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Would you report people to the police for for breaking the conditions of the Covid 19 lockdown

Would you report individuals or groups to the police just for violating the rules of the lockdown?


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I've worked with the police. There are some who are appallingly bad and should be locked up. I know this is true I have witnessed it.

But the majority of them are decent people doing a job I wouldn't want to do. The things they are put through and see are dreadful. Your description of their job is spot on.

As much as I distrust the police they do a difficult job. Usually they do it well.
I get that it attracts wrong uns and the corrupt too. I’ve also actually learnt from urban about the role the police play in terms of (for want of a better phrase) the structural oppression of poverty and maintaining the power with the ruling class. But to be blind to the actual reality of the polices social role and dismissive of them as ‘scum’ is just naive.
 
I get that it attracts wrong uns and the corrupt too. I’ve also actually learnt from urban about the role the police play in terms of (for want of a better phrase) the structural oppression of poverty and maintaining the power with the ruling class. But to be blind to the actual reality of the polices social role and dismissive of them as ‘scum’ is just naive.
"Some coppers are bastards" :)
 
I just read this (saying that groups of people hanging out together is a really massive problem leading to waves of infections) and think I probably would do something if I saw a party going on with people hugging sharing glasses etc.
There is no chance whatsoever of me witnessing anything like that here so I'm safe from having to take that sort of decision. Individuals cant imagine any scenario in which I'd report unless they were out licking doorknobs.
 
In regards to the police the "hope you don't need them " line doesn't really cut it. Of course we may need them for the most serious of incidents and I've used them in certain situations, but that's because they are literally the only choice in that situation. They have the powers that no one else has and can put things in place that no one else can.

The dislike should definitely be directed at them as an organisation rather than individuals, but they have been utterly horrendous at times and the distrust isn't exactly unearned is it? I think before we jump on individuals who talk about distrust of the police it would help to have a better understanding of why they've come to that conclusion.
 
It's just don't go out, stay put for a month for the sake of the health of the nation.

The problem highlighted by people thinking their walk is ok is that everyone thinks they are somehow excluded from and above the restrictions.
but those aren't the restrictions. and people taking a daily walk aren't excluded or above, they're literally following them.

my personal dog in this fight is the suicidal thoughts that i'd properly put behind me for a good 6 months are bubbling their way impressively quickly back up to the surface. for years now i've managed my mental health partly through exercise.

i deal badly with change, with loss of routine and with understanding what other people need/want of me. the stress of fearing that any fucker that now sees me out walking is prolly blaming me for wishing death on their loved ones doesn't exactly help.
 
@dessi will your friend even be allowed to visit? my understanding is that most if not all care homes are closed for visits in the uk.
 
I'm just going to put this out there: I'm getting fucking sick of all the judgement. It's the worst thing about this scenario that's not related to the illness itself. I'll happily put up with all the measures but if I have to put up with people wittering on about their neighbours 'going out in groups of three or four sometimes!' or the local farmers who are closing rights of way on their land (illegally) because 'it's not quite 2 metres wide' I'm going to totally lose my shit.

Leave people the fuck alone.

Yeah this is doing my head in too and especially due to the reasons that Wayward Bob has listed. As said elsewhere it's like people were almost waiting for this day.
 
Yeah this is doing my head in too and especially due to the reasons that Wayward Bob has listed. As said elsewhere it's like people were almost waiting for this day.
I think in the unlikely event that you discover thirty people in a city park having a face-licking party, call the police. Otherwise, maybe mind your own business and stop making everyone feel more uncomfortable than they already do. We are all in this together (separately. Very separately.)
 
I'm just going to put this out there: I'm getting fucking sick of all the judgement. It's the worst thing about this scenario that's not related to the illness itself. I'll happily put up with all the measures but if I have to put up with people wittering on about their neighbours 'going out in groups of three or four sometimes!' or the local farmers who are closing rights of way on their land (illegally) because 'it's not quite 2 metres wide' I'm going to totally lose my shit.

Leave people the fuck alone.
Absolutely.
 
I think in the unlikely event that you discover thirty people in a city park having a face-licking party, call the police. Otherwise, maybe mind your own business and stop making everyone feel more uncomfortable than they already do. We are all in this together (separately. Very separately.)
:D :thumbs:
 
I'm appalled at these films of police threatening people for sunbathing or sitting on benches even when clearly socially distanced.

I don't get why you are appalled at the police trying to enforce the rules during such a massive national emergency, perhaps you don't understand human nature?

If people are out exercising and see a handful of people sunbathing, or having picnics/BBQs, some of those people will think if it's alright for those people, it's alright for them. Next day you have two handfuls of people breaking the rules, and this will multiply very quickly, the 2 metre social distancing will start reducing, because there's not enough space for all these people to distance, and before you know it you are back to normal.

The gradual breakdown of the lock-down would allow the virus take off again.
 
I'd probably report it (and I'm aware that there's a seam of opinion that suggests these online reporting forms are just a placebo to keep interfering busy-bodies away from the phone lines) if one of the houses in the village was (still) hosting swinging parties, but I'm not going to report my neighbours adult children turning up with a couple of bags of shopping and staying for a brew and a chat.

Mrs K has been over to her mum's with shopping - she stayed in the garden and MiL came out with cups of tea. They stayed 3m apart and chatted for half an hour.

That was MiL's first social contact with anyone in 3 weeks - normally she's very social, WI, horticultural society.. she picks our kids up from school, they stay at hers every week, we were all due to go on holiday together - she's a widow, and this exile is really giving her mental health a bashing, which of course has a huge impact on her physical health.

It's about trade offs and dealing with several different dangers at the same time - in epidemiological terms the ideal would be to give each household a mountain top, a box of food and to pick them up in six weeks - that would certainly stop C-19 in its tracks, but at the minor cost of killing half the population through starvation, hypothermia and dying of all the things they're no longer being treated for....
 
I'm just going to put this out there: I'm getting fucking sick of all the judgement. It's the worst thing about this scenario that's not related to the illness itself. I'll happily put up with all the measures but if I have to put up with people wittering on about their neighbours 'going out in groups of three or four sometimes!' or the local farmers who are closing rights of way on their land (illegally) because 'it's not quite 2 metres wide' I'm going to totally lose my shit.

Leave people the fuck alone.
Yes yes!!
It’s like people can’t imagine anyone else’s situation. ‘Big groups getting together’ may very well all live in the same house- there are 8 people living in the house next door to me. One of J’s school friends has 10 siblings and lives in a flat with mum, aunt, one of his sister’s boyfriends and some other people I can’t remember because I just remember being horrified that all those people shared one bathroom. You see them in the park it looks like a party, but it sure as hell isn’t...
 
I think the government guidelines are woolly and allow for too much personal interpretation - if anything has been proven here it is that people are happy to clap for the NHS whilst putting people at risk by being unclear what constitutes an essential shopping trip. Photos from woodland walks that our rural brethren are taking daily just muddy the issue further.

Yup, it's a complete lack of leadership. The failure to provide hard and fast rules and promised and delivered enforcement.
 
(((All Urban urban dwellers)))

I'm coming to the end of week four, two to go. I live in a flat in the centre of the main street in the centre of the town. I go out only for shopping. We have had the army on the street. We have people dying from CV19. One in my block. Not to mention the others I know who have CV19 and the one I know who has died from it.

It really changes your perspective on whether or not to report those breaking the rules.

But as I said previously it's not black and white. And even here there are sometimes six or seven people chatting to each other outside the main door while they queue for the ATM. But we take it seriously, they are keeping their distance, are wearing gloves and masks.

Being Spanish doesn't stop the ability to hold conversations even at 2 metre distances.


We (dessiato and other Spain-based urbz) have very clear instructions about what we can and can't do. And the combination of fairly well thought out rules, people who mostly want to obey them and some very heavy authorities just in case. Who are reading the chips on dogs and fining people who are more than a couple of blocks from where they live, or who have borrowed a dog, or who are minors.

In the UK you'd be hard pressed sometimes to know if some tosser was or wasn't breaking the laws, guidelines, advice or whatever they are; Nobody, especially not Derbyshire Old Bill seems to know what you can and can't do. The heavy manners we are under could not be called 'woolly' by any definition and are even worrying. But they are better than the pathetic wording about exercise "take one form of exercise per day - walking, running or cycling" in England, Wales at least has said once a day is your limit.

What I have seen is people in the street being shouted at from multiple balconies for being too close to each other. Often they have edged closer without realising, I imagine. It's a bit curtain-twitchy but they were on the balconies anyway and most people vaguely know who they are shouting at.
 
Also, while I am on a roll.... there are three doctors on this street. They work together, they share lifts to work where possible, they go running together. I have no idea what rules that follows or breaks and it’s nothing to do with me.

My job is to wave and smile when I see them, do them small favours if I can, and focus on keeping my family safe and at home as much as possible.

(But I bet someone reports them at some point when they see three women who aren’t related to one another out running together.... (especially as two are black, and anyone who doesn’t think this reporting and enforcement is racialised is kidding themselves).)
 
I'd probably report it (and I'm aware that there's a seam of opinion that suggests these online reporting forms are just a placebo to keep interfering busy-bodies away from the phone lines) if one of the houses in the village was (still) hosting swinging parties, but I'm not going to report my neighbours adult children turning up with a couple of bags of shopping and staying for a brew and a chat.

That's about where I am, it would have to be a very serious breech of the rules, for me to consider contacting the old bill, I am certainly not going to report people sitting on the beach or in a park, but then I wouldn't need to, as the cops are moving them on anyway.
 
There were a bunch (8-10) of kids sitting out on the green outside my place being cuntish yesterday. They were not family and were not distancing at all. I told them to go home or I would call the police. They did go quickly and with little fuss otherwise I think I would have called the police :hmm:

If we were in such a serious situation then I would probably have would have gone down and dealt with it myself but are in a serious situation and people are dying.

The OP question is not black and white. I am not counting the number of walks my neighbours take. I am also cross with some neighbours but not calling the police on them.
 
Yes yes!!
It’s like people can’t imagine anyone else’s situation. ‘Big groups getting together’ may very well all live in the same house- there are 8 people living in the house next door to me. One of J’s school friends has 10 siblings and lives in a flat with mum, aunt, one of his sister’s boyfriends and some other people I can’t remember because I just remember being horrified that all those people shared one bathroom. You see them in the park it looks like a party, but it sure as hell isn’t...
I admit to being appalled at a large group of children with two adults in the field opposite my house, which is not open to the public, until I realised that they were the children of key workers who are still at school, with a couple of teachers, making the most of the sunshine. And who the fuck can blame them...
 
I've worked with the police. There are some who are appallingly bad and should be locked up. I know this is true I have witnessed it.

But the majority of them are decent people doing a job I wouldn't want to do. The things they are put through and see are dreadful. Your description of their job is spot on.

As much as I distrust the police they do a difficult job. Usually they do it well.

I generally felt this before, but my one interaction with the police as a suspect, when a lunatic ex I hadn't spoken to for years accused me of harassment, convinced me otherwise. While the coppers who picked came and arrested me at 4am, were polite, and in fact, apologetic when they realised my partner was heavily pregnant, once they took me to the station every copper I dealt with was bent as fuck. I was either very unlucky in all of them trying to convince me not to get a solicitor, and then the bloke who interviewed trying to trick me into accepting a caution for something that didn't happen, and then that same copper approaching my partner outside the station to try and convince her to get me to accept a caution, or this was standard M.O.
 
I admit to being appalled at a large group of children with two adults in the field opposite my house, which is not open to the public, until I realised that they were the children of key workers who are still at school, with a couple of teachers, making the most of the sunshine. And who the fuck can blame them...
No one can blame them.

The issue is how this virus spreads.
 
No I wouldn't call the cops on someone in this scenario unless it was something really bad though I can't think what that would be at the moment.

During this period I've seen a lot of things which I would regard as pretty silly or pretty inconsiderate but I'm sure other people have probably said the same about what I've done. We're all into uncharted waters here and we're all trying to adapt to a new way of living which can range from pretty easy for some people to complete and utter life turned upside down to others.

We're all trying to navigate our way through this and the somewhat confused and conflicting advice from government doesn't help. Its a natural reaction of humans to think 'oh but I don't think that bit applies to me' or 'yes but it won't harm if I do it this way or this one time'. I think that's a pretty natural way of thinking and its very hard to shake that. I think we should consider most people are trying to do the right thing in confusing and difficult times and we need to cut each other some slack and keep up the encouragement without too much of the negativity.

I think all in all we're all doing pretty well but I just wish there was a bit less of the 'this thing I do, that's all fine. This thing other people do, that should be stopped / banned'. A little more understanding required by us all, me included.
 
Moreover I don't think the vast majority of cops want to spend their time pestering people because their sunbathing in the park or issuing tickets to dickheads who refuse to move from the seaside bench.
 
He literally has no clue. He’s just simply never seen the work the police do in protecting the most vulnerable in society. Those with mental health issues, welfare checks, the drunk and incapacitated, the homeless on spice, the domestic violence victims, running MARAC, runaway kids, the elderly wandering with dementia, the injured in road traffic accidents, child protection both online paedophiles and offline rapists and beaters and neglect, trafficked women, modern slavery. And that’s before they get on to helping the victim of other crimes, robbery, burglary, rape, murder.

Our police officers stand on the front line of ALL of that. I see them at work a lot in my line of work. They see and hear things that SpookyFrank cannot imagine, cos he’s so naive he doesn’t think you need anyone there. They place themselves in danger routinely, and they’re placing themselves in danger now doing their jobs in the middle of a pandemic. Comments like Franks above are an embarrassment. Go back to sixth form college.

Talk about seeing things I can't imagine, well if you'd seen the things I've seen you'd hate coppers too. From outright hate crimes to the wall of silence you get from the entire fucking lot of them when people try and seek recourse.

Just yesterday I saw four of them bowl up in a fucking riot van just to move on one homeless woman. Not to get her any support, not to check on her welfare, just to get her to fuck off somewhere else. That's what they do for the most vulnerable in society, kick them when they're down. Or just ignore them altogether, as they did for all those girls in Rochdale and Telford.
 
Moreover I don't think the vast majority of cops want to spend their time pestering people because their sunbathing in the park or issuing tickets to dickheads who refuse to move from the seaside bench.

We've seen a complete reversal of Policing since that first disasterous weekend here - no checkpoints, or challenging farmers who were ploughing their fields - it's pretty much all at hub points like supermarkets advising people on SD and stuff like only one adult (if possible) per household going shopping. They've also been giving out Easter eggs to houses with the NHS rainbows in the windows - and concentrating that in the more deprived areas in the district.
 
I suppose like many others a bit unsure. Sufficient to say I’ve not yet seen anything bad enough to feel it needed. Well, except maybe the odd cunt treating nearby roads as a racetrack (in the middle of Sheffield), but that is also a very immediate source of danger. But yeah, I think in principle I’d probably be more willing to than under normal circumstances for non-violent crime. Because it is still stuff that is actively causing harm to others... but yeah, it would have to be a pretty flagrant violation for me to think ‘definitely not a family, definitely taking the piss’.
 
One person sees an obvious infringement of the emergency rules and weighing up their reticences about involving the law decide on balance that they will grass, because of the many good reasons that there are. They ask themselves if they would do the same if the perp were older, younger, a different gender or ethnicity and so on. And decide they would. And take no pleasure in doing it.

An interfering busybody sees exactly the same thing, relishes the opportunity 'to do their civic duty' and has a little braingasm at the chance. No self-questioning, no hesitation.

Teleologically the outcome is the same, the offender gets spragged on. But I don't judge the first person how I do the second.

“tis the highest treason to do the right thing for the wrong reason.”

T S Eliot
 
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