A single drunk will take up the time of 17 officers and staff, police have revealed in a warning over the drain Britain’s binge-drinking culture has on communities.
A drunk is accused of an assault so a police call handler receives a report, logs the details and then a dispatcher sends four officers, two on foot and two in a patrol car, to the scene.
The offender then starts struggling with the officers and tries to resist arrest so, as a crowd gathers, additional officers are required and a further eight are sent.
12 coppers to arrest one drunk? Are they actually training the police these days or what?
Seriously?
Seriously.
Although, for the area of London I thankfully escaped from, the described scenario is obviously a daytime incident. Clue’s in the two coppers on foot. Night time we don’t have them.
SOP. First coppers to arrive will open discussions with drunk about drunk’s drunkenness. As anyone knows, debates with drunks can be lengthy & fruitless but the legal side of the argument will soon be bolstered by the enlargement of the debating team thanks to the arrival of a further duo. (Police, like that part of the anatomy they have such small examples of, prefer to travel in pairs.) Having achieved the desired 4 to 1 superiority of numbers the police can now press their point of view more strongly with baton, pepper spray or Taser. The drama will by now have attracted an audience who, seeing 4 burly, body armoured cops standing over one solitary twitching member of the public may get the wrong impression over who feels threatened here. But reinforcements in blue & day-glo yellow are already on the way and, with any luck, a major incident is in the making.
Meanwhile, in the surrounding, unpatrolled streets, drunks assault passersby with impunity.
I think this is what is described in the training manual as creating a visible police presence..
The police are there to support the scum of the state. Crime/peacekeeping is a side business mostly used to create a smokescreen for their primary job.
The police are required to arrest the drunk *without hurting him*. The drunk, being drunk, has less inhibitions.
Fifty years ago if a drunk fell over that was his own fault – now it is deemed the fault of the police for not catching him.
It’s a daisy chain of consequences caused by ‘progressive’ lawyers and activists.
It’s perfectly possible (watch a bouncer) for a single individual to deal with a drunk, even a violent one. But police, and often security, are hidebound by health and safety and legal implications of injury to the drunk. Over the years intrusive legal action has resulted in the ludicrous scene (watch any TV cop reality show) of ‘troublesome’ individuals being taken down by four, or more, police officers. Usually one for each limb, with an extra for the head. This is to prevent the restrained individual from being injured.
It looks horrendous though. It looks like a mass assault on individual, and the individual is free to thrash, kick, bite, Punch, spit and hurl abuse as (like a child) they are fundamentally aware that the police officers may not injure them. To anyone watching it looks like the police are assaulting an individual. Very often crowds will gather round and begin to remonstrate with the police, which then requires even larger numbers of police to attend to restrain the crowds. I’ve seen countless incidents of this where these techniques and practices turn utterly insignificant, ‘handbags at dawn’ incidents into mass street disturbances, costing thousands.
Again, as a byproduct, the same restraint techniques now have to be used in almost any situation. So you see them regularly used to restrain people who are basically no physical threat at all.
This is all the consequence of the progressive communities attempts to emasculate what they perceive as being authority.
But, as usual, the law of unintended consequences has left us with a world where it takes large numbers of policeman to incapacitate one-person. And do so in a manner that looks brutal to everyone watching, produces anti-police sympathy in them, and encourages childish psychopathic behaviour in those being restrained.
Do what the US cops do – just shoot the useless bastards!
@ Julia M
I don’t think even US cops shoot someone for being runk unless he has a gun.
Much better would be to throw a bucket of water over him/her
More or less spot on, Mr Ecks, but I think you’ll find the police see their primary function as looking after themselves, the scum who give them taxpayer’s money come second and any benefit received by the taxpayer is purely an unintended by-product of the primary and secondary functions.
JuliaM, what have you done with the real JuliaM?
Stuck Record has it – ‘elf and safety, victim mentalities, an infinite regression of evidence/arse-covering, a total lack of faith from the public leave the police pretty much hamstrung to do anything. And that’s before they get pulled into ever more trivial situations like the perennial ‘death-threats’ on twitter.
Does it stop abuse/neglect by police? Probably, some. Is it efficient? Not a chance.
Coppers love death threats / abuse on Twitter, NielsR, anything that compels them to criminalise harmless citizens and avoid contact with real criminals is like manna from heaven. What fun to lock people up and ruin their lives because of in judicious use of words or noting that muslims revere a pedophile.
why not ask Inspector Gadget?
I offer this solution without seeking a patent.
Get an old firebrigade truck and make some minor adaptations.
Use the ladder to supply a cable for the arresting officer, who attaches it round the ankle of the drunk. Man in the cab hauls in & guides the drunk (impossible to inhale your own vomit in an upside down position) to a safe hole in the wagon.
Arresting officer gets back in fire engine. Driver and arresting officer drive off. Job done.
Isn’t technology wunnerful.
If you ask nicely I’ll give you my solution for cheaper and more effective cleaning of padded cells as well.
@Diogenes “why not ask Inspector Gadget?”
Gadget covered this kind of nonsense extensively in his book, and was firmly against it. As Stuck Record says, blame the lawyers (sadly) plus Shami and the human rights lot.
Add in much more time and wasted money if the offender is (or claims to be) gay, ill, a traveller, unable to speak English, engaged in a dispute with a family member or cohabitee, makes complaints against the cops blah blah.
I’m no particular fan of the boys in blue, but they are in an impossible position.
@john77, but we know that even today, lots of drunks falling over aren’t responsible for their falling over, there was one prominent case of a drunk “falling over” in London some time ago. And the police seemed not to be held responsible either. Doubtless the same was true in yesteryear too.