Union )

[spookly]

Greendubber said:

spookly said:

RobinOakapple said:

One has to admire, but only in a very negative way, the persistence of the lynch mob here. I expect their strategy is to grind down anyone who doesn't have their monochromatic view of this situation until they get fed up of posting on this thread.

Pot, meet kettle.

Let's see how your argument stacks up, eh?

• uses emotive words (lynch mob) to try and pigeonhole people into a group and label them - check
• suggests that said pigeonholed group have a monochromatic view because they disagree with them - check

I'm guessing that you weren't on the Oxford debate team.

Why don't you try disputing the words and facts put forwards? Or if you disagree with an opinion someone has formed then feel free to suggest one of your own and be prepared to explain why you hold that opinion.

Seems to me that the 'lynch mob' as you call them are providing facts, statistics and logic to back up arguments they are making. They are also justifying why they hold the opinions they have expressed. They are also playing the ball, not the man. Maybe you should try the same thing.

If you reduce your argument to stereotyping people into groups and using emotive words to demonize them then it just shows the weakness of your argument..... come on RobinOakapple.... surely you can do better than that?

Significant amount of irony there....

Ok, Einstein. Perhaps instead of a pithy comment you could point out why you think that is ironic.

Where do you think I, or others in this 'lynch mob', have stereotyped groups of individuals and used emotive words to assassinate their character?
Where have I expressed an opinion I haven't backed up with logic?
Where have I made comments about people arguing against my view instead of the topic being discussed?

In fact, I think you'll find that most people are saying they acknowledge policing is a hard job, and that there are bad police but they aren't the majority. Which would seem like a fairly balanced view, which is almost certainly factual. The only thing up for debate is how many bad coppers there really are, and whether PC Savage is one of them.

Whether PC Savage is found to have gone too far or not, I do not think his attitude or conduct is what I want to see from our police. I think many people would share the same view.

[vonhosen]

spookly said:

vonhosen said:

But you are still just looking at the headline number to support your prejudice & not reflecting on what reasons there could actually be for it.
60% is a headline grabbing figure but you have to look deeper & consider all possibilities if you want to attach much meaning to it.
For instance 6 is 60% of 10, but then 10 isn't a large number to start with particularly if the 10 that you started with was 10 from 100,000 interactions.

Yes, agreed. But the starting point is in the 10's of thousands, not 10. The trend is upwards.
And, I think we also agree that it is possible reporting has increased. The trend is still in the wrong direction. If reporting has changed in proportion to the number of events that could prompt a complaint to this extent (impossible to measure) then it either renders the figures useless. If the figures are not assumed to be useless then the trend is towards more incidents.

vonhosen said:

Or if, for example, of your 6 extra complaints 5 were for not arriving within 10 minutes when called & 1 was because of the noise sirens make.
i.e. If none were relative to the complaint you were now looking at & attaching the rise to.

Go back and look at the stats. There is a breakdown of what complaints related to. 20%+ relate directly to unfairness, heavy handedness etc.
You can throw the stats under a bus and say they are useless, which would be a fair point. But if you think the stats have any use whatsoever then they are not pointing in favour of your assertions.

vonhosen said:

You also need to consider issues such as availability of mobile phones.
People complain far more readily if making complaints is easier & takes less effort on their part. Mobiles have made a huge difference to our lives & the number of incidents alerted to Police have escalated rapidly due to the them. Why would you expect the number of incidents/interactions to increase markedly without complaints also doing so?

Ha ha. Mobile phones make it easier to complain? Whatever.
So 10 years ago we didn't have mobiles? Hmmm. 10 years ago I was working for a pan European mobile operator.
The police do not make it easy to complain. They could have an app for that. But they don't.

Suggesting that mobiles have made reporting easier is a joke on several levels:

• Mobiles existed and were prevalent 10 years ago, I've had a mobile since about 1993 when I was a student
• If you are going to take things seriously enough to make a complaint, you'd still do it with a landline
• Police aren't providing an app or webpage to allow reporting, so most reporting is still by telephone

In fact, if the police did provide a webpage or app for reporting then it would provide more transparency as a central log of all reported incidents would not be able to be fudged, or certain complaints ignored/fobbed off. I wonder why they haven't provided a national police complaints site?

Either those stats, produced by the IPCC and police, are useless or they show a trend that is towards increasing reported incidents.

You mean a webpage like this?
https://secure.met.police.uk/complaints/

(1st hit in google search)


My mobile now compared to the phone/text only brick I had 10 years ago makes complaining far easier.
My kids 10 years ago wouldn't have had a mobile, they all have sophisticated mobiles now.
The introduction of non geographic, non emergency numbers (101) make it far easier than previously.

[spookly]

vonhosen said:

You mean a webpage like this?
https://secure.met.police.uk/complaints/

(1st hit in google search)


My mobile now compared to the phone/text only brick I had 10 years ago makes complaining far easier.
My kids 10 years ago wouldn't have had a mobile, they all have sophisticated mobiles now.
The introduction of non geographic, non emergency numbers (101) make it far easier than previously.

That's for the Met. I don't live in London. Good to see that they are doing that though. I'll see if there is one for my area. Yes, there is a web form to initiate a complaint - OK, I'll give you that one... was not aware of that.

Even 10 years ago all it took was a phone call.
Finding a phone number isn't that difficult, we used to have phone books which listed the phone numbers for local police stations.

There is a minor change in how easy it is to report, but it isn't that marked. We aren't comparing the dark ages to 2015. In 2005.... we had the internet, phones, mobile phones, we also had police stations you could walk into.

80% of people had mobile in 2005. As far more than 20% of the population were children or elderly, I suspect that meant that there would have been, on average, more than one mobile phone per adult.

It is impossible to tell from the stats to what degree the % of reporting has increased. I agree with you that it is likely to have increased. I don't think it would have increased anywhere near to 60%.
Neither of us can prove it either way, so it is a fairly pointless thing to argue for either of us :-)

[RogueTrooper]

vonhosen said:

People complain far more readily if making complaints is easier & takes less effort on their part.

Also consider the rise in "no win, no fee" police complaint specialists.

Can vexatious complaints be considered a factor?

[spookly]

RogueTrooper said:

vonhosen said:

People complain far more readily if making complaints is easier & takes less effort on their part.

Also consider the rise in "no win, no fee" police complaint specialists.

Can vexatious complaints be considered a factor?

Both potentially a factor. But also not really measurable.
No win, no fee cases are usually only taken on when there is a likely chance of success. If the police have done nothing wrong then usually nobody will take your case on, the legal professionals will weed out most of the cases without merit. That might show in the % of cases withdrawn.

I guess the only way to take these factors out of the stats is to look at the absolute number of complaints upheld, as this would rule out vexatious complaints of little merit.

But that still would not rule out increased reporting of valid complaints likely to be upheld. I think the only thing that would lead to increased reporting of serious incidents would be increased trust in the impartiality and fairness of investigations, and fairness of outcomes.

Even if something serious happened to me that I thought was unfair, I would balance whether I'd complain against the likelihood of some useful result being likely after making a complaint. If I'm not convinced that it will be investigated fairly or that it would result in a just result, then I'm not likely to bother. Also, I'm also likely not to bother if I fear recriminatory behaviour from the police after making a complaint, or if I don't think there is evidence which supports my case.

What would be interesting is whether anyone is trying to gather statistics on the level of public trust in the IPCC, and it's process and outcomes.

Overall though, I think it should be fairly easy to agree the stats are flawed. And if they aren't flawed then they point towards an increase in complaints.

[vonhosen]

spookly said:

vonhosen said:

You mean a webpage like this?
https://secure.met.police.uk/complaints/

(1st hit in google search)


My mobile now compared to the phone/text only brick I had 10 years ago makes complaining far easier.
My kids 10 years ago wouldn't have had a mobile, they all have sophisticated mobiles now.
The introduction of non geographic, non emergency numbers (101) make it far easier than previously.

That's for the Met. I don't live in London. Good to see that they are doing that though. I'll see if there is one for my area. Yes, there is a web form to initiate a complaint - OK, I'll give you that one... was not aware of that.

Even 10 years ago all it took was a phone call.
Finding a phone number isn't that difficult, we used to have phone books which listed the phone numbers for local police stations.

There is a minor change in how easy it is to report, but it isn't that marked. We aren't comparing the dark ages to 2015. In 2005.... we had the internet, phones, mobile phones, we also had police stations you could walk into.

80% of people had mobile in 2005. As far more than 20% of the population were children or elderly, I suspect that meant that there would have been, on average, more than one mobile phone per adult.

It is impossible to tell from the stats to what degree the % of reporting has increased. I agree with you that it is likely to have increased. I don't think it would have increased anywhere near to 60%.
Neither of us can prove it either way, so it is a fairly pointless thing to argue for either of us :-)

Yes but the big one was that if you complained in the past it was far less likely to get recorded than now, so even where you'd gone to the effort of trying to make the complaint it wouldn't get recorded., so it wouldn't get shown in the stats as often as now. Officers are also far more likely to submit complaints about the actions of their colleagues now too.