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Funny and Gentle Arrest by Norwegian Police.

Those two officers remained so cool and calm, just realising his behaviour was down to being drunk and there's not a lot they can do about that, just let him sleep it off.

Can you imagine the same situation with American police. The guy would probably be dead!
 
I hope and expect the British police would, for the most part, be similar in the same situation too.

At one part, there's an exchange about him having a temper, and he replies something like 'Of course, I'm from Lofoten'. I've heard of the Lofoten Islands, do the inhabitants have a reputation for being aggressive?
 
I hope and expect the British police would, for the most part, be similar in the same situation too.

At one part, there's an exchange about him having a temper, and he replies something like 'Of course, I'm from Lofoten'. I've heard of the Lofoten Islands, do the inhabitants have a reputation for being aggressive?
I've been there. Don't recall people being unusually bellicose.
 
I hope and expect the British police would, for the most part, be similar in the same situation too.

I guess it would depend on a lot of things, the actual police, whether they were being watched, whether it was the end of the shift and they were tired....
 
I guess it would depend on a lot of things, the actual police, whether they were being watched, whether it was the end of the shift and they were tired....
To be fair to all concerned the Norwegian incident appeared to be during the day, an isolated incident, with one person who wasn't being aggressive, and two cops who weren't being hassled, pressured or otherwise distracted. I'd not expect them to be as genial and tolerant on a typical British high street at 11:00pm on a Saturday night. I think, in similar circumstances to those of the Norwegian incident, British plod would mostly be expected to behave much the same.
 
They're going to weigh up the possibility of it turning violent and go from there. To be honest it looked as if they knew him, it might well have been a case of "oh Christ, old Sven has been on the sauce again, Lars and Erik, you're near there, can you sort him out please? Either persuade him to go home and sleep it off, or if he won't then bring him in".

A workmate of mine got scraped out of a gutter many years ago, was charged with D&D. The copper in that case didn't get excited, just radioed for help, put him in the van, and back to the station for questioning before being tossed in a cell and evicted at about 630 the next morning. He had a walk home of about an hour and no breakfast.
 
A lot of policeman in a lot of countries would have charged him with breach of the peace and quite possible attempting to assault a police officer. While I do think those cops handled it sensitively there might be a case to say that, given it was the 23rd time it had happened, then perhaps it might better in the long run (including for the chap himself) if he did get charged with something.
 
A lot of policeman in a lot of countries would have charged him with breach of the peace and quite possible attempting to assault a police officer. While I do think those cops handled it sensitively there might be a case to say that, given it was the 23rd time it had happened, then perhaps it might better in the long run (including for the chap himself) if he did get charged with something.

A subtle but interesting point. Police are in some cases asked to deal with problems that should have been referred to other services, and those services deal with it. Sadly due to numerous factors this doesn’t always happen. The classic example is mental health, where service-users needing appropriate treatment used to be detained inappropriately and unnecessarily.

I recall a persistent drunk caller. We tried to sign post him to other services to deal with the underlying themes. The agencies concerned said the man should be prosecuted to trigger those services protocols. This was wholly unneeded and inappropriate.
 
I recall a persistent drunk caller. We tried to sign post him to other services to deal with the underlying themes. The agencies concerned said the man should be prosecuted to trigger those services protocols. This was wholly unneeded and inappropriate.
I think this is a persistent theme. Any number of times you hear "I kept ringing and asking for him to be taken to a mental hospital, they said no, because he hadn't done anything (yet). So I rang the police, they said that he hadn't broken any laws (yet) they couldn't do anything either. Then after a week of these conversations he killed his mother" .
 
I think this is a persistent theme. Any number of times you hear "I kept ringing and asking for him to be taken to a mental hospital, they said no, because he hadn't done anything (yet). So I rang the police, they said that he hadn't broken any laws (yet) they couldn't do anything either. Then after a week of these conversations he killed his mother" .

That was kind of my point i.e. getting arrested and charged could be a conduit to him getting help. I'm not saying it's right that it's the case though - just that it is that way in a lot of places.
 
S136 MHA was something I dealt with a lot. Understanding if a service user was suffering an acute mental health crisis was not what officers had been trained to consider, nor the fact that once detained the S12 approved medic could say ‘this person isn't suffering am AMHC’ (Line of Duty acronyms;)). Officers had to ensure they investigated crimes until the mental health status of the service user was proved.

Street triage was a game change in this regard. http://www.nottinghamnortheastccg.nhs.uk/nhs/mental-health-nurses-hit-the-streets/

S
pot the dodgy PFM member!
 
S136 MHA was something I dealt with a lot. Understanding if a service user was suffering an acute mental health crisis was not what officers had been trained to consider, nor the fact that once detained the S12 approved medic could say ‘this person isn't suffering am AMHC’ (Line of Duty acronyms;)). Officers had to ensure they investigated crimes until the mental health status of the service user was proved.

Street triage was a game change in this regard. http://www.nottinghamnortheastccg.nhs.uk/nhs/mental-health-nurses-hit-the-streets/

S
pot the dodgy PFM member!

The street triage sounds similar to what many folks in the US are calling for - for the police to become part of a larger public safety organization that includes mental health professionals.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/n...-prude-911-mental-health-response/6819744002/
 
Too often the police have to spend time dealing with issues that would be more appropriately dealt with by mental health services and social work departments. There should be a more integrated approach which over time would save money and result in a better deal for society.
 
I hope and expect the British police would, for the most part, be similar in the same situation too.

At one part, there's an exchange about him having a temper, and he replies something like 'Of course, I'm from Lofoten'. I've heard of the Lofoten Islands, do the inhabitants have a reputation for being aggressive?
I went pony trekking on a beach in the snow on the Lofoten Islands. The locals seemed very friendly. They collected my group from the port, chatted to us in the minibus, looked after us at the stables and then took us to the next port on the post boat's itinerary. Wonderful memory. It's just a pity that the Northern Lights didn't appear while we were on the beach.
 


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