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Cheers - AE

Friday 6 August 2010

Not exactly Dixon of Dock Green.

Via the Filthy Engineer, another example of the wonderful professionalism of British police.




Full story in The Tele, and to be fair the driver's excuse is either a bit on the thin side or should raise the question of whether he's fit to drive. Still, even with that in mind the reaction seems hard to justify. On the other hand he's not actually dead as far as we know, so maybe we should applaud their restraint.

4 comments:

JuliaM said...

I think what we have there is a classic case of 'red mist syndrome' - once the chase has started, it's on, and all semblance of training is forgotten.

Notice how the one attempting to smash the driver's side window keeps on, long after somone without the adrenaline pumping would have stopped and thought 'Well, this clearly isn't working, is there a better way?'...

I think one of Terry Pratchett's novels ('Guards, Guards', maybe?) has the line in it that policemen, like terriers, are conditioned to pursue anyone who runs.

Angry Exile said...

So you're suggesting that some of them don't have very good self control? Yeah, I think you could say that. Just what you want in a police officer.

JuliaM said...

Well, it seems that we are foolish to believe the evidence of our own eyes - over on Gadget's blog, it seems this is perfectly within guidelines and not dangerous at all, and the officers acted with restraint...

However, it seems this pensioner hasn't just had this one brush with police.

Old Holborn tweeted this yesterday.

Angry Exile said...

I couldn't find anything about it on Gadget's blog but I'd note that being 'within guidelines' was the same excuse trotted out by several hundred troughing bastards of all political stripes to explain why they were feathering their nests with taxpayers' money, and why so very few of them are being prosecuted for it. The point is not whether it wasn't excessive according to some Holy Writ handed down from heaven by the ghost of Robert Peel but whether they genuinely needed to smash the windows in to arrest a seventy year old stroke victim with a heart condition.

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