I noticed a very similar contrast watching the UK and US police responses to these Twitch streamers who were swatted. American SWAT team bursts in and arrests streamer at gunpoint even after they've established there's no threat, while UK police knock on door, ask a few questions and leave ("We got a call saying someone killed their family here." "Oh, no, do you want to speak with my mom?" "No, that's alright").

US: https://youtu.be/TiW-BVPCbZk?t=114 UK: https://youtu.be/Kda5rv_kyGs?t=30

That's an extraordinary phenomenon I haven't come across before(Hoax calls to police giving a streamer's address). People will do really stupid things for kicks.

The thing I'd really like to get is stats on exactly how often does the SWAT team go in hard and discover a situation that might otherwise have been mortally dangerous for officers. The other side being how often have they just found some shellshocked people, maybe some recreational drugs and a gun in a closet somewhere.

Probably helps that the UK doesn't allow guns.

We do, but we just have sensible gun laws.

Basically you can have a non-automatic shotgun or rifle as long as you agree to regular stringent inspections.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_K...

Yes, it was a bit of a generalisation. You wouldn't expect people to hve a gun in their house in the UK unlike the US.

I lived in London. Across the street lived a guy dealing drugs from his window. Like a drive through. This was in a nice area in Zone 1.

Due to the noise created two or three times a week by junkies who sat down there and got high, I called the police. About once a week around 2 or 3 AM for a few months. I took pictures documenting all the action and gave them to the police. When the police arrived in time to find the screaming drug addicts outside my window, they were just as you describe: incredibly polite, and ineffective. They would ask some questions then leave.

Please think about it from the perspective of the people whose sleep is disrupted night after night after night by substance abusers screaming and drunk people carousing, before we celebrate the kind and gentle bobby.

I think you're creating a false dichotomy. A reasonable police force would start with the gentle approach and escalate as necessary; staying stuck at "gentle" is obviously not ideal, but it doesn't follow that defaulting to violent aggression at all times is the right choice.

Let me clarify then: I am not in favor of a brutal approach to policing, but I am in favor of positive action. If it is 3 AM and residents have complained and there is a very loud scene outside, that is what the British call "anti-social behaviour." There should be consequences for that--not violence certainly, but perhaps a fine, and for repeat offenders, a free trip to the precinct to wait until they are sober.

The person I replied to praised the bobbies for letting them move their party elsewhere. It's entirely possible they went on to disrupt citizens in another part of town. The way London policing works, this sort of thing can go on all night--an "anti-social behaviour crawl." It isn't fair to the people who actually live there.

I do agree with you, but there is a big difference between disruption of the peace and an immediate and dangerous situation.

Partying and anti social behaviour should be dealt with over time with care. Things like dry zones, fines for property owners, police presence and steering the crowd somewhere less impactful.

While not fair for you to deal with, the punishment needs to match the crime. Guns and violence aren't appropriate as per America, fines for property owners could be a solution, and most immediate action such as jail or on the spot fines needs to come after the situation escalates, not on a neighbour's whim.

A word and a written warning is absolutely enough to begin with, if it carries on then start to escalate consequences.

In my experience most people will either leave or tone it down when police show up. Just their presence is usually enough to let you know to keep things reasonable.

In Australia we have some massive fines for things like disturbing the peace, which is why police presence works. 300+ depending on state. But they are not enforced until absolutely nothing else has worked.

I'd argue against the police escalating. The police should take evidence only in this case. The escalation should happen through court and the legal system since there is no one in danger here.

What do you want them to do? Subpoena the drug gang?

> defaulting to violent aggression at all times is the right choice.

or at any times.

Well, I dunno, I think it's reasonable to have training and procedures to deal with actual violent criminals. There just needs to be a lot more clarity on when overwhelming force is appropriate (very, very seldom).

Well, I was referring specifically to the "defaulting."

If you think drug houses in the US aren't a thing, you're sadly mistaken.

or loud parties/people for that matter.

If you want to say that the bobbies are ineffective because gentle, go on, say it.

Not being funny, but if your first concern is a good nights sleep, why move right to the centre of one of Europe's biggest cities?

Two things that people commonly do in the centre of cities is get drunk and buy drugs. They go to parties, nightclubs, pubs, they make lots of noise. That's the whole point of cities. They are supposed to be grimy, raucous and beautiful.

If you want a good nights sleep, move to the suburbs.

London's a big place, including quite a lot of residential areas. Cities are 'supposed to be' dense places where a lot of people live and work, not hipster party drug scenes. That's a byproduct of some cities.

Your London experience mirrors all my Canada experiences with this same issue. I think the US is the outlier here.

Your Canadian experiences mirror all my US experiences.

When I was a teenager I was in the room when police bust into a place with guns drawn. This was in a white/affluent area where mostly kids were playing Warhammer 40k. Someone thought the hard-cases people were using to transparent their minis looked like gun-cases and called the cops. American police are ridiculous.

To be fair, I've seen some of those miniatures cases up close, and they do kind of look like gun cases. The response was over the top, but I can understand someone getting confused and calling the police about them.

so someone suspected something wrong going on and called police. police acted on a tip. i can see why it might be ridiculous by whoever called police, but why police itself is ridiculed for that?

The criticism is due to the fact that they burst into the room with guns drawn. It was an over-reaction to a completely unknown situation that was about 99.9% benign.

The police's mantra of "overwhelming display of control and power" can certainly be blamed for that.

In addition, the original poster didn't indicate whether or not a warrant was served before entry -- is the police required to present a warrant while acting on such tips?

> The criticism is due to the fact that they burst into the room with guns drawn. It was an over-reaction to a completely unknown situation that was about 99.9% benign.

The cops received a report about armed individuals- that warrants an armed, yet retrained response, no?

Not necessarily, if the report has a high chance of being false.

On any given day, the odds that I will use one of my fire extinguishers is very very small, ditto the gun I carry concealed almost every time I walk out the door (have never used either, in decades). The odds that cops with such a referral will encounter weapons is a whole lot higher.

I suspect you're right, sadly. The reason it is especially likely is because of the same laws that allow you have your gun.

The chances of someone being armed and dangerous in general goes way up.

I'm not as sure. One could argue that if you removed guns from the equation while still retaining a population prone to violence the police would be in an even worse posture, because up close edged weapons are very dangerous and they don't wear stab vests (which I suppose they could switch to, but I'm told they're even more uncomfortable than soft ballistic body armor, which is bad enough). Prone to violence in that as I recall our edged weapon murder rates exceeds most of "the developed world's".

Watch Tueller Drill video, then factor in the police having to close with someone with an edged weapon, an option I as a civilian can almost always avoid. I say worse, because the public generally doesn't realize the danger people armed with knives poise.

The experience of Brittian is suggestive, it:

Started getting serious about gun control a century ago (fear of the Left, becoming panic with the Bolshevik's win).

Effectively outlawed the use of guns for self-defense in the '50s (courts) and '60 (statutory law).

Then went almost all the way to banning guns that might be useful for self-defense a few decades ago.

Hasn't helped violence, hasn't made much of a dent in "gun violence" as I recall, but could be wrong, and now the obsession is with knife control.

Which suggests a people problem, not an object problem.

(Then again, when the police are nationally centralized and used as a weapon to punish areas that vote "incorrectly" by mostly withdrawing their protection, you've got bigger problems, but again people problems.)

So, choose a different approach because it's an expensive, white neighborhood?

Expensive, yes. White, irrelevant. The solution to racial inequality isn't to punish white (or Asian, or any other "lucky" race) more.

we don't know what police been told. if neighbor told "they got machine guns and looks like are going to slaughter our neighborhood" - this is enough to break door with guns drawn in my opinion.

Trust, but verify.

Because P(gun|tip*neighborhood) is very small.

Really? I'm a Canadian who had an awful experience with US police. I was attending a music festival that had a noise complaint, officers came in with guns drawn. I've never seen this approach in Canada.

I'm an American who's only had good experiences with US police.

I'm not gonna spill all my interactions with the police on the internet, of course, but I've been to college parties where the cops just told us to shut up. I've been speeding once or twice and had the officers bump the ticket down or give me a warning.

Perhaps we have good cops over here in Washington?

I'm an American who's had very mixed experiences with the police.

I've had police give me arbitrary orders. I've had police in a state of ever-escalating anger while I'm being completely cooperative and saying not much more than "Yes sir, no sir!" I've had police rant and rave at me outside my car window. I've had police bury incidents of threats and physical intimidation against me as a favor to their friends. I've had police tell me bald-faced lies about the District Attorney's office that the District Attorney told me were complete fabrications.

I've also had very good interactions with the police.

I'm an Ivy League graduate and have often been a highly paid professional -- which was my status for most of the above interactions with the police. I have no police record of any kind. I am rather small in stature and have a meek personal demeanor and a clean cut appearance. I am, however, not "white." My interactions with the police have been astonishingly varied.

Being a teenager is a similar offense. In my teen days we drew the attention of 8 police officers (who circled the building) by sitting nearby a police officers wife who apparently didn't like our language. Mostly just frisked for drugs and whatnot; it became a running joke.

It depends alot on you. People that assert their rights, particularly their right to remain silent, often find themselves confronted with a power-tripping neanderthal armed with a loaded weapon and arrest powers. If you simply cooperate with them - answer questions etc. - you will likely have more pleasant interactions with them, however you dramatically increase your chances of having legal issues because of whatever you say or do not say to them.

This video [1], of course, should always be mentioned when discussing police interaction. In short, don't ever talk to the police. US Police are trained to make exercising the myriad rights we have both uncomfortable and counterintuitive. But you have to remember that by the time you are in front of a police officer, it's too late to talk your way out of whatever situation you are in. You can only make it worse by talking to them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

> Perhaps we have good cops over here in Washington?

My first year in college (in WA), campus police (actual po-lice with a campus jurisdiction) conducted a coordinated raid on pot dealers in the dorms which they treated like a raid on a meth lab : guns drawn, doors kicked in, loud noises, innocent bystanders thrown to the ground, etc.

Obviously, this isn't analogous to a party - and cops do in fact have a SOP they follow when it comes to drug raids - but I still feel like it was handled in an unnecessarily heavy handed and tone-deaf way that's somewhat symptomatic of a larger problem.

Heh I was just about to say that we shouldn't conflate one experience to "all cops in the US", but then realized all of my experiences have also been in Washington, so maybe we just have kinder police.

Because Police are trained state-by-state, county-by-county... and even city-by-city. Some cops are awful, other cops are fine.

That is crazy to me. I'm an American and in the probably twenty or so times I've interacted with police at various times in my thirty plus years, I've never once had a gun drawn on me nor had the threat or implied threat of having a gun drawn on me. I can't think of a single person I know well who's ever had a cop pull a gun on them either.

Are you white? There's your answer. Not even joking.

If the police barge in guns drawn does that mean they peek in the window first before they go in to check what the people look like?

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Every single time this topic comes up here there are always one off incidents of how violent the police are, or are not. These one off's really aren't useful either way.

Also another reason why police arrive here with guns drawn when they've been called to some kind of incident/argument/disturbance is there is a much higher chance that someone here has a gun and could do them harm. I'm not sure why everyone glosses over that fact when the USA has 300 million guns vs. some place like London.

>there is a much higher chance that someone here has a gun

valid point.

You don't have to look into a window to know whether you are in a black or white neighborhood.

I'm an American who had my windows smashed in by police supervisors because I asked them to identify themselves. In Winnipeg.

Don't think we're too far off from our friends down south.

I could imagine the SQ doing that.

I guess you have been a lucky duck!

Yes, apparently the US is the only democratic country where there is no distinction between the police and the army.

I've heard that France is similarly military in style, and that a lot of Europe is the same, their police culture is military. Britain was the one that innovated a civilian police force (as opposed to the older practise of using the Redcoats - the army). America copied us, but, has drifted towards militarism.

> I've heard that France is similarly military in style

The french situation is a bit complex.

* the national police is the regular police, they are more armed than bobbies but not heavily so (IIRC the standard sidearm is a SIG Pro variant — the SP2022), their jurisdiction is mostly cities and large towns but there are rapid-response, riot and anti-gang police units which tend to be more heavily armed, national surveillance also falls under the national police

* the gendarmerie is a branch of the military mostly tasked with police duties in small towns and rural zones (including highway patrolling), the regular gendarme may be somewhat more heavily armed than the regular policeman but not much so IIRC, they also have military police, special forces/counter terrorism units, maritime surveillance (and sea police), etc…

* finally since the start of the Infinite War (on terror) and the endless "vigipirate", actual military forces have been patrolling public spaces (e.g. train stations) more or less continually since the mid-90s.

I feel like there are too many Farva type cops that have seen one too many movies and think that's reality and the proper way to act.

I had no idea American police were trained like army recruits. It explains a lot.

I actually heard somewhere (TV probably) that army members are actually trained to try to avoid escalating conflicts like this.

It's true. In both advanced individual training (the job specific one that follows the famous "basic training") and before deploying to Afghanistan, I underwent a good amount of tactical and combat training. In both situations we were not only taught proper protocols for "escalation of force" and "rules of engagement" but also threatened with doom if we didn't follow them.

It varies on many factors, but generally before pulling the trigger you have to visually identify a threat, yell a verbal warning, show your weapon as a warning, fire a warning shot, aim at the threat and repeat the verbal warning, then fire if necessary.

Obviously this doesn't apply to full-combat situations, but for instances of the type that our domestic police force encounter, it most certainly would. It's so ingrained that I always wonder how we have so many occurrences of police shootings.

Sad situation, especially because (imho) the vast majority of police are amazing, selfless, community minded heroes, whose profession is besmirched by these brutal thugs who share their uniform.

If the percentage of "good ones" is so high, why do they protect the "bad ones"?

I agree, that's definitely part of the problem. "Closing ranks" to protect each other is, I think, an inherently loyal and noble response, but it has to be tempered by humanity and reason, and that does not seem to be happening.

There is probably also a strong element of fear- as mentioned in the article, many of these police really are trained in aggressive response, and that becomes both muscle memory and instinct, it genuinely does.

I think many great officers imagine the "what would I have done" and in their doubt and worry over that hypothetical, provide a unified front against the repercussions of justice for their fellow officers, in case the same should ever happen to them.

"Never rat on your own" comes ingrained with the Y chromosome. Nobody likes a snitch. And being branded as one is for a lifetime and it shuts you outside of all social networks. For obvious reasons spies get a pass here. Throw some "Real man deal with their own problems and not call authority" and you have potent silencing mix. It is hard to verbalize, but it is real.

The statements I read defending police violence suggest that it's necessary and appropriate to protect the lives of police. I feel like the military accepts that if you carry a gun for a living, there's inherent risk in that, and it doesn't justify leading always with overwhelming force.

One of the names for these folks used to be "peace officers"....

I'm pretty sure that police are in most first world countries too.

The US confuses me a lot. Is it the presence of guns that makes them train like that, or just bad policy?

Both, and the mixture is especially toxic.

With less discipline and more self aggrandizing macho bullshit.

Totally agree. There's no way a person can be grounded in any semblance of reality and still pull those kinds of shenanigans.

I'm the first to admit that American policing is overly violent and militaristic, but I do think your experience was unrepresentative. I have been to many parties in the US that were broken up due to noise complaints. It was always more like your Whitechapel example than your Gainsville one.

Your London story is how noise complaints are typically handled in the US as well.