Published on 12, July, 2020
Recently in another thread, a few of us started talking about our experiences at the hands of our police force, in the "Autistic son" thread and the discussion took an unexpected turn, where a number of people stepped up including myself, to pass comment.
Subsequently, an organised assault was made on several of people's accounts, where our complaints and refusal to accept the reframing of truth offered by the pro-police faction was said to be "abuse". I've since spent a fair bit of time talking to my mostly NT friends and acquaintances about their experiences, with our modern police force, and it seems my experiences are not so unique.
Most people I know have very little involvement with the police, and generally are complimentary UNTIL they DO need some help and find out how it really works. Here of course, we are more likely to have interactions with them directly, so there is a greater pool of experience available.
SO PLEASE:
Down vote me. if you believe they serve us well, and up vote me if your think they serve someone or something else who isn't us, the paying public.
If you have any stories (good or bad) which you wish to share, feel free to do that, below.
Tried to do a POLL as requested & got an incomprehensible error message and today is not a day where I feel like struggling with someone else's software. (Having used & administrated forums by https://www.phpbb.com/ mostly, I'm not finding this one easy to work with at all).
Just up or down vote my OP using teh little up down arrows. Be careful though, once you've clicked on up or down, your vote is in and can be changed, but not undone.
It's a yes no question, and both the scores and voters are transparent to the audience.
for every 1 bad police experience you see there are 1000 great experiences you dont hear about. police helping kids get home going to communities and being a positive experience. there is a guy who has a facebook page and he is a really respected officer in his community.
not to forget most of the time the bad experiences with police context is always missing. some of them you see the camera footage and the police cross the line for no reason but other times the person provokes and doesnt listen which makes police feel they are hiding something.
every experience ive had with the police has been fine. stopped and searched many times and not once have they been forceful or aggressive i comply and they do their job appropriately then i go home safe. if you have nothing to hide just comply. if someone breaks into your house or comes to attack you you can call the police they come to your aid.
a lot of these times people have let social media warp their perspective on police or they have not been compliant with police which creates a hostile atmosphere. also its good to know your rights just dont be disrespectful about it.
Vesters, thank you for your input. I am glad you feel you have had good experiences interacting with the police, although you only actually describe being "stopped and searched", which I'll grant you can be an amusing experience, if you get the right copper, but generally, I've had some pretty disgusting interactions with the police mostly as a victim of crime.
Some good ones, when I've been a "useful & intelligent bystander", and some truly awful ones back when I was a "minority of interest" A motorcyclist in the seventies / eighties. Oddly enough, on the very few times I have been caught doing something properly naughty, the police have treated me like "one of their own" almost., which confuses the hell out of me.
I personally hold that the "venn diagram of society" consists of three separate groups; Consisting of the Police, the criminals & US the prey. A Chief Inspector, who fell prey to me presenting this view to him at a social occasion, blamed "Home Office Guidelines" rather than choosing to attack the validity of my model...
What about that?
Do you have any links to the police by any chance? We autistic people are easy targets for police as they interpret our unusual actions as criminal.