Incident at station....

[dakta]

As I understand it, the OP was not shot, they were asked a few questions then let on their way?

I know the incident you refer to of course, I suspect learnings were taken from it, but it doesn't make the role redundant.

 

[matt_world2004]

As I understand it, the OP was not shot, they were asked a few questions then let on their way?

People have been erroneously shot dead though because of police over zealouness in identifying terrorists though.

 

[spyinthesky]

I would rather not be shot in the head by the police in the head because they erroneously believed I was a terrorist.

Disabling the use of the OP’s arms is hardly being shot in the head erroneously or otherwise.

 

[dakta]

They have, but in somewhat different circumstances. In that event attacks had taken place.

Let's not be dramatic. I appreciate, as much as anyone, having your arms taken by police isn't nice (been there lol but I asked for it) , but there's a lot to be taken from the fact he wasn't shot, he was questioned, then let go once things were clarified.

 

[Haywain]

Answers to some of the points made here:

- I deliberately left out the location as I do not see that it was relevant to how I was treated, but it was not in London. In any case, why should it matter?

- I'm disappointed that so many of the posts here are almost giving a free pass to the police and 'I don't see a problem that your rights were infringed because it makes me feel safer that the authorities are "doing something", after all, the police wouldn't have assaulted you if you weren't doing something suspicious, and who's to know you weren't a wrongun, it's just part and parcel of the world we live in, etc'...

- If I was up to no good, I could very easily walk around with a camera hidden in a cigarette lighter, watch or pen and get all the footage I wanted without drawing attention to myself.

- It's either perfectly legal to pan your mobile phone around in a railway station whilst in a video call with someone to show them your surroundings or it isn't.

- As already mentioned, it would have been perfectly fine if they'd walked over to me and politely asked what I was doing and I would have been happy to engage with them.

It's seems to be that for many people here to accept that despite not being obviously immediately threatening, the police can use force to stop you without announcing themselves so it's perfectly normal to be expected that from time to time despite going about their business can find yourself being having your arms seized by officers if you're walking through a railway station doing nothing more than having your phone out and demanded to account for yourself, and anyone you complain to for relief says 'Well, it's your own fault, you looked like you were probably up to no good'.

Unbelievable...

As we weren't there and didn’t observe your behaviour it is difficult to form a judgement about how the matter was handled. You would like us to say that you did absolutely nothing wrong without knowing any more than what you are telling us, and we can't do that because we don't know.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Answers to some of the points made here:

- I deliberately left out the location as I do not see that it was relevant to how I was treated, but it was not in London. In any case, why should it matter?

- I'm disappointed that so many of the posts here are almost giving a free pass to the police and 'I don't see a problem that your rights were infringed because it makes me feel safer that the authorities are "doing something", after all, the police wouldn't have assaulted you if you weren't doing something suspicious, and who's to know you weren't a wrongun, it's just part and parcel of the world we live in, etc'...

- If I was up to no good, I could very easily walk around with a camera hidden in a cigarette lighter, watch or pen and get all the footage I wanted without drawing attention to myself.

- It's either perfectly legal to pan your mobile phone around in a railway station whilst in a video call with someone to show them your surroundings or it isn't.

- As already mentioned, it would have been perfectly fine if they'd walked over to me and politely asked what I was doing and I would have been happy to engage with them.

It's seems to be that for many people here to accept that despite not being obviously immediately threatening, the police can use force to stop you without announcing themselves so it's perfectly normal to be expected that from time to time despite going about their business can find yourself being having your arms seized by officers if you're walking through a railway station doing nothing more than having your phone out and demanded to account for yourself, and anyone you complain to for relief says 'Well, it's your own fault, you looked like you were probably up to no good'.

Unbelievable...

The thing is, you knew what you were doing and that your behaviour was entirely innocent. The police didn't - until they interacted with you, they could only go by what you were doing.

As has been said, none of us were there, but try putting aside what you knew about your intentions, and consider your actions. Think how they would have looked to someone without your special knowledge.

 

[island]

I would definitely be submitting a formal complaint and perhaps a letter before action for a private prosecution to the chief constable. It sounds like you were assaulted without any grounds and the use of force use was disproportionate and unreasonable

if your goal is to give someone in an office a good laugh then maybe. A private prosecution of a police officer for grabbing someone they considered suspicious? No.

As we weren't there and didn’t observe your behaviour it is difficult to form a judgement about how the matter was handled. You would like us to say that you did absolutely nothing wrong without knowing any more than what you are telling us, and we can't do that because we don't know.

Indeed.

 

[nap666]

While it may seem heavy handed, police training would have been to control the individual first, by taking hold of them, until the situation could be ascertained.
Could have been a lot worse, you could have been face down with weapons pointed at you, take it for what it was officers controlling a situation in a public place so they could obtain further info.

 

[1920]

I did say I was walking through a railway station whilst in a video call and showing the person with whom I was calling my surroundings. That is all I was doing.

Is that so hard to believe?

 

[Haywain]

I did say I was walking through a railway station whilst in a video call and showing the person with whom I was calling my surroundings. That is all I was doing.

Is that so hard to believe?

Has anyone said that they don't believe you?

 

[nap666]

Hostile Recon can be lots of things that are not at first sight suspicious such as

Are they really taking a selfie or a photograph of something else?

Are they paying interest to entrances, exits etc?

Filming "escalators and concourses" would initially look suspicious to an officer or some members of the public, personally would not be concerned, but assured that at least someone is watching out for my safety in these days.

 

[spyinthesky]

I did say I was walking through a railway station whilst in a video call and showing the person with whom I was calling my surroundings. That is all I was doing.

Is that so hard to believe?

Absolutely not, and it was believed by the BTP.
People think terrorists behave in a strange manner and as you suggested doing things like having a camera hidden in some James Bond type of device but you weren’t part of a film set.
You were restrained and whilst innocent it doesn’t surmount to assault.

 

[The exile]

What neither the OP nor any of us on here knows (or if they do they shouldn’t be letting on) is whether there was coincidentally a heightened alert wherever this incident happened and the OP happened to tick some of the less generic boxes.

 

[spyinthesky]

What neither the OP nor any of us on here knows (or if they do they shouldn’t be letting on) is whether there was coincidentally a heightened alert wherever this incident happened and the OP happened to tick some of the less generic boxes.

This is public knowledge as it is required to be distributed not only within MI5.
Current or heightened levels are quite quickly brought to the attention of the media and the Government website will display this.

 

[pedr]

The existence of police forces means that we have traded some liberty for the benefits to society which we hope come from people acting on their suspicion to prevent crime and disorder. Reasonable people will disagree over the extent to which that is appropriate, and over whether British society has the balance between these correct at present. But those debates don’t alter the fact that the police are entitled to “make mistakes”, in the sense of interfering with the liberty of entirely innocent people who have acted entirely lawfully.

Now only people who were there or who have much more information can judge whether the police had reasonable grounds for the suspicion they’d formed about the OP’s activities and whether they acted proportionately to their suspicion - or whether they acted rashly and caused a much more negative experience than was necessary. Similarly none of that discussion will alter the impression this made on the OP or lessen the actual interference with his liberty and person. It clearly wasn’t a nice situation and it’s made more jarring if the OP considers that his actions were not suspicious. But we do live in a state where our activities can be interfered with and (while again it is no consolation) much more significant interferences can happen to people (such as passers-by being restricted or even arrested due to nearby protests or threatened disorder).

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I did say I was (...) showing the person with whom I was calling my surroundings.

And how would the police have known this prior to asking you?

 

[1920]

By walking up and asking me?

 

[exbrel]

as mentioned above "auditors" film contacts with police and the military, in some cases for "clicks", but in most they do show rank and file officers don't know the law, on this, in regards to filming in public places, and the expectency of privacy in public. Its a case of you can film anything you can see with your eyes from a public space, in fact the ACPO sent a letter to all Police Commissioners to inform all police officers of this...

 

[Fawkes Cat]

By walking up and asking me?

They'd have known before ('prior') asking you by asking you? I'm not sure I quite follow your reasoning.

The thing is, on the basis of this thread, there are two categories of people who might be going round a station using their phone to film entrance/exit routes and talking to someone on the phone

- someone explaining the station to a friend
- a terrorist reconnoitring the site and explaining it to a fellow terrorist

There are no doubt other (innocent) categories but these will do for now.

I don't see how - before asking the person involved - the police could distinguish between the two categories. But they would have grounds to suspect the terrorist version. And if the police suspected terrorism, they would also be keen to collect the phone with an open line to the suspected fellow terrorist. And since a terrorist would at the least ring off a call if asked what they were doing nicely by a police officer, this means seizing the suspect (you).

Ultimately, you don't have a leg to stand on. Your behaviour, while innocent, looked suspicious. You were detained with the minimum appropriate force. Once you had given a satisfactory explanation, you were released.

 

[skyhigh]

Simply put we only have one side of the story here.

If you feel wronged then by all means submit a complaint to the BTP. But nobody here actually saw what happened, so we can't say if what happened was proportionate.

 

[12LDA28C]

I did say I was walking through a railway station whilst in a video call and showing the person with whom I was calling my surroundings. That is all I was doing.

Is that so hard to believe?

From the police's point of view (or even a concerned member of the public or railway staff) - current terrorist threat level in the UK is 'Substantial' meaning an attack is likely. If I were a potential terrorist making a video call to a paymaster in some far-flung country I would be scouting locations looking for potential places to hide a bomb, no doubt. This could include showing the person on the other end of the call escalators, concourses, the interior of station buildings and suchlike. Think about what that looks like to someone who does not know you, or your intentions. Granted the police could have been considered to be heavy-handed but your actions could certainly be construed as suspicious.

 

[spyinthesky]

So, here we are…
Example 1
“Excuse me Mr Terry O’ist, are you about to do something that may bring harm to lots of people. Just answer yes or no and we will be on our way”
Example 2
“Police, stop or I may fire”

Both of these example are at the opposite ends of extreme and both could result in the loss of life. There has to be a way of protecting the public and sometimes to the inconvenience of them.
An assessment of risk was made and the level of response was decided upon to avoid in the safest possible means to prevent Example 1 resulting in a detonation or weapon being used and Example 2 resulting in the loss of potentially an innocent life.
Potential threats must be removed and in this case, I would agree that an apology might have been appropriate but the actions made from suspicion were in my view appropriate.
I would hope that the officers involved logged this incident.
To the OP, what action would you wish to see from this?

 

[bramling]

A backpack and mobile phone particularly amongst tourists is so ubiquitous in London that using them as any kind of metric of if someone is a terrorist or not would be the equivalent of labelling someone a terrorist through random chance

A key part of behaviour detection is are they actively trying to conceal their activities. Are they photographing things which wouldn't normally be photographed. Are they actively avoiding police or staff

Terrorists also typically do not carry their bombs with them while on hostile reconnaissance

Now you can inadvertently do some of these things through regular day to day activities for example it might look like your concealing your phone when you are shielding it from bright sunlight or you may be photographing exits or escalators because you are showing someone what entrance to use at a station.

Also you get people in stations complaining because they have misinterpreted the situation for example they may think they re the subject of someone's photograph and feel harassed

Where things might become awkward is that if people know they’re likely to be harassed for carrying out stuff like photography then they may well try to conceal their activities simply to avoid trouble.

Take something like Tyne & Wear Metro, which has a very odd policy in respect of photography. The general consensus among the enthusiast Facebook groups is “if you want to avoid trouble, try and avoid being seen by staff”.

 

[12LDA28C]

Where things might become awkward is that if people know they’re likely to be harassed for carrying out stuff like photography then they may well try to conceal their activities simply to avoid trouble.

Take something like Tyne & Wear Metro, which has a very odd policy in respect of photography. The general consensus among the enthusiast Facebook groups is “if you want to avoid trouble, try and avoid being seen by staff”.

It's rather different standing on the end of a platform at say King's Cross, taking photos of Class 91s or whatever, than engaging in a video call where you are specifically filming concourses and escalators and describing your surroundings to an unknown person on the other end of the call. The first example marks you out as an enthusiast, the second does not.

 

[87electric]

Hostile Recon can be lots of things that are not at first sight suspicious such as

Are they really taking a selfie or a photograph of something else?

Are they paying interest to entrances, exits etc?

Filming "escalators and concourses" would initially look suspicious to an officer or some members of the public, personally would not be concerned, but assured that at least someone is watching out for my safety in these days.

Absolute rubbish and paranoia.
Might as well take down every Geoff Marshall video that shows and informs where entrances and exits on rail stations are. Let‘s go one step further and question all the people who view Geoff’s videos on suspicion of gathering that information that could be used nefariously.

 

[dosxuk]

The level of reaction from the Police in this incident shows how concerned they were about the OP's behaviour. Organising a "pounce" to confront and restrain the OP is so significantly stronger than the normal being asked to stop and explain that there must have been real concerns.

This is public knowledge as it is required to be distributed not only within MI5.
Current or heightened levels are quite quickly brought to the attention of the media and the Government website will display this.

While this is true for the national overall security level, it is very much not the case for local levels. There may have been other local incidents, there may be local investigations going on, there may be upcoming high profile events, or there may be a VIP visit due, all of which will cause the local teams to raise their awareness level with little effect on the national level.

 

[james_the_xv]

- I deliberately left out the location as I do not see that it was relevant to how I was treated, but it was not in London. In any case, why should it matter?

Local intelligence and type of location. I doubt this happened at Hebden Bridge (for example), more likely a larger station so a bigger 'target' for any attacks.

- I'm disappointed that so many of the posts here are almost giving a free pass to the police and 'I don't see a problem that your rights were infringed because it makes me feel safer that the authorities are "doing something", after all, the police wouldn't have assaulted you if you weren't doing something suspicious, and who's to know you weren't a wrongun, it's just part and parcel of the world we live in, etc'...

Would you rather Police and security services just stand by and assume innocence at everything suspicious? You may not like it but you have described a situation where you were acting suspiciously from an outsiders perspective.

I'm not sure what rights you think were infringed. The police have the power to stop, use reasonable force to detain, and question you (among other things). Just because you describe an unprovoked assault by BTP officers doesn't mean that's what actually happened...

- If I was up to no good, I could very easily walk around with a camera hidden in a cigarette lighter, watch or pen and get all the footage I wanted without drawing attention to myself.

Why go to all that trouble when you could dress up like an innocent tourist with your phone out recording. Hidden in plain sight etc.

- It's either perfectly legal to pan your mobile phone around in a railway station whilst in a video call with someone to show them your surroundings or it isn't.

This is objectively wrong. While you'll never get wrong for filming trains, or even bits of station architecture, the moment you start filming CCTV locations or railway infrastructure you fall into the 'suspicious behaviour' category. Also, you'd be surprised at the amount of strange men at stations who will whip phones out to film passing females, if someone who had experienced this before has seen you maybe pan the same time as they were walking they may have made the complaint.

- As already mentioned, it would have been perfectly fine if they'd walked over to me and politely asked what I was doing and I would have been happy to engage with them.

We only have your account. The police may have tried to engage with you from down the platform, but maybe you did not hear as you were engrossed in conversation with your friend (as others have pointed out).

This is a hard one to call, personally while it sounds like the BTP may have been a bit heavy handed they were within their rights to detain and ask you to justify why you're filming.

 

[MotCO]

Now only people who were there or who have much more information can judge whether the police had reasonable grounds for the suspicion they’d formed about the OP’s activities and whether they acted proportionately to their suspicion -

We don't know for example, whether the police had had a tip-off that some terrorist incident was going to take place at said station. That could explain their behaviour, but we would never known.

 

[Western Sunset]

The response by three BTP officers seems to be totally out of proportion to any preceived "threat". Especially the physical nature of the encounter, which seems totally unwarranted if the OPs version of events is correct.

I was in London last week taking photos both at mainline stations and on the underground. Using the Day Travelcard (whilst I still can) I was loitering for a long time on the footbridge at Kings Cross, the platform end at Paddington and at various stations on the Northern Line. I had a small rucksack with me. I was taking photos, not just of railway units, but the surrounds and passengers interacting with the trains.

Maybe a grumpy, white, grey-haired OAP doesn't hit any of their metrics. To be honest, I was surprised that nobody (staff or passengers) asked what I was doing. I wouldn't have minded if they had; indeed, I was half expecting to be challenged.

It's a fine balance between national security and personal liberty. In this encounter, the balance doesn't seem to have been right.

 

[dakta]

Its a case of you can film anything you can see with your eyes from a public space

Within reason, there have been caveats tgat mean it can still have conseqences.