Return_of_the_STAR wrote:Sadly people arguing with the police at cordons is a very common thing. People think they have a god given right to walk through them. Usually they try to slip through and pretend they haven't seen them. Others rudely demand they be let through as they are late for something important. Even if theirs a dead body or dying person just yards away.
I was concerned it might have been an unlawful arrest regardless of however it affected me so I did some reading from both the law but also some freedom of speech and protest rights advocacy groups.
They were probably charged under section 5 of the public order act 1986, but arrested under later powers (as not all charges or accusations carry penalties of any kind or warrant an arrest or anything for that matter), as they didn't have a reasonable grounds, such as organised protest, to harass the officers. They had basically no point and just kept telling the officers that he didn't agree it was necessary and they can't tell him what to do. Ok cool. Except they
probably can, they're the police.
I feel the difference in that choice of words there is important: someone can or cannot, or could or could not, or might but might not, tell you to do something (he was asked, not told) but you can choose how you act accordingly. He chose to have a massive one sided vitriole about it instead. It's a basic tenet of behavioural psychology that a healthy person can aim to
choose how they act in accordance with thoughts and behaviours, both in how we function as individuals but also in response to others. They were annoyed, a feeling, but they expressed that with harassment. I've done CBT, you learn to identify cycles like this. So I could kind of see this playing out and just thinking, mate, don't choose this hill to die on. Walk away. Anger issues.
The powers of arrest would come under instead Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 amended or superseded by the serious organised crime and policing act (SOCPA, which was pretty dodgy at the time), then updated again in 2017 policing and crime act. There were so many laws updated governing police powers over the past 2 decades mostly around terrorism and some would say to impinge peaceful right to protest. Unless you know your law very well (as in the last few years) it's a not a great idea to get into an argument about them.
I do think these powers are often used to restrict protest, but this guy said what he had to say and then went on to harass and (in terms of the public order act and more recent laws) conduct himself in a way that the officers could reasonably suspect that he would breach the peace, become violent or commit any other civil, statutory or indeed criminal offence. Like, I know it sucks that police can get the wrong idea, but it is their job to make that call and try and prevent offences, not just respond to them.
When distressing another enough beyond mere disturbance or annoyance or offence, such as another person feeling afraid (I did) and they can't reasonably argue they couldn't have known that were possible (Ie they're right next to somebody else's home), and even the police officers themselves can legally count themselves as victims of such (this is upheld by case law, e.g. if an officer feels threatened or harassed, beyond what they would normally expect to deal with on a day to day basis, like being sworn at or whatever), AND their conduct isn't reasonable for some other reasons such as an organised protest, the officers could arrest them to prevent any possible further breach of the peace, and they can use "reasonable force" to do that.
In this case the guy was asked to turn around as he was arrested but refused, so he was forced to kneel, he was cuffed on one hand only and then sat there for a while arguing about the whole thing. I think by that stage he knew he was strawberry floated so finally stopped yelling.
I think angry man yelling at a police woman was relevant too, as it's basically an easier target. This did quickly become two women police officers and he didn't back down. So at each stage of these escalations an officer would have decided they needed help to cope with this person. When a third officer arrived he still wouldn't give up his fight so then he was arrested. Like, you'd have to be there to understand the whole thing but it's kind of remarkable someone was able to dig their heels in that deep over a cordon. Had they nothing else to do?
The guy insisted they weren't police, they were, they had police written on their backs in hi vis, they were not PCSOs, they were just wearing the women's uniform with the bowler hat and checkered strip. This guy didn't recognise a women's police uniform. I found that pretty funny. They're not real police officers! Yes they are, you just only recognise a male police officer.
I still feel bad about what happened to him, but I was relieved he went away one way or another, shame he got arrested but hey I'm neither the police nor the one arguing with them relentlessly about a plastic ribbon that happens to be in my way one day for a couple of hours.
You could tell he was trying to back pedal after calming down by suggesting to the officers that they wouldn't want to fill out all the paperwork to arrest, charge, detain and release him.
The guy wasn't totally stupid, it was quite funny. I'm not sure they'd want someone yelling at them continuously either. It was such a strawberry floating non issue I'm still struggling to get my head around what happened. His anger got the better of him.