So I guess I was right about the police: They're psychopaths

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We've got this climate s**t going on here in Copenhagen. Well, I live near a place called Christiania - A place where drugs used to be legally sold, until police raided and shut down all open drug trading. Ever since, it has been a place of infrequent gang wars over the drug market, and overall resistance to government policies. It's fenced in, and I live in an apartment in a house right outside the entrance. Ever since, all this has been going on, rioters have been smashing things for stupid reason they can find, and the current one is the climate conference. Here's what happened: I was on my way home with my brother, and we tried several routes, but they were all blocked by large police cars and riot police. There were only two ways we could get to where I needed to go, and we happened to choose the wrong one. We took a sideway, trying to bypass all the police and rioting idiots. That was a bad idea - Before we knew it, we were stopped by undercover cops who had blocked off the sideway.


We were apparently not the only ones who had gotten the idea to go that way - As we approached, a guy told us that it was blocked, but we assumed it was further ahead; at the entrance, not at some road that would lead there. Now, as I said, they approached us and by the time we had realized they were undercover, one of them started doing the cop routine - "Blah blah blah who are you blah blah blah", and the split second I realized they were police, I instinctively turned around and started walking away, which was then met by me being slammed into a car and a search initiated. They started screaming at me "Where are you going? Where do you live?". The only thing I answered was when he asked me my name, because I am legally obligated to identify myself. Apart from that, I remained silent, knowing the dwindling rights that we, the people of Copenhagen, still reside over in these times. This resulted in me being punched and shoved against the car after they had found nothing in my pockets. At that very second, I quickly looked around, hoping someone was filming this. But no-one was. I instinctively looked at my brother who was being guarded by some other cops. I wanted to tell him to start filming, but for some reason I say so. In retrospect, that would have been a bad idea - They would have smashed the camera and targetted him as well. Suddenly, they subdued me knees first, arms up on the ground, a position in which police officers can cuff their victims. Almost as quickly as they had started, stopped and let us go with a shove.

This is where I return to the thread title. Psychopath: A person suffering from mentally instability, resulting in amoral actions which incur no feelings of remorse or guilt. This is our police in a nutshell. They can search us all on the spot, legally, with no need for "formalities" like reasonable cause or suspicion of wrongdoing, thanks exclusively to our politicians allowing them exactly that in the name of stopping crime. This applies for the entire capital city of Copenhagen, and any other big population centers.

Be grateful for your rights, Americans. Appreciate the little things like your right to remain silent, protection from unlawful searches, and your corrupt, but sometimes functional police abuse investigations. Because all of those add up to form one thing we do not have here in Europe - the vague shadow of police accountability.


By the way: I found out why they suddenly stopped midway through their abuse: My brother told them that I was autistic.

Wow EC, That was an adventure!
I would have (deleted) my pants!

I hope you're alright!

I am utterly, utterly, utterly gratefull that I live in such a peacefull place like Australia.
If that happened to me, I would move, if not out of the city completely,
then to a quieter part of it.


p.s. You have to get your brother an Awesome Christmas pressie now!
Family are also something we need to be continually grateful for.

Don't you mean the entire human race?

Can you sue for asault and unlawful confinement since they had no reasonable cause to detain you and on top of that, they assaulted you.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F1Lq1uFcAE[/youtube]

or you could have said i am going to my house i live blah blah, instead of acting evasive and spuring them to action. In my eyes you have a bunch of police who are in a very tense situation in a bad area and dont want to be there and then you act like a potential threat hence you get treated like one.

No, police here do not need a reason for such actions. They can do what they want, however they want, fully legally within the the framework of the law which the politicians have twisted to allow them this kind of authority. If they tried this outside one of the designated "zones" where they are given a free hand to do whatever they want, it might be a different story. But I can't sue them, because I did not get a badge number. If I had tried, I would most likely have been beat up a second time and arrested, and I would be the one getting sued. Remember - They have a free hand. Whatever they say, will stick because of the blue code of silence. It's a fact we have accepted long ago in this country: You cannot, and should not try, to fight the police legally, because all they need to do is to gang up on you. Legally, the police is untouchable: Judge gives the police the benefit of the doubt, that's strike one. Officer responsible for the offence lies, that's strike two. Other officers collaborate the lies, that's strike three. These lawsuits cost millions, and think of the potential giant financial slap the court will potentially add on top of the legal fees, etc, after they've established that the victim is a liar or that there isn't enough proof for it. The chances of winning are microscopic, and if you do not win, you will be wrecked financially due to the way our justice system works. That is why police abuse often goes ignored here - The system is stacked in favor of authorities, be they police or whatever. It would not work.



Those were the two questions I answered -
"Where are you going?" - Home.
"What is your name?" - Insert Name Here.

Had I known they were police I would not even have approached them.

Also, @Marty: f**k, Carlin never ceases to be awesome. Brilliant insight!

Actually the police here can jail people without charges for 48-72 hours. It doesn't mean that they will always do that, however from what I understand, there were a LOT of people who were arrested and held without charges in St. Paul, MN during the Republican National Convention. A lot of the people arrested and held were not demonstrators. So, FWIW, even though we do have constitutional guarantees on paper, it doesn't actually mean that the police will actually get in trouble when they ignore them, police unions will back the offending officers up, and they will very rarely get into trouble unless it is something truly flagrant, like the Rodney King incident.

Well, I've never really been in any protests, so I wouldn't know about the whole freedom of speech thing. But I get along fairly well with cops. I've been arrested once (the charges were dropped later) and another time was asked to come in for questioning but wasn't actually cuffed. Both times I kinda had it coming, so it wasn't a question of violation of rights. I was polite and respectful and I really didn't have much of a problem. Matter of fact, when I was arrested and taken downtown this one time the police officer I was riding with let me pick what radio station I wanted to listen to (I picked the local classic rock station).

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I've always respected the police, even if I don't exactly respect the government. After all, it's not the cops fault if there's a law that you really think is unfair - that's the politician's fault, the cops are just doing their job. I've never really had a problem with them even during the times I've been in conflict with the law.

But then again, I'm an American, and I've never been a part of any protest or other situation where the cops have stepped in to intervene on a massive scale. So I really can't speak for EC or other people in Europe. But I will say that the police in Copenhagen were probably under pressure by corrupt superiors to halt demonstrations at the climate summit. There's a balance that has to be found when you're playing host to a bunch of foreign powers, you don't want to look like you're suppressing freedom of speech but you also don't want it to look like total anarchy. I'm not saying this rationalizes the actions of the Copenhagen police, but it gives an insight to what they were thinking.

My uncle is a police, and he has some anger issues, one time when he quarreled with a biker, he smashed his motorcycle into a wreck.

No no no, he didn't "quarrel" with a "biker", he prevented a freedom-hating terrorist from using an innocent bike as a weapon of mass destruction against our beloved America! He is a hero, and a patriot!

Two thoughts:

1.
Police personnel were already in an "adrenaline rush" confrontational mode to begin with. So they're going to come down hard on anything which even smells like there's a slim chance it might be a threat.

Someone turning around and moving away is instinctive invitation for the hounds to give chase their prey.

Which kind of makes Aspies doomed from the start on account of their unconventional behavior and mannerisms.


2.
Probably a safer answer to "Where are you going?" would be "I live just down the road over there; and, I'm trying how to figure out to get home without getting hurt by the protesters. Could you help me? Could you escort all of us through?"

That,
a. Identifies you a not a threat
b. Hopefully appeals to whatever they still have of human nature to protect the vulnerable
c. Puts the ball in their court - what kind of negative press do they risk in not 'rescuing' innocent residents from the mobs?
c. And what kind of good press might they have gotten for a chance shot of them escorting just-wanna-live-my-life locals around the violent mobs?
Newsies would have loved that shot.

Which is actually you kind of subtly manipulating them.
Who knows, with that they might have even said "Make way, Make way!"

That's what I was saying, about the whole respect thing. I mean, the cops in Memphis are constantly on the fritz from having to deal with all the juvenile crime and gang activity in the city, so I was expecting them to be a little harsh when I got arrested in Memphis a couple of years back. I mean, I could have been like any other gangster in town and acted hostile, but instead I acted polite and respectful and cooperative, and that was a situation where I was in the wrong, which is totally different. While in the holding cell at juvie I actually overheard my arresting officer tell his superior that I was "one of the most pleasant perps he's ever cuffed." I'm sure my attitude during this contributed a lot to my hearing officer's decision to drop the charges against me.

Police officers aren't bad, they just have a tough job. They're basically exposed to the worst elements of a city at all times, having to deal with gansters and drug dealers and murderers and other scum. The nature of their job exposes them to a lot of hostility, so when the odd person comes around and treats them with respect, it brightens their day a bit.

I would think that the officers in Copenhagen the day of the climate protest were already pushed to the max, and were probably being overly paranoid. Given that they were outnumbered by a mob of protesters that could have rioted at any given moment, I really don't blame them for being overly paranoid. As aspies we tend to appear furtive in our actions because of our social anxieties, and to an uninformed police officer right next to a crowd of unruly protesters, it could have looked like you were a suicide bomber or something, especially given the state of national security in Europe right now. He probably assumed you were going to do something like detonate a bomb within the crowd. Now you and I both know that isn't the case, but like I said, uninformed officer, unruly crowd, weird guy dodging around not making eye contact, you do the math.

Now, if I had been confronted by the officer, I would have just raised my hands palm open in the air where he could tell that I was unarmed and submissive, and followed his direction without protest from there.

There were a lot of things wrong with this situation, it was a bad day to begin with, and there were faults on both sides of the confrontation. There's not much you can do about the situation except b***h about it to us at WP, given the state of law in Denmark. But hopefully you'll have come away from this knowing how to deal with police in the future.

...or, it will give them an opportunity to manipulate you, like what happened to Eddie Joe Lloyd. The police do not represent justice, thank God. They represent the authority of the state, and that's all; that's their function and that's their intended use, and that why they don't deserve respect, because they're the mafia of the state. Sounds harsh and over the top, right? It makes sense, though: They do the dirty work of the guys in power, with no accountability whatsoever as long as they get the job done.


That is what riot police are for; they have shields, weapons and special armor, all for the purpose of self-defence and crowd-control, should a riot occur. These guys were not intended to deal with the situations you describe, so your point is moot at best.


The only outcome of this was a confirmation of what I've long believed about the police - That they are psychopaths, which is why I only tell them what I am legally required to -- They operate on the premise that I'm a suspect, so I'm wondering, why on God's green earth should I risk playing into their hands? Imagine how easy it is for them to pick up on discrepancies - "But if you live on that side over there, you wouldn't be able to get over here - Why are you REALLY here?". These are called "gotcha-games", and if you play them, you will lose because the police are experts at this, they do it for a living, remember? That's why why I cooperate only on a level that I am legally required. No you see, the real problem here is that police are aware of people who exercise their rights, and instantly assume that they are protesters. Now, does that mean I should wave them and intentionally be a dolt? That would give them more ammunition, and I'd feel like an idiot afterwards. Rather do what's right and suffer the petty violence that lesser people unleash on those that make their jobs difficult to be honest.

By the way, at the place where this happened, there we no protesters or rioters whatsoever. No-one, nada, nothing, zip. Any adrenaline rush they might have been under might have been the side-effect of all that authority jammed into their tiny heads.

Fine, believe whatever you want to believe, I see you're already prejudiced because of the incident. Maybe Copenhagen police are a different caliber from what I'm used to, but seriously, just because one group of cops abused their authority doesn't make them all psycho. It's that same kind of generalization BS that we as autistics have to deal with every day, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even law enforcement.


Have a nice day.

I spent over a year researching this stuff, and all it took was a few minutes to have every single thing confirmed. If it makes any difference, the first ever conversation I had with a cop was when I was a kid, after my and a friend had called the police due to smacked-up junkie was trying to break our door in. After arriving half an hour late, the officer was more interested in interrogating me about whether I was a citizen of this country or not after I didn't know the last four digits of my citizen ID. But I guess I am one for second chances - He didn't hurt me, I just fell down a flight of stairs, after which I promptly smacked my face into a door. Oh, I'm so clumsy! But it'll be better from now on, he promised!

Seriously, though, you are right... I am prejudiced now on this matter, guess it'll just have to be that way.