In his strip If …, cartoonist Steve Bell once had a British police officer declare his intention to arrest someone under the BUFAPOPO law … an acronym later spelled out as “Bearing an Unsympathetic Facial Aspect in the Presence Of a Police Officer”. These days, the new police catch-all - replacing such old standards as “causing an obstruction” or “behavior liable to cause a breach of the peace” - appears to be “anti-social behavior”.
This, at least, was the justification given by the sergeant who arrested a photographer and his friend as they took photographs of Christmas decorations in the town centre. The Guardian’s coverage of the incident includes the full video shot by the photographer during his arrest.
I discovered this through a post at the Digital Photography School website. Almost as disturbing as the video of the arrest are the number of commentators who seem to feel that “The photographer was being a jerk. He deserved it.”
In fact, the photographer - and the police officers - are scrupulously polite throughout. Some of the commentators seem to think, however, that the photographer was in the wrong because he did not meekly comply when asked to identify himself. The fact that some of those arguing for unquestioning submission to authority are apparently from the United States - a country supposedly founded on the idea of individual liberty - is deeply worrying.
My own view is that if the police want to stop a law-abiding citizen from going about his business and require him to identify himself, they must provide a clearly expressed and obviously valid justification for doing so. If they cannot do so, I would argue that it is not merely your right but also your duty to decline. Mr Patefield obviously feels the same way.
The problem is that many police officers react poorly to any challenge to their authority. This incident begins, like many similar incidents, when an obviously young and inexperienced Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) - not a full-time police officer, but a part-time civilian volunteer - oversteps her authority. When the photographer politely declines to comply with her demands, she appeals to a regular police officer and the situation escalates. The officer moves quickly from the original shaky ground of ‘terrorism’ to the vaguer but more flexible charge of ‘anti-social behavior’, with the officer claiming that the ‘manner’ in which the photographer was holding his camera was ‘suspicious’. It’s clear from her own manner that she knows that the charge is bogus, but she cannot back down. Her authority has been challenged. She calls in her sergeant, and the photographer and his friend are arrested.
The really sad part is that the British police used to be so much better than this. On several occasions, I’ve seen British bobbies defuse potentially violent situations simply by a bravura display of calm and confidence. For a trivial situation like this to end in an arrest is an absolute failure of policing.
A good police officer could have ended the confrontation at any point in a way that preserved both the dignity of the police force and the rights of the photographer. The fact that it didn’t happen that way in this case makes me wonder how they’re training cops these days.
