Knuckle rap for riot shield sledging coppers
A group of Oxfordshire coppers caught on camera using a riot shield as an improvised sledge have had their knuckles rapped by their unimpressed superintendent: The original vid was posted on YouTube by Rick Latham, who was on Boars Hill, Oxford, on Tuesday when a group of officers approached him. He told BBC news: "I thought …
... what they use their nightsticks for ^_^
I agree with the bloke who posted it on youtube - it's nice to see the police having a sense of humour for once =)
they were reprimanded. There was someone usig video recording equipment, they shoul dhave been harrassing him!
That'll learn 'em!
Fail, because god forbid coppers should be normal people....
As a taxpayer I wholeheartedly endorse this video. It brightened my day! The officers involved should be given a day off!
Thanks, Old Bill!
Surely this is just the right thing for the Police to show at times, it lets people know that Police Officers are human too and not stoney faced authoritarian figues. If I saw a could of policeman having a quick go at sledging with the public I would be amused not outraged.
Admitedly using a riot shield was probably not the best idea, but hey....better that than the usual reason it is taken out of the van.
Some will say tobogganning won't lead to other things. I say it's a slippery slope.
Not THE Rick Latham who founded The Internet Bookshop, later to become WHSmith Online?!! :-O
Police DON'T arrest someone taking photos of them.
Leave'em alone, nice to see something showing the Police are actually human.
I want a riot shield next time it snows they look quality :D
Looks like they work much better than a dinghy.
Supt Andrew Murray needs to get back in his broom cupboard and lighten up, the coppers are only human and having a laugh.
Joyless bastard. A rare story about coppers just being human and they get bollocked for it.
And he went on to say "And the terrorist suspect who filmed them has been detained and will be dealt with in the near future using a new jury-less trial system"
The senior officer should away an bile his heid!
What a revealing insight into the thinking of senior police supervisors. Reprimand officers when they act like human beings (and cover up for them when they don't).
... clearly cuts no ice with this man. Let's hope the video doesn't cause this behaviour to snowball, or they'll all be on thin ice.
Sorry, but code reviews are SO boring.
A fairly expensive version of the cheap "bum tray" thingies.
Anyway, they had some fun. Locals were amused. Daily Hate readers were placated. Bit of press. All are happy.
I'd much rather see friendly coppers doing their jobs by keeping an eye on kids out of schools closed by snow also having a bit of fun with their riot shields, than the injury on my son's face which occurred when he was attending a peaceful climate camp demo and was attacked by a police constable with removed shoulder numbers using his riot shield as an offensive weapon. On that occasion out of control police also attacked a newspaper vendor who later died .
Not happy my tax money is being spent on this was blah blah blah lol only kidding..
Fair play to them beats beating a protester around teh head with them...
good for community relations
Superintendant is a dick
i know i know what if he broke the shield or a bone etc etc
ITS LIFE NOW GET ON WITH IT !!!!!!!
he can pay for the shield (which i personally would be worried if it broke cause its supposed to stop brick projectiles and cave in heads )
Keeps on sledding bobby's
Brownie points to these police for taking the chance to engage with the community!
I'd have done the same if presented with the perfect sledge and perfect hill, as they were.
leave your sense of humour at the door.
on a slightly more serious (?!) note, I think that reprimanding them for this is a bit of a public relations cock up.
fair play to 'em, it worked a lot better than i thought it would, nice run.
or does the phrase "two of them went down on their shields" give the wrong kind of mental image.
What were they doing outside on duty when there was snow on the ground? Had they filled in a risk assessment form covering potential injuries due to slipping?
It it just me or does that scene look like a live-action Banksy painting?
Ditto the sentiment above, too. That video is a better PR job for the police than anything I've seen in years.
Supt Andrew Murray should be giving away medals not reprimanding those men. This one act will do wonders for people's opinion of the Police.
It's actually nice to see the Police doing something fun/normal/whatever for once. This is probably the best bit of police PR since, urrm, in a long time!
Sorry about the bad pun, I know it's snow joke is it!
Maybe their super suspected them of playing Speed Beer?
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1386
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1389
I would have thought that they would have been able to justify this as something like 'community outreach'. It's quite refreshing to have the police use riot shields with you rather than against you.
Unfortunately it seems that, while the plod are human beings, the ones in charge certainly aren't.
This is getting involved with the community at its best - Showing that the police are human and have a sense of humour too.
Then the superintendent had to go and spoil it all!
...the world's biggest surveillance net consists of people with mobile phones uploading to youtube. Volunteer-based monitoring!
I dread to think how those occasionally extremely jovial coppers at Notting Hill Carnival and other public events are perceived by their commanders. Don't they realise that the public actually prefer to see the police revealed as only human ?
These coppers could have gone one better ... I'm thinking of "Mossley Dome Riding" from up t'north way back in the 70's - tie a dustbin lid to a vehicle and go land-surfing. That's a much better use of a riot shield and a tactical support vehicle than many others I can think of.
Its a pleasant change to see the police joining in with the community they should be commended for generating goodwill, but i assume they were really reprimanded for not beating they guy doing the filming to a pulp stealing his camera phone, arresting him and putting him on the dna database.
Those little round sheilds seem to be just the job. I wonder how the longer ones perform on snow.
If their super wants to tell them off, it should have been for not wearing protective headgear. Bloody good advert for joining the force.
Nothing wrong with what these cops did.... At the end of the day like others have said its nice to see them interacting with the public.
Supt Andrew Murray should get it own arse out of the office, get on the street and do things like that... then and maybe then the public may get on the side of the cops.
... with all those who said that the Super made a mistake.
Those coppers pulled off a blinding bit of community outreach, at no cost to the taxpayer and without getting involved with a load of paperwork and useless bureaucrats.
Perhaps that last is why the Super's unhappy about it?
I'm not surprised the Superintendent is annoyed. He will have to employ someone to create an entirely new form for the officers to fill out. That and he will get a kicking from health and safety over the illegal use of a riot shield. I can see those officers wasting more time filling out forms about the incident than they did doing the actual sledging!
.. for wasting the benefits that the jolly coppers brought to public relations.
Or maybe that's precisely the problem - somewhere a pork barrel public relations consultant has just found himself having to explain fees when a bunch of coppers behave like normal human beings and get almost universal praise for it.
Off with his head! No, wait, wrong century..
"Off with his head! No, wait, wrong century.."
Don't speak too soon, it's only 10 years in after all.
All those coppers, and not a single one of them used the anti-terror legislation to stop him filming ?
Is that Id rather see a copper sledging on a riot shield than using it for its intended purpose.
Clearly the superintendent has other ideas.
and use their own equipment. Of course Police are human, and that makes them fallible. Problem is the laws are just ridiculous, so the Police spend most of their time running around doing useless stuff at the beck and call of their political masters.
Wasn't there a murder to solve or an accident to attend, probably the later with the snow. All very amusing until you realise someone may have been dying of hypothermia in an upturned car. Police sledge whilst UK freezes.
You could be a police Super Intendent !
Or you could get a job writing sh1te for the Daily Mail.
.. this isn't the Daily Mail/Express website. People here have common sense. Oh, wait - you are the Superintendent, aren't you??
I'm a bit stumped. How were you able to determine that all half-dozen officers in that film had turned off their squalkie-talkies and/or were ignoring their dispatcher?
As for solving murders, I'm pretty sure that's more the CID's department.
Lets not forget that Supt. Murray only reminded them, and not reprimanded. Lets be honest, he had to be seen to be taking some kind of action, otherwise he'd be facing the backlash of the Daily Mail readership. Which he probably already is anyway, since they'll be still be expecting these police officers heads on a stick. 'Torture is too good for 'em' & ' Too busy fooling about, letting all the foreign rapists roam free' etc etc.. Besides, he probably had a laugh at the video too.
On the other hand, my boss would have sacked me instantly if he had seen just how many pirouette's my company vehicle can do in his company car park the other week...
No time to look for my bike that got nicked but plenty of time for sledging hey?
I'm so glad my taxes are paying for them to go sledging during work time instead of helping the elderly do their shopping or clear their paths in all this snow. Wonder if you'd like your water rates to pay for me to go sledging too?
I'm with Supt Andrew Murray on this one, do some work you lazy layabouts
