Moped-enabled crime

Wow. American movie car chases really have a lot to answer for.

Three gang members – Omar Tafat, 22, Josh Myers, 19, and Kian Taylor, 20 – were arrested on 7 May last year following a high-speed police chase.

It lasted more than 90 minutes and spanned 10 London boroughs, with all three riding the same bike. At one point they even drove the wrong way up the A40 into oncoming traffic to try to shake off the helicopter, police motorbikes and dog unit vehicles chasing them. They had arranged for an associate to wait by the roadside with a can of fuel in their attempt to escape.

The three, who had tried to film the escapade, were arrested when they crashed by South Ealing Cemetery.

The same gang that tried to nab a child in Richmond last year.
Only to be thawted by hulk wielding a scaffolding pole.
Dickheads soon ran off.

Im calling bullshit on that stat. No way its went down by 52%

They've probably reclassified it as anti-social behaviour or something.

Yeah totally, its all a play on words to sound like they are doing more than they really are sadly.

Another sort of ram raid for which the perpetrators turned up on mopeds:

“I was there picking up this vintage piece and these guys drive a scooter through the glass and start battering the shop with big huge hammers, wearing helmets,” he said.

I can't see it in the pictures where the scooter smashed the glass, but I imagine it must have been the shop's door. That whole raid sounds fairly shockingly brutal.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/made-in-chelsea-star-spencer-matthews-forced-to-hide-in-vault-during-terrifying-moped-raid-at-luxury-a4152966.html

Haha Reality tv stars first thought after this attack is to lament he cant buy his watch

Seen 4 burnt out scooters on my commute in the last few weeks (vs 0 in the last few months). Dunno if it's the same people or the something starting up again, but it's not a good sign.

But he could--'his' watch was still there! It was like a miracle!

The reality TV star added that he was stunned to discover that “amongst all the rubble and all the glass” there was one watch left in the entire shop – the one he had come to pick up.

He said: "We were looking around and I'm just thinking f**king hell the thing that I've been waiting for has obviously just been nicked so I'm going to have to go and get another one.
Moped-riding armed robbers target luxury watch shop in London's West End

"Lo and behold we look around and on the floor amongst all the rubble and the glass and stuff there's one watch in the entire shop and it's mine.

"Now if that's not luck I don't know what is."

'his' watch was still there! It was like a miracle!

Or he's the ringleader...

Here's another court case outcome:

https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/crime-court/prolific-moped-robber-from-islington-jailed-for-almost-four-years-over-violent-phone-snatching-spree-1-6078338

Had my moped nicked by a lad who threatened to stab me this afternoon. Broad daylight in south Manchester. Fuming.

I keep my wits about me at night but no inkling I’d get targeted in the day.

Just spent £200 on a service.

Glad you're OK.

Presumably you've reported it to the police?

Yes. They couldn’t have been better.

They reckon it’ll get dumped after being used in a crime.

Sorry to hear that, but glad you’re ok

I don't know if there's been anything like this recently, but there still seems to be a good deal of moped action judging by what I've posted below:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/police-release-cctv-image-in-hunt-for-man-after-400000-regent-street-smashandgrab-a4173961.html

I can't really imagine how terrifying that must be for staff.

On a completely different note, I think this video release by the police is a total fail.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/dramatic-moment-police-ram-moped-gang-suspect-off-bike-after-high-speed-chase-a4174916.html

The last thing we need in this is Hollywood style. And I simply don't approve of that kind of action.

That's awful and I can't help but think the police officers who made the decision to crash into someone head on did so in part as they felt they had an obligation to do so for the cameras.

Watching that and other more real footage from chases I've seen(footage where officers didn't know it was intended for public display) they would constantly be in radio contact giving moment by moment of what they are doing with exact road names and directions and everything but with that seemingly nothing apart from "into the park".

It's not that unusual tho for the police to put out videos like that to get public support, are still a half dozen crashes involving police and motorcycles/scooters some of which had ended in fatal or serious injury going into conduct investigations.

So, given the actions in the robbery in your earlier post, and your criticism of the tactics in the second, what do you think would be an appropriate way of tackling it?
(apologies if you've covered this earlier)

exact road names and directions and everything but with that seemingly nothing apart from "into the park

Maybe everyone on plot knew what park it was and they needed to get that bit out urgently rather than “he’s proceeding down acacia avenue, speed 30 miles an hour, with the William Hague Memorial park on the near side”
The dodgier manoeuvre is the Officer trying to squirt the moped rider with gas.
No sympathy to the rider who managed to hit a barely moving police car, having had my motorcycle knicked by the local youth - fuck them. But with a dispassionate eye,
the manoeuvre did seem to be legal, proportionate and necessary to protect the public and arrest a suspected offender.

The dodgier manoeuvre is the Officer trying to squirt the moped rider with gas.

From the article:

As the biker attempts to flee an officer sprays him with a high tech water gun which is used to mark suspects with invisible liquid that can later be used to link them to the crime.

Cheers , was a bit worried the met had gone totally batshit crazy!

No easy answers, and I appreciate that the police need some sort of deterrent, but deliberately causing collisions is not the way to do it. I don't know what the rider in this case has done, but there is simply no guarantee that causing crashes won't go terribly wrong. I'm sure they had a few such videos to choose from, and I imagine one of the reasons why they chose this one was because someone in it says 'no visible injuries'--so, great! Yeah! We managed to knock him off without injuring him, so it's alright!

It is also a tactic that has been employed against cyclists:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/307360/

First, you want to avoid engaging in any kind of chase in London. So many dreadful crashes have happened in the last few years alone. I've posted about this before. See:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/12784976/

There was a bad crash following a chase in Penge in 2016, various links posted from here:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13188648/

Chases are often with both a helicopter and cars or motorbikes on the ground. It puts criminals under pressure and then these things happen. Helicopter time is expensive and obvious; a criminal might not lead police back to where they could arrest him more safely, but I wonder if it might not be better to back off on the ground and move in later. There have been suggestions that police could use drones to chase, but I don't know how far advanced that is.

Secondly, obviously some criminals are an active danger to the public. I could completely understand the tactic if someone was, say, randomly shooting at people. Of course you want to put a stop to that. Here's the justification given in this case:

“In this case it was simply justified for the manner of riding, on a footpath, through a park, endangering peoples lives.

“We can't allow that to continue.

[...]

“If we hadn't have done this, what would he have done further down the road.”

The documentary makers said he was arrested on suspicion of five offences, failing to stop for police, suspected theft of a motor vehicle, possession of a class a drug with intent to supply, failing a roadside drug test and dangerous driving.

It doesn't say whether he was riding dangerously before the police started to chase him. My suspicion would be that he wasn't and only began to ride like this once he started to be chased. It doesn't say what the nature of the initial police contact with him was like, so it's impossible to tell. But why would someone dealing drugs try to attract attention to himself by riding dangerously?

I appreciate police work is difficult, also the cuts to funding, etc. It's easy to say that it's always more effective, and safer, to tackle things at the root causes (prevention is better than the cure), and the police have to deal with things at the sharp end, when lots of factors have already gone wrong--the apparent ease with which mopeds can be stolen and not tracked, how they can then be used to commit crimes and get away, which hopefully @%-} 's bike won't be used for, and I've posted before about the spree in Islington more than ten years ago (cyclists had their panniers snatched off their bikes by moped pillion riders), where the police apparently knew where the mopeds were kept for a long time but couldn't take action for some legal reason. However, you see this so often that there's tremendous neglect, in this case of social issues, and then some superficial symptoms are addressed and videos like this get put out to reassure people something's being done when, actually, what really needs to be done isn't.

As I say, no easy answers. I still think the danger to the public caused by police chases is unacceptable, and especially today with better technology there must be other ways of apprehending such people.

There have been suggestions that police could use drones to chase, but I don't know how far advanced that is.

Afaik drones can’t even be used for surveillance on static targets yet so quite how one will be used on a dynamic incident like chasing a moped around London.
I think the potential danger to the public from the police withdrawing from chasing offenders is greater. Unfortunately the better technology argument hasn’t got much to back it up, more so when up against;

Met Police have reported decrease of 3,931 scooter crimes in London since implementing new pursuit tactics

But why would someone dealing drugs try to attract attention to himself by riding dangerously?

Because he was also under the influence of drugs? He did fail the roadside drug test as well.