Question about the UK police

[jnelsoninjax]

I understand that most of the UK police force does not carry a firearm, and some carry tasers. I also know that there is a armed response unit, but it can often take a long time for that unit to respond. Is that the case?

[FloatingFatMan]

On 7/30/2020 at 9:38 PM, jnelsoninjax said:

I understand that most of the UK police force does not carry a firearm, and some carry tasers. I also know that there is a armed response unit, but it can often take a long time for that unit to respond. Is that the case?

All carry pepper sprays and a large number carry tasers, correct.  Armed response units can usually be on scene within 10 minutes but it very much depends on where the incident is happening.  However, bear in mind the size of the UK and our towns and cities.  Our cops don't have anywhere near the distance to travel as American ones do.

 

Also, there's another large factor involved.  British cops are heavily trained on deescalation of situations and the British public are almost never armed, so an armed response isn't needed anywhere near as much as in America.

[eddman]

14 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

British cops are heavily trained on deescalation of situations

This is a very big factor. There are many videos of US and UK police on youtube and the difference between their interaction with people is quite stark. US police usually have a much intimidating verbal interaction and tend to get aggressive very quickly, and in the majority of cases are eager to get physical.

 

The UK police are almost always very calm and their tone is quite neutral and even friendly in a lot of cases. If the citizen starts arguing or badmouthing, the police switches to a much firmer tone but still tries to remain non-aggressive.

 

This is obviously all anecdotal and I've also seen a lot of US police who are very polite and patient, but the percentage seems to be much lower compared to the UK.

[FloatingFatMan]

2 minutes ago, eddman said:

This is obviously all anecdotal and I've also seen a lot of US police who are very polite and patient, but the percentage seems to be much lower compared to the UK.

Indeed.  I think the root of that comes down to combination of a greater in general distrust of police in the US, and a fairly good chance that the citizen will be armed.

 

That said, what with all that's been going on lately in the world, a lot of the US distrust in the police seems to have spread to the UK too... It's really weird to watch TBH...