The Police

London...... London...... London....... so many police, that are so tremendously ineffective... at first site.  Before the new year the officials here in London politely asked the Occupy St. Pauls to vacate promptly. Due to my US upbringing I assumed this meant they would get about an hour before the pepper spray, batons, rubber bullets, and tear gas came out.

Nope, that is not what happened. In fact the only thing that has happened so far is the camp has gotten larger every time I run past it. They keep mainly to themselves, and frankly don't smell at all.  I do think that they could use some consulting on how to make their information tent more inviting. The main point is that although the have been sternly told to leave, their refusal has not led to an incredibly over the top response by authority figures.

We have also been watching quite a few of the cop shows. One cop pulled over some teens that were going quite a bit too fast around a circle.  Instead of just issuing a ticket the cop pulled the kid out, showed him how the inside of his tire was going completely bald because of how he was driving.  He also assisted the kid in changing his first tire.  The ticket still came, but a valuable lesson as well.

I like that the police that one sees on the street aren't even carrying pepper spray.  They are informative personnel with only the weapons of pen, paper, radio and the British legal system.  There are elite squads that do carry pepper spray, and even more elite squads that carry guns.  The more weapons they carry, the more they are trained, as the misuse of these often leads to public distrust like what happened this summer. What you would never, ever see here, is a university rentacop with minimal training, less education and a obvious hatred for college kids armed with military grade pepper spray or a NY cop with a vendetta against already contained women carrying the same.  What you generally see here is a mutual respect between public and public servants.

This all gives me the sense that the government is afraid, if only a little, of the people, and not the other way around.