I've never had any real issues either. Stop-and-searched a few times as a long haired student in the late 70's - I used to help with student theatre and often travel home late at night with something that looked like a tool bag, so probably looked like a burglar.discovolante wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 11:39 amI've been reflecting on how differently the police treat me in different contexts. I wonder if anyone else has similar experiences. When I'm at court for work, looking vaguely professional and it's clear who (or rather what), the police are an absolute delight. Friendly and helpful and go out of their way to help if I need anything. Which is nice. Except they're totally different when I see them approaching or arresting people. And they are cold and slightly intimidating if I'm say, at a protest (I know much worse for others). When I did a brief stint of police station representation it was a bit variable, I would say largely professional but with a hint of 'I'm being this way because I have to'. When I was at a demo yesterday (in Scotland) they were fine because they knew we were no trouble as it was all nice middle class middle aged people.
Obviously the police across the UK consists of many many individuals, but the fact that I'm treated with much more respect (almost bordering on deference) in some contexts and borderline contempt in others, even though I'm not committing an offence, gives me the creeps a bit.
I'm not saying this for it to be about me though, I've never to date had any actual problems with them, just felt like commenting on it.
Also this is the Met so wrong thread but Señor von Laté is currently in London and on one street they have live facial recognition cameras set up. There is a sign saying you don't have to walk down the street if you don't want to...
My guess is that police are worse to deal with the more of them are present, partly because of the situations when they are grouped together, and partly because it encourages an "us and them" mentality. Oddly, the few traffic stops I've had were extremel;y polite.
I do remember a random breath test of all members leaving a car club christmas dinner. Being a car club we were all very fond of our licences, which made for a very unproductive evening. Policeman was obviously a bit bored by my turn.