Why do the Police turn up en masse to certain arrests?
Discussion
I’ve just seen a YouTube video from Brendan Kavanagh about his arrest for a dispute with the Catholic Church. I also recently saw one from The Times about a chap from Stevenage who fell out with his child’s school governors.
Years ago there was the Cliff Richard fiasco.
I’m not going to spend much time on the rights or wrongs of the actual arrests - Kavanagh seems to deliberately provoke things a bit, like some other YouTubers, and the man from Stevenage may also have gone over the top, but neither eventually had a case pursued against them, so you have to wonder about the Police getting involved in the first place.
What I’m more interested in is the decision making process behind the massive force used. Do the Police really have no idea/intelligence about the people they are going to arrest? The Stevenage chap was on a work Teams call when he noticed SIX officers lurking outside and three Police vehicles. Kavanagh’s video also shows six plus vans and cars.
What is this all about? Both cases should surely have involved a phone call inviting the accused person to report to their local Police Station within a sensible time limit.
Is there something about the “rules of engagement” that needs changing or have Police Sergeants (or whoever makes the decisions on such minor operations) lost their marbles?
Years ago there was the Cliff Richard fiasco.
I’m not going to spend much time on the rights or wrongs of the actual arrests - Kavanagh seems to deliberately provoke things a bit, like some other YouTubers, and the man from Stevenage may also have gone over the top, but neither eventually had a case pursued against them, so you have to wonder about the Police getting involved in the first place.
What I’m more interested in is the decision making process behind the massive force used. Do the Police really have no idea/intelligence about the people they are going to arrest? The Stevenage chap was on a work Teams call when he noticed SIX officers lurking outside and three Police vehicles. Kavanagh’s video also shows six plus vans and cars.
What is this all about? Both cases should surely have involved a phone call inviting the accused person to report to their local Police Station within a sensible time limit.
Is there something about the “rules of engagement” that needs changing or have Police Sergeants (or whoever makes the decisions on such minor operations) lost their marbles?
There will be an intelligence picture of some description behind each of those cases including who the person is, their previous history and what the person making the call to police has reported amongst many other things, none of those we are privy to so anything more is speculation.
If you are interested in how Police make decisions do a search for the National Decision Model and it will come up for you to read up on.
If you are interested in how Police make decisions do a search for the National Decision Model and it will come up for you to read up on.
Two persons to be arrested, ideally then kept apart, supervised whilst any search of vehicle / property takes place and then escorted to custody unit. That's at least four officers.
They would possibly be aware that there might be children there and provisions for them needs to be sorted out, which may involve taking them elsewhere. Three children with possibly clothes, school clothes, school books etc as these things take time. Two officers, and this alone can take hours.
A search of vehicles / property (in this case a farm) and no, not a trawl, but a section 18 or section 32 search for particular items / evidence can take hours. With additional officers this can be done very much quicker. One officer alone searching a house will leave themselves open to allegations.
Experience will have also taught any experienced officers that if the detained people are present during the searches (as ideally they should be), the longer the searches go on, then the more difficult and problematic the detained persons usually become.
An apparently simple job like this can often take most or all of the officers on a shift, and would take longer than 8 hours by the time that everything is sorted, including seized property etc.
How do you know that they hadn't been invited to the station and not turned up?
What if making arrangements like that would then have allowed issues such as interference with witnesses etc, or disposal of evidence?
As a side note, he is a very talented pianist and I've spent quite a few hours over the years watching him on YT, but at times he really doesn't help himself.
They would possibly be aware that there might be children there and provisions for them needs to be sorted out, which may involve taking them elsewhere. Three children with possibly clothes, school clothes, school books etc as these things take time. Two officers, and this alone can take hours.
A search of vehicles / property (in this case a farm) and no, not a trawl, but a section 18 or section 32 search for particular items / evidence can take hours. With additional officers this can be done very much quicker. One officer alone searching a house will leave themselves open to allegations.
Experience will have also taught any experienced officers that if the detained people are present during the searches (as ideally they should be), the longer the searches go on, then the more difficult and problematic the detained persons usually become.
An apparently simple job like this can often take most or all of the officers on a shift, and would take longer than 8 hours by the time that everything is sorted, including seized property etc.
How do you know that they hadn't been invited to the station and not turned up?
What if making arrangements like that would then have allowed issues such as interference with witnesses etc, or disposal of evidence?
As a side note, he is a very talented pianist and I've spent quite a few hours over the years watching him on YT, but at times he really doesn't help himself.
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