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Rubber Machete
- Thread starter AmberYooToob
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- Oct 7, 2017
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Rogerborg
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- Aug 22, 2017
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That's the tail end of that incident and there's much more of a tale behind it.
That was the second time that Avon and Somerset police had falsely and peremptorily accused that chap of being another bloke, Royston MacCalla, a much younger man who looks nothing like him except for being black and dreadlocked (but in a different style). They don't even have the same eye colour.
In the first incident, in 2008, they accused him of being MacCalla who was in prison at the time, went hands on and broke his shoulder while cuffing him, leaving him with lasting injuries. As a direct result of that incident, Avon and Somerset set up a race relations advisory group on which he served, to assist police with understanding that policing by consent means not just marching up to people and barking "Who are you? Prove it!" based on the vaguest of generalisations.
So can you imagine how he felt when they did exactly that to him again? He was once again accused of being MacCalla and required to prove that he wasn't (do you imagine they'd have just taken his word for it?). Hard to keep calm when you're still in pain from the last time you got set about, and hard not to stand on the same rights that you've been invited to explain to that same police force that you do enjoy.
The plonk who lit him up had even encountered MacCalla before, but, you know, all samey-same, right?
You'd think that after the publicity from that second incident that they'd figure it out, but nope, they're still mistaking him for the bad Yardie.
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To be honest, I'd just comply, tell them who I REALLY am, and think of the money I'm going to get for being dicked over for a second time if I end up in custody. Also " went hands on and broke his shoulder while cuffing him, leaving him with lasting injuries. " In my years in, I never once injured a COMPLIANT prisoner, so it makes me wonder how much resistance he was offering up. Most coppers on the ground aren't going to know who is in prison, given most sentences handed out these days are in hours rather than years.
Like I say, poor drills from the coppers in the video, but ultimately it's a two way street. 99.9% of coppers aren't looking for an excuse to batter someone, and if no resistance is given, no force will be used. He's a grown man, he can deal with it like a grown man. As frustrating as a trip to the nick might be, no one is getting injured, and he's more than likely to get some sort of payout for that. If he'd stayed calm, it likely wouldn't have even got to that point.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say they're still mistaking him though. A unit asked him his name, he didn't reply, they looked closer, saw it wasn't him and foxtrot oscared, hardly a violation of his rights.
I sympathise with the bloke for being mistaken twice, but I also think that some people will it to happen, for their own agenda.
Racist coppers get found, and kicked out pretty sharpish in this day and age. The culture isn't what it was 15, 20 years ago.
We've also gone WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY off topic.
Have Avon and Somerset been taking hints from Constable Savage??
(showing my age a bit with this one!)
(showing my age a bit with this one!)
He complied on the first occasion giving his real name, and was still bundled to the floor
On the second occasion he was severely injured
On three occasions he has had bad experiences from officers who have claimed that he is a younger man who does not look like him.
Its understandable why he has become guilty of being belligerent and black.
I wasn’t there
In the sense that he gave his real name on the first occasion, as you said you would in the post I quoted
In the video showing the third occasion it is understandable why a 64 year old black man does not give his name again (when having done so in the past hasn’t helped) and feels that he is racially profiled, repeatedly accused of being a younger man of interest.
Sus law is mentioned earlier in the thread.
Its just a presumption on my part, but a 64 year old black man with dreads is likely to have been familiar with use of this in the 70s for stop & search and detention purely on suspicion
He is not required to identify himself, he isn’t being compliant, he is arguing, he is not running away - he is walking away, and going onto his property.
As I said - it is understandable why he is belligerent, it is not understandable why he is repeatedly stopped and alledged to be a different younger man, particularly as after the first occasion he became an active in a police community scheme aiming to prevent such situations
Rogerborg
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- Aug 22, 2017
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Being honest, do you often get stopped by the police and accused of being some other guy who looks nothing like you apart from being white with vaguely similar hair?
Have you served on an advisory board that was set up to educate the police in why you shouldn't have to account for yourself based on a generalised description?
Easy to say what you would do when it's never happened to you and most likely never will.
Did you ever bag the wrong suspect in a way that resulted in your force starting up a community relations program specifically because of the way that you handled the situation?
Because that's what actually happened to this chap, so I'm inferring that he was the (literally) injured party in that original case.
And yet, they put a community relations program in place specifically because of using force against him in the past.
I didn't say that it was, but they clearly are still mistaking him. They didn't ask him his name, they shouted "Royston" - you'll know why, to see if he reacted. Oh, apparently it's happened for a fourth time now[*].
That was the casus belli in the videod incident as well. It's not shown on the released bodycam footage and the neighbour didn't start recording the initial interaction, but confirmed that they didn't "ask his name", they accused him of being McCalla. McCalla has a marker for going armed and resisting, so you'll also understand why the interaction started without hugs and handshakes.
However, all that means is that it was more likely to escalate, which it did.
The root problem is assuming identity based on "IC3, dreadlocks". As long as they keep doing that, this is going to keep happening to one degree or another. They know fine well that it's wrong and counter-productive: again, they set up an advisory body because of it.
[*]Avon and Somerset are now issuing fingerprint scanners to ID people. I'm not seeing how that solves the actual problem, and it might very well make it worse.
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Aside from all of the general factors, escalation is a key factor.
He does act with a degree of aggression, pointing can be aggressive, and he could be referred to as aggressively pointing at the male officer. He isn’t pursuing the pointing or getting in their faces, he does point later in the video .... away to the side etc
The Officers do need to assert and be ready with aggression. (Without seeing the whole situation from start to finish we don’t know everything) but they appear agressive from the outset.
They don’t come up with a reason why he must identify himself, they just continue
He takes no actual action other than attempting to shut his gate
The officers take no steps for deescalation, I don’t know if others would take this the same way but she calls him ‘fella’
This is an agressive phrase and not taken kindly by many, including me. It is not a word to be used by officers in the street
I consider our police to be world leaders in deesclation. There are many violent incidents which have been calmed down by our police, ending up with arrests where others would result in shootings
The dealings with him and failure to resolve policing issues on the street appear to be a farce in Bristol
- Oct 7, 2017
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Rogerborg
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- Aug 22, 2017
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Bit late to the party, but back to the original subject, article from my local paper.
https://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/news/17829311.armed-police-helicopter-called-borehamwood/
While it turns out this was a genuine incident, it started with someone reporting "a guy with a machette" on the local Facebook pages.
https://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/news/17829311.armed-police-helicopter-called-borehamwood/
While it turns out this was a genuine incident, it started with someone reporting "a guy with a machette" on the local Facebook pages.
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