The Police Application Thread

[Burnsy2023]

Lighten up, it was a joke.

My Police issue BS meter is off the chart.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Congrats. Keep up updated.

 

[Burnsy2023]

You are kidding, right?

Starting salary is £23,727 and the average working week is 40 hours making even the starting wage over £11/hour... You think this is close to minimum wage?

Yes, they work on sometimes and get rest days cancelled for courts but they get overtime and re-rostered days for cancelled rest days so they get compensated for it.


The top wage (which is given after 10 years service irrespective of capability) is £37,254 or £18/hour

NMW? eh, no....

I agree with your point, but starting salaries are lower now, down to around £19,000 thanks to Windsor.

 

[Burnsy2023]

But the knife happy person would get done for attempted murder, or whatever, so I can't imagine it'd be difficult to find the instances where that happened. Do so and alter the stats appropriately... I wouldn't have guessed it'd make much difference, but it'd be interesting to see.

Attempted murder? You are optimistic. It'd probably be downgraded to an ABH and he'll get off with some community service. I'm not even exaggerating.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Can you show me where that's happened after someone's repeatedly stabbed a police officer in their vest, hard enough to leave bruising underneath?

I can't show you anything public but the defence was that he was high on drugs and had no intent to murder.

ABH is dealt with as a pretty low level offence these days.

 

[Burnsy2023]

The MOD don't do nuclear sites, that's done by the CNC (Civil Nuclear Constabulary).

They do Faslane IIRC

 

[Burnsy2023]

Turns out that Teresa May visiting my station wasn't an April fools...

I made a speedy exit to a jab before she arrived. I don't really do hob nobbing with politicians, especially a Home Secretary like Ms May.

 

[Burnsy2023]

You jabbed the Home Secretary ?

Bloody autocorrect

Several officers took a tactical decision to be out of the station at the time to avoid any potentially jabbing or negligent taser deployments.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Only anecdotal but strangely enough was talking to a colleague while on break at work on Friday who'd recently left the MOD police and they were very very negative about it complaining of bullying and poor management but that is just their side of the story and they are too new for me to know whether the problem was them or the MOD.

I know there were a few Hampshire officers that transferred to MOD Plod. You have the ability to specialise which is nice, but most HO forces won't accept transferees from MOD - although that might be different if you have experience in a HO force.

I wish I hadn't rushed the last application, I know I can do this as I got through it all when I applied for the Met, I just need to take more time next time I guess.

Hampshire are recruiting internally at the moment and it's hugely competitive. I know someone who has had her application reviewed by at least 3 other officers who are very adept at these sorts of questions and she's a PCSO. I think for the 20 or so places they've advertised they may get 200-300 internal applications.

When you look at how many people externally apply for each place you realise it really does need to be tip top to pass the paper sift.

Do you officers not feel a bit hypocritical with regard to what's the going on in places like Iraq?

WUT?

 

[Burnsy2023]

Not trying to cause any upset, but genuinely curious:

How do those currently serving feel about things like protests? I know the police need to be non-partisan where possible, but how do you feel when you see things like this?

My first question is why is the video edited the way it is? Why doesn't it show any context beforehand? I've seen far too many of these types of videos where there is important context which is conveniently edited out to serve an agenda.

I respect the police and what they do, but I find it quite hard to reconcile the idea of doing the job when they are effectively a tool of an ideological state in situations like the above.

I don't see the conflict. If you're on a public order duty, you're there to make sure things stay peaceful and that highways aren't obstructed etc. People can protest quite happily if they stay reasonable.

What I'm essentially asking is: how do you deal with policing partisan events if you have leanings in their favour or against the state? Excusing the obvious 'bad eggs' argument, how do you feel when you see things like that video?

I'm there to do a job, my opinion isn't relevant when you're there to keep the peace. I'll happily voice it elsewhere but it's not needed nor solicited on duty.

 

[Burnsy2023]

I agree. So, let's be fair and assume context on either side. Let's assume in one context the officer was being antagonised or using self-defence. How do you feel about it then? Let's also assume that the protester was innocent, how would that make you feel?

So in the first context you're basically asking how do I feel if an officer uses lawful force, in which case my answer is that I use lawful force all the time and regularly justify it. If an officer can justify his actions as lawful it's not a big deal. It's just like asking how a builder feels using a hammer - it's completely normal.

If the protester was indeed completely faultless (which is unlikely in my experience) then that's a crap situation to be in and they are well within their rights to make a complaint. Like I said, it's rarely that black and white though, especially in public order situations.

As an interesting side question, how does it make you feel about people having clear agendas (re: editing)? Do you think it gives you an us vs. them attitude? Do you get frustrated or do you just brush it off? Is there a general consensus within the force about it?

Some people will always have agendas, but they are the minority and as long as we have the support of the vast majority I don't worry about it.

Understandable. You put on the uniform and do the job. How would you feel though, if you were (as an example) being ordered to 'kettle' peaceful protesters? I understand totally, the no qualms in dealing with public order, etc. but I'm curious in the dissonance when it's less black and white i.e. peaceful protest and heavy-handed tactics.

I would be very unlikely to get that order as I'm not a level 2 public order trained officer, but if I were I wouldn't have any issues. I don't have a problem with containment tactics generally. I have never seen "heavy handed" tactics used. I have seen robust tactics that may be seen differently if you're not privy to being there and having all the information though.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Assuming the protester was in the wrong, could you explain how the officer's actions were lawful? They seems a little OTT to me. I know editing doesn't help, but we don't see the protester strike the officer and the officer effectively assaults the other individual. The video suggests antagonism rather than self-defence (that is if the protester is in the wrong).

I've looked at it a few times and there simply isn't enough video to really make any sort of reasoned judgment to whether it was proportionate.

Say the protester put his hand on the officer's taser (assuming he had one) or gave him a shoulder barge. His actions to create a safe space would have been lawful.

What makes you think it's OTT?

 

[Burnsy2023]

He is assaulting him

Not if he's using lawful force, assault it the threat of unlawful violence.

punching him repeatedly in the face.

I see one push and one potential strike which doesn't seem to connect.

Punching someone in the head is dangerous; it can kill.

Yes it can.

Granted again, we don't know the full context, so let's just assume the protester for now didn't do anything physical and was merely mouthing off or ignoring instructions.

Perhaps ignoring instructions to move back?

So lets say the Officer asked the protester to move back. He didn't. In fact he moves closer. The officer would be well in his right to use force to move him back. The protester may have then retaliated which justified the strike.

I don't understand how attacking someone in that manner is proportionate. It's not as if the officer was alone or was being struck himself (from what we can discern).

Many people think that just because someone isn't using force, that it's never proportionate for the Police to use force. If you need to move someone for whatever reason and they cross their arms and refuse to move many people seem to think it's OTT for an officer to then use force to move them out of the way.

 

[Burnsy2023]

If the protester hasn't struck the officer, is striking them in the face deemed proportional?

It could be depending on the circumstances. There is case law to support the use of a preemptive strike.

I don't understand how punching someone is not OTT if someone is merely being passively non-compliant.

What about a push? Is it the use of force you object to or the method?

 

[Burnsy2023]

The method. Obviously this is assuming that the protester didn't strike the officer or anything similar first.

The officer could have pushed more, he could have restrained (plenty of colleagues on hand as we see to assist), he could have struck another part of the body to make his point. I'm assuming that he didn't have a baton to hand (if he did, he could have struck the legs).

I fail to see how attacking someone in such a manner is proportionate in anything other than self-defence. The officer is effectively attacking the protester. In all respects, it looks to me like the officer lost control of himself.

Perhaps, perhaps he did go a bit too far. Having been in these situations I've learnt that unless you're there and you have all the facts, it's very easy to wildly speculate and make completely false conclusions though. I also know that Police officers are human and also make mistakes.

 

[Burnsy2023]

"doing your job" is just following orders of a higher rank.

Where on earth did you get that from? Did you read any of the context whatsoever or did you simply ignore it?

 

[Burnsy2023]

How can a member of the public recognise a genuine warrant card?

If you were approached by a plain clothes officer and you asked them to identify themselves how would you know that their warrant card was legitimate? Are their certain markings or pieces of information you should look out for? Is there anything on a warrant card that would be tricky to forge, like a hologram?

I'm sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place but I thought it would be better to ask this here than to start a new thread.

They can't. I've had this chat before. Every force has different styles of warrant card and some have no security features at all. It's a silly system. Some officers have warrant cards without even their name, just their collar or warrant number and a photo.

If you are concerned about the identity of an officer, confirm via 999 if they are indeed who they say they are.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Thank you.

Do you get many problems with people impersonating officers?

No, it's really very rare, although does occasionally happen.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Mine has a security chip in it that activates entry to force buildings and I need to use it to start a a patrol vehicle.

We have that too. I have a smartcard for certain types of mobile terminal logons, it also has a RFID chip for door entry, but neither of them are hard to fake and not all Warrant Cards have smartcard chips.

We did have a few vehicles that required you to tap your warrant card to start, but the feedback from officers wasn't very positive so they stopped it.

 

[Burnsy2023]

I've got my name down for a Taser course. I can't do it until I'm confirmed in rank though. Seems like there us a few more courses opening up here too though, which is good. They've relaxed some of the rules of who can carry too, previously it was response officers only, now NPT can carry.

So, back in 2011 ACPO decided that taser could not be carried by probationers or specials. The reasons were poor at best.

A few months back the NPCC have revisited this decision and referred it to the CoP for guidance, so I think the chances of specials and probationers being able to carry are pretty good. There is certainly a reasonable amount of support from the NPCC.