Police | Wood's World

The Police - Provocation and Violence

July 6th, 2009 Russ Wood No comments

The fundamental problem with the powers a police officer has, is that the position attracts two very different types of applicant. The first being a person who genuinely wants to do good and utilise that power by (arguably) helping society. The second being a person who wants to have power over the general public to feel strong and to have the ability to commit what would be crimes for any non police or non military civilian.

I’ll start out by recounting two separate experiences I’ve had with the police that have inspired this article.

1: I was attending a climate change protest in London in 2006, this consisted of a march around the streets of London, culminating in a series of speeches made by various campaigners outside the American Embassy. Some time during the procession past the houses of parliament, a policeman, overseeing the march from the side of the road, inexplicably picked out a young woman from the crowd in front of me (18-21 years old approx) and grabbed her quite forcibly, dragging her to the side of the road and though a small opening of a police barrier. The young woman had merely been marching peacefully along with the protest. As a result of this incident several other members of the crowd (mostly male) went across to remonstrate with the policeman, an argument and a bit of commotion ensued. This could have easily lead to violence, thankfully this time it didn’t.

I know from reading elsewhere and talking to other friends, that this isn’t a one off incident. This really highlighted to me that the picture often portrayed by the media, of unprovoked harassment or attacks from protesters or the public in general is often false or missing important details. The policeman had quite obviously picked out a young female from the crowd, aggressively, for no other reason than to stir a reaction from the surrounding protesters. These protesters had every right to be annoyed. However, I saw it for what it was, the young girl didn’t seem to be in any real danger of getting badly injured provided that the crowed did not react, causing violence to break out. So I did not remonstrate with the policeman. Provided that the victim isn’t in any imediate danger, this is the advice I would give to anyone viewing a similar incident. However had it been a friend or a family member I don’t think I would have been able to stop myself – this is how violence between police and protesters often breaks out.

2: I had got tickets to go and see England vs. Ukraine, a football world cup qualifier at Wembley Stadium. I was travelling to the stadium with three other friends via the London underground. Not long before this Boris Johnson (mayor of London) had decided to ban drinking alcohol on the tube or in a tube station.

A friend and I both had a can of beer to drink whilst walking to the ground from the station. We were waiting, beer in hand, at the exit to the station for our two other friends to catch up, when a police officer approached us. Without saying a word he made an attempt to snatch the beer can from my hand, as he grabbed the can he realised my can was unopened, discovering this he then moved on to my friend who had just that minute opened his beer. He took the can, stating “you can’t drink in the station”. We began to protest, being as we were arguably standing outside the station. But the police officer, quite abrupt to the point of being rude, was having non of it. As far as he was concerned he didn’t want us to have that beer, so we weren’t going to have it. An onlooking police officer had viewed the incident and made his approach. When he arrived on the scene he had a short word with the beer stealing police office along the lines of “What are you doing? They are clearly exiting the station” a brief exchange of words between the two and our beer can was returned.

This is an example of the two types of people that become police officers which I mentioned in the first paragraph of this article.

My two experiences were very mild incidents compared to many and they annoyed and frustrated me. I can only imagine the anger caused if something like the incidents in the following videos were to happen to me, a friend or a family member.