Mother arrested in front of child by Met over bus fare (that she had paid!)

[TERFinTheHouse]

Tw: upsetting content

twitter.com/saskia_cole/status/1682705268721737728?s=46&t=p6GESSn09HWHVXYgTLIbJg

Why was this woman arrested like this!?! Her poor child!

According to other Tweeters, she had paid her bus fare BTW.

This👆🏼
If you don’t live in London, maybe you’ve missed the memo 🤷🏼‍♀️ but the Met Police are proven to be institutionally racist and misogynistic. This situation looks frightening. The police appear out of control and are escalating the situation. In my personal experience, London police officers are overly aggressive. I can imagine myself wanting to avoid this inspection and trying to walk away. Because dealing with toxic masculinity in front of my kids is demeaning. Anyone who isn’t scared by the excessive actions of the police in this video, isn’t paying attention - or is foolish enough to think it would never happen to them.

By the way, I’m a regular on FWR and it is not - in my experience - racist - but I note that many of the pps on this thread are not regulars.

I'm a whitebLpndoner and I agree with the above 100pc. I also live very near Croydon and go there pretty regularly. It's been left to fester by the corrupt local councillors and corrupt planning officers (Heather Cheesman and cronies) on the take from their building firm mates so they can snap property up cheap when the regeneration eventually goes ahead. In the meantime, they've been running it into the ground and central Croydon really does now have a post apocalyptic feel to it.

Crime and lawlessness and inadequate heavy handed police responses have inevitably followed. With respect, anyone that doesn't know the area possibly can't understand why this woman didn't want to cooperate. I do.

Also, has anyone actually established whetehr or not she simply got off the bus because it was her stop?!. It's school holidays and she had her little boy with her and a work bag and a small child's bag. There is a nursery near that stop. She could easily be dropping him at nursery on the way to work.

^how are handcuffs necessary when there are so many plods actually there? are they all incompetent nincompoops who can't imagine a) why someone might be hurling abuse and b) what the optics are (regardless of if they are right or wrong)?

Couldn't they have just kept standing in front of her? Are they all so hideously useless at their jobs we need to fire them all and rehire?^

Thanks for the gaslighting, nicely done.

That in no way backs up your statement that i think all male police officers are always wrong.

It does convey my disdain at professional officers who are unable to calm a situation down without resorting to handcuffs.

And since previously in the thread i have said that the reason she kicked off might have been because she's an arse, in no way conveys and proof of you thinking that i think all women are always right.

0/10. must do better

I live in East London, my partner is a police office in the most deprived borough of East London. He happens to be white and incidentally has worked in Croydon (lost a colleague of his to a gunshot wound as he was processing the suspect). I'm a first generation immigrant from a Muslim country so not only do I know what it's like to be a minority (female, POC, immigrant), I know what my partner has to deal with daily that no newspaper will ever report on.

He was recently trying to arrest a female suspect who had fled the scene of a robbery. Similar to this, a crowd formed launching at him and his partner for "manhandling" the woman - having zero context obvs except she was black and crying. The woman bit him and drew blood. Someone took a video that didn't show the biting, just the aftermath, and posted it on tiktok. If you want to know fear - it is trying to do your job while a baying crowd shouts "kill the pig" and you can see what are clearly gang nominals riling up the crowd. None of that can be seen clearly in the tik tok. Just a large group of police and the woman. In that moment I wouldn't have blamed the police for going "fuck this" and letting the woman go. But backup arrived, they stood their ground and made the arrest. Body worn camera showed they did everything by the book. This woman who was crying and sobbing at how she'd done nothing wrong was later found on CCTV robbing the off license and walking away when the owner tried to stop her. Of course, the crowd didn't know or care about the truth. Mob mentality. Luckily he didn't get ill off the bite.

My DP is the calmest man and has received a commendation for his handling of the situation. Unfortunately every single one of his colleagues believed it isn't worth making any arrests because of how little protection they get on the streets and everything can be blown up on social media to make a BS point. There are organised groups who go around filming the police making arrests and editing it on social media to cause unrest and spread hatred. A lot of the groups are funded by gangs or terror organisations who use the following chaos to further their own agenda and destabilise community-police relations. The only people suffering are their victims (trafficking, drugs, violence, gun crime, knife crime) and I can guarantee those won't be people on this forum.

All it took was a woman to cry wolf, a troublemaker to selectively edit it for social media, and an entire narrative has been created on why she did/what she did except the most obvious - she was a troublemaker. And for those saying she had to get to the nursery or work - do you really think she'd want to waste time abusing everyone, waiting for the police to be called, and delaying things if she had anywhere to get to in a rush...?

What's your point? all police are saints and heroes and all women are liars?

Nope - at no point have I generalised all police officers or women. I have only discussed this particular case and shared knowledge on why what you see on social media isn't always the truth. If you're going to insult the officers in that video, maybe read the account of the bus worker eyewitnesses or what the assistant commissioner has said after reviewing the case.

....Because she had agreed to show her ticket when demanded, and didn't.

It's really that simple.

Yet again, tickets do not exist on TfL

Your DH may be wonderful but he doesn’t represent the whole of the Met.

You have failed to acknowledge that the Met Police have been proven to be institutionally racist and sexist as a force by two independent enquiries, that the Met police commissioner has apologised for this. And that many Londoners’ day to day experiences of the police are reflected in the content of the video. And that the woman had not committed any crime.

Exactly this. Lots of people try to get away without paying , I was on a bus this afternoon and a woman was trying to persuade the driver to let her ride for free “It’s only three stops and if an inspector gets on I will talk to him” were her exact words. He didn’t let her on.

If you haven’t paid then you are taking that risk that you will get caught, but if you have paid just show your card to the inspector and that’s the end of it. The woman only has herself to blame, and is totally the one responsible for distressing her own child.

Actually, your point is irrelevant because 'ticket' is exactly how the Met and Tfl have described it. Just pedantic semantics because a ticket refers to Oyster/Pass/Contactless.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/woman-bus-fare-croydon-police-response/

@Ecclesfreckles who made you judge and jury in this case? Hold off with the troublemaker label until you have full facts.

If you are wondering why the handcuffs, they are to stop people possibly accessing hidden weapons , dumping drugs, doing a runner, or attacking someone. All of which can happen when someone is detained, even by a number of officers.

DP actually.

And I'm not talking about the whole of the Met - you are. I am talking about the specific officers involved in this specific incident.

Once again - she was arrested because she failed to show her proof or travel to in the inspector, the PSCO who arrived on the scene and then also the police officers. And was walking away (attempting to flee the scene). When she produced her proof of travel, she was released.

She may not have committed a crime but she carried on the act for helluva long time that she had done. That is why she was arrested. The police aren't mind readers - and refusing to show proof of purchase is an offence. Attempting to flee the scene is an offence. And abusing everyone while doing it just makes you a threat. No one goes into work to deal with this shit - not the bus drivers, ticket inspectors, police or the passengers.

Still, police officers should be able to defuse the situation without aggression. Do they even get any training in this stuff or rely on numbers and handcuffs?

You do have the full facts as released by the police commissioner and the bus worker.

She was asked to show her ticket by a ticket inspector.
She abused him and refused and got off the bus.
The ticket inspector called a PCSO who also asked to see her pass
She abused him and refused.
The PCSO called the police who also asked to see her pass
She abused them and refused and started to leave the scene.

No explanation offered to anyone as to why she didn't want to show her pass.
She was arrested in handcuffs for refusing to show her pass and attempting to flee the scene while being abusive
She shows her ticket.
She was de-arrested.

I'm not judge and jury - it's my opinion, based on the facts.

She did do something wrong. She failed to show that she had paid (I can't be bothered to argue over this 'ticket' nonsense). In doing so she inconvenienced other passengers and the driver. Presumably the situation with the inspector escalated so that the police were called. Again could have been avoided if she had just shown her ticket when asked.

I couldn't give a flying fig what colour she is or what sex she is. I do care that it appears that she inconvenienced other people and refused to do what she was asked to do.

It's unbelievable that there is anyone saying that it is ok that she refused to show she had paid.

TFL still call them tickets, even if they aren't physical.
I can only wonder why she didn't want to show the card that she had tapped in on....

Yes, the training is always to defuse the situation. No one wants to bring more officers out for something so minor, it's a huge waste of resources.

But when a suspect is being this abusive/aggressive and then riling up crowds and people taking videos by causing a drama - the numbers are brought in for safety. All it takes is one gang nominal or troublemaker in the crowd to use the incident to start a riot. That's why handcuffs and backup were called for.

@Ecclesfreckles I can see why you’re biased and not troubled by the police aggression, and quick to trust the official line. Which has been repeatedly wrong in the past. Enjoy your evening.

My God.

Did you even watch the video? Are you telling me that some woman randomly started shouting for help and accusing the boy of hurting her unborn baby over a bike was a normal reaction? How do you know she was already on it, were you there? The boy had already been using it ffs.

Did you not see her taking the 'scary mans (boys)' phone right out his hand in the actual video?? Or her take off her lanyard because she presumably realised the shit she'd get in? Or that she started crying then immediately stopped without any tears? Bet if it was a white person she wouldn't have done ANY of that.

The fact that you have no more evidence to suggest she as in the right and immediately went on her side says a lot.

And just to add...'he could have hired another bike' (so could she...from reports on receipts she tapped the bike while he as holding it and that's why she took his phone so he couldn't, his receipt is one minute differnce)...'she wanted the snazzy electric bike'..who cares what she wants?! I'd imagine the boy just wanted a bike (that he was already using) to get home with his friends and not have some entitled woman trying to take the one he had! Why believe her and not him? Because his story is far more plausible and nothing to suggest otherwise. Her performance was a disgrace.

Jesus wept.

All it took was a woman to cry wolf

Sounds like the point I was making about the woman with the bike.

Your DH might be nice but to pretend a police force that has already been proven to be institutionally racist is not racist because of one incident and because of what his buddies say is ridiculous.

More likely they don't want to push for arrests because they know they're wrong in the first place and the person isn't taking it. Otherwise they would go along with it and use body cams like you said happened in this one example. Surely they then wouldn't have to worry about it being seen as racist, it worked in that scenario so why not all the others?

Why are you admitting that police don't 'keep our streets safe' by arresting criminals because they can't be bothered with the hassle?

Oh, and police have always been called pigs by people who do not like the police. Only people I've heard call them pigs are actually white.

It was so distressing watching the little boy crying. He will never forget that, now he has already learned how he'll be treated. Over a bus fare.

Poor white male officers being vilified 🙄