Channel 4 - To Catch A Copper

[NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting]

Thoughts?

I was luckily able to watch this during work due to my job and it absolutely SHOCKED me to my core and really affected me.

Never mind any police training, wouldn’t your gut have kicked in that there was something v wrong medically. The call to the nurse should have been “I have some concerns, he is displaying confusion, complaining of head pain, please can you examine and give your medical opinion “.

I think that call took place -the HCP was requested but took 3 hours to see Reon. That's not as unusual as it should be.

The police handled the bus incident very badly. The bus driver told the police the woman 'had been rude' to him. He didn't mention any threats or violence from her. I presume he would have if that had happened
The woman said the bus driver didn't have change. The policy where I live is you get a change receipt or they just let you on. Same if the card machine fails for example.

When the police first spoke to the woman she was calm. She became agitated when Social Services were mentioned. I abhor SS being used to threaten people. They believe this might result in them losing their children and this is exactly why the police officer mentioned it. She should be told to never use SS as a threat again as it reinforces the view that SS are there to punish people and not to help.

The police escalated the situation and agitated the woman into her actions. I think everyone should use this as a lesson if how anyone can fall foul to the police if they decide your face doesn't fit that particular week. I will never forgot how much time and energy was spent on harrassing people walking to work or sitting on benches during Covid when law abiding people were suddenly 'criminals'.

Agree, the thread of social services was abhorrent. Accused her of shouting in front of her child when she did no such thing.

The female officer then stated in debrief that she'd used the same line countless times to great effect, as if that made it OK. She tacitly acknowledged to making things up.

Prime example of using massive power imbalance to bully & coercice into compliance - which is, by definition, abuse. She should have been hauled over the coals for that.

Agree, the thread of social services was abhorrent.

Yes, that was cruel. Almost any mother is going to feel extremely defensive when they hear that (I know I would), and sometimes defensive people act with anger.

When there was no actual intention to refer to SS, it was just deliberately inflammatory.

Spot on - and after that threat its not really surprising that she refused to let go of her child when told to. Should have been obvious to the WPC that that was a natural consequence of her threats.

To the PP who said the bus driver should have issued a change receipt or ust let her on the bus I agree but sadly that isn't how that bus company operates - my DD was kicked off one of their buses on her way to school because the card reader wasn't working. They were really unhelpful when I complained too.

Using social services as a threat was the absolute antithesis of policing by consent.

It does actually. The poster shows clear inability to be anything but racist. Your inability to understand micro aggressions shows how little you understand the topic. I can critically think that the comment comes from a place lacking intelligence, potentially due to social background, the way they were raised and their experience. However, they are racist.

I find it so astounding how people don’t see where the racial insensitivities were in the program and how it absolutely wouldn’t have happened to a white person. Then, I am actually trained in this field so know how it works.

I have also been through police brutality towards family members, witnessed the non-racist racist people act racist but say “my friend is black” because they’re so fucking stupid. So I am sick of posters like Dee from Kent and the comments like yours that show you cannot research and grasp basic facts because you’re so consumed by your own judgemental inability to perceive situations.

@janiceiand

Sure.

You grasped all of the message in under a minute? Proving my point.

@janiceiand if you say I'm racist then I must be racist. Because of your personal circumstances that only you understand and no one else does. Gotcha.

I don’t think they mentioned that the external video was filmed 40 minutes in but they did say at one point during the body cam footage that it had been 20 minutes since the woman had first refused to get off the bus, so I think a viewer could reasonably have worked out that by the time the back up officers arrived and the incident we saw filmed happened, we would be quite some time into it all. It would be inference and not direct narration though.

My 2p worth. Perhaps the attitudes of the police officers aren't keeping up with the attitudes of society in general, understandably IMHO, due to its now multifarious standards of what is and isn't acceptable and appropriate behaviour. I've watched 2 episodes of this and found 1. I didn't recoil in horror to the response to the poor bridge lady as it seemed she was a regular and it's easy for the outsider to judge that the officers should have endless patience responding to repeat callouts. The problem is more a systemic one of the police now being front and centre in mental health episodes instead of purely fighting crime ones. 2. Why was there no mention of the obvious question as to why Cocking took it on himself to escort the lady home? Wrt bus lady why exactly did she dig her heels in? But also why did the police? I bet the officers called to help another officer were perplexed at it being to a woman and her child on a bus. The community leaders faced with this seemed as institutionally hardwired to what was the acceptable response, as the IOPC were to theirs. C4 chose to show the outcome for poor Reon to us the viewers from the get go, thereby prejudicing our view by the benefit of hindsight which the officers did not have.

I'm about as white as you can get - very pale skinned celt - and I am appalled at your post - yes you are racist.

@londonmummy1966 good for you. I'm not racist just because a poster, sorry two including you, say so on such limited info on Mumsnet. I'll sleep ok tonight.

The bus incident was just flawed from the outset really. I mean what actual crime had been committed? An argument about a fare on a bus isn't something the police should respond to. Sometimes it's best that the police not get involved in low level disputes like this. I think the bus company should have dealt with it themselves. Let her travel but then send her a warning letter, ban her from their services or whatever but it didn't need police.

Same with the incident in a London school where police were called and wound up strip searching a black child because the teacher thought they smelled cannabis. Would not just a detention have sufficed?

I don't agree with everything about the Right Care Right Person policy that Humberside police started and is being rolled out nationwide but I do agree with some of the thinking behind it that actually sometimes calling the police is not the right thing to do and can just inflame matters and make things worse.

Half the time when police are called to 'mental health' calls actually leaving it alone is the best thing to do. Very few of these people are psychotic, manic or even depressed in a way that would benefit from an urgent mental health response like hospital admission. Many of them are intoxicated or, like the lady on the bridge in the first episode, this is a habitual maladaptive coping strategy. It's actually unlikely that she hasn't been offered any input at all by mental health services and more likely that she either chooses not to engage with what's offered or she does engage but she still goes to bridges because it takes a long time and a lot of DBT to change ingrained coping strategies. I'm not saying police can make those calls on their own as there will be some people who do need hauling off the bridge and admitting to hospital but if there was more investment in joint working initiatives it would really pay off. It would save police time and be a better service for the people concerned.

I've just come on to see if there was any discussion about this after finishing the second episode. I was really confused from the beginning when the cheif superintendent I think it was, was talking to the community reps about the bus incident and he was soo convinced that they didn't understand the full picture. It was fairly obvious one of the options would have been to step right back and descalate the situation but no police people thought that.
When the diversity officer suggested doing nothing in the ' reflection' session it was countered with the reiteration that the police officer hadn't done anything wrong.
I find it interesting that they use reflection only when somethings been called into question.

I thought it was a shame that no one on the bus offered to pay her fare. I would if a mother was unable to pay her fare for some reason and needed to pick a child up from school. At least the police officer offered her a lift.

There was literally nothing defective about that conversation was there?

OMG do you hear yourselves, 'everyone is against me because of my colour, religion, sexuality, etc etc etc blah blah..... grow up! You know what, I feel that you expect everyone give you a free pass because of those things, try saying to yourself, 'its not because I am black, it's because of something socially unacceptable that I've done. So fed up with the poor me card being thrown out there. This country bends over backward to be fair to minority, marginalised, refugee and migrants that live here, what more do you want? Why do you think people want to come and live in the Uk? because it is a great place to live where everyone is treated with respect and empathy wherever possible.

Yes, Reon did ask for a nurse and one should have been got for him, but I would think that many people that get arrested do things just to be annoying when in custody, it's probably difficult to know who is genuine.

Also, I new as I wrote about my many non white, non heterosexual friends and family that you would jump on the chance to say that what you did, how predictable of you! But, I don't have an issue with peoples colour or any other thing, I take people as I find them, you should try it instead of tarring everyone with the same proverbial, bias and stereotypical brush. I think you are more of a racist than anyone I know.

And, for your information, I too am a professional with 2 Phds or was you thinking that I was unemployed white trash with a swash sticker on my living room wall? Sorry to disappo

*knew

Well said Iwasafool, I agree with everything you said. I too would have paid her fair but she was not very friendly and I would be worried that it would be taken the wrong way like I was saying she was too poor or something, it's hard to tell these days. I find it constantly challenging what is or is not correct to say/do and often feel that I said the wrong thing even to family members. It is a sorry state to find ourselves in when we are too afraid to speak to anyone about anything for fear of causing offence.

😂😂😁

That is an unusual way to write swastika.

Two PhDs is quite the thing.