Coppers ain't so bad...

OK, I know there's a lot of negative sentiment towards the police on this forum, but I had my first encounter with the UK police in my 2 years of living here, and I thought they were really nice, albeit silly in how they allocate their time and manpower resources.

On Saturday, around 7 pm, I was walking home from Bethnal Green tube towards Whitechapel. I walk fast, and I overtook a group of 4 teenage boys, so that they were walking behind me. Suddenly, one of them ran up to me and smacked me right across the bum, and then ran away.

I was so shocked that I froze for a minute, and then my foul temper took over, and I took off after him. I chased him down the street and caught him fairly easily... the kid was not the most athletically inclined (i.e. he was fat).

So I caught the kid, I was yelling at him, and dragging him down the street by his hoodie because I wanted to go yell at his friends too. (During this time, my brain registered the possibility that these kids might have knives, but it estimated the probability to be low... plus I was too furious to care.) The kid was scared and extremely apologetic... he didn't try to pull away, didn't try to kick me, he just kept apologizing and answered all my questions: "How old are you?" "You think this is funny?" "Did your friends dare you to do this?" "Do you have a mother? A sister? How would you like it if somebody did this to them?" He was so scared and apologetic that I forgave him pretty quickly... but I wanted to find his friends and yell at them, because I was certain this stunt was their idea.

As I dragged him down the street by his hoodie, a people carrier full of 6 or 7 police officers happened to drive past, and they stopped to ask what was going on. I explained what had happened. The senior officer present insisted on arresting him, and told me I had to come down to HQ with them to make a statement.

I was shocked by the extremity of his reaction... I was like, "Is that really necessary? He's just a 13-year-old kid!" The sergeant said we had to follow this procedure, because I'd made physical contact with him and I could potentially be charged with assault. And I was like, "You've got to be kidding me..." Meanwhile, my brain was thinking of all the complaints I've heard on this forum about cops who don't do anything...

The police bent over backwards to be nice, though. Because I told them I had somewhere to be at 8:30 and I needed to go home and change clothes, they let me do that, and then 2 of them actually came to my house to take my statement, so that I wouldn't have to go down to HQ. They told me that if it had just been the 2 of them, they would've let the kid off with a warning (which I think is appropriate)... but their sergeant was the senior officer, and he was having a bad day, and it was his decision to make the arrest.

I felt so bad about the whole thing that I cried. Maybe I'm being naiive, but I don't think he was bad, he was just a silly kid who got dared to pull a silly stunt by his silly friends. Perhaps it's all in my head, but I also got the feeling that he probably did it to gain acceptance and street cred with the cooler kids. By getting caught (by a girl) and getting arrested, he's just going to get teased and bullied more than ever.

The police even called me later that evening to give me an update. The kid had "confessed" everything, his father had picked him up and was none too happy with him.

I saw the kid the next morning on the way to the supermarket, and I nearly went up to him and apologized. But my housemate told me not to, he said it was a bad idea. I really wish I'd had a chance to yell at his friends, though... not just for dreaming up that stunt in the first place, but also for picking on the underdog.

So yeah... I was really surprised by how nice the cops were, I just wasn't sure if a 13-year-old smacking my ass was really worth the time and effort of a full-on arrest. The disrespect of the behavior aside, he obviously had excellent taste in women...