Police knocking criminals off mopeds

Well done Ellan!

Which reminds me of a few years ago about this time of year dark,cold and raining. I was walking home from shopping when a youth was close-up behind me on a bicycle on the pavement. He scared me so much that I landed out with my umbrella and it knocked him off balance into the road. Police car was travelling down the road,saw the youth on the floor and I got the telling of as " he could have been killed !"

I've been mugged twice - the first was abroad so not relevant.
The second was here, NE England. There were 2 of them on a moped. One got off and grabbed my bag - I tugged and the strap broke and the lad fell over . I wish now I'd kicked him where it hurts.
But he got up and got back on the moped. Luckily there wasn't much of value in my bag. And no weapons involved.
If there was a safe way to knock them off I would support it. But I can foresee problems for the police.

I am all for it. These feral youngsters have got away with what they like for years.

The consequences of their crimes are far reaching, the police using these tactics have had specialist training.

What happens to these riders when they get caught,whilst not a scooter rider a young man in London had his bike clipped by a car (total accident) and chased after the car and took a machete from his coat and hit the drivers window repeatedly with the serracted egde,his mother said he had the knife for his own protection.
He was given a 2 yr suspended sentance and 150 hrs of unpaid work.
I would have thrown away the key and have one more knife yealding thug off the streets.

Once Ms Abbott is the Home Secretary she will ensure a further 10 quid goes into the police budget to provide for 10,000 new officers and then there'll be no need to knock the poor criminals off their mopeds.

or perhaps she's worried they may knock Jeremy off his bike by mistake
Oh, I forgot, his is a pushbike, hardly a get-away vehicle.

The police are doing it in a bid to catch serious criminals though Jalima not just at random . I agree Something does have to be done and I think this is possibly a step
In the right direction . Maybe DA thinks shouting “stop, come back at once ” through a megaphone might do the trick

ps it doesn't worry me as they deserve all they get imo, it is the setting of a precedent that worries me.

'Knocking people off bikes is potentially very dangerous.
I'm not sure about it either.

It could set a precedent for other motorists to knock cyclists off mopeds, bicycles etc because they are annoyed with them (or disagree with their politics!).

However, something does need to be done about these vicious moped gangs that are terrorising pedestrians.

Meanwhile Diane Abbott tweets :

'Knocking people off bikes is potentially very dangerous. It shouldn't be legal for anyone. Police are not above the law.'

Try telling that to someone who has been robbed, attacked or stabbed Ms Abbott.

As I was saying, the POLICE arent happy about this:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/25/police-risk-prosecution-for-moped-crime-tactics?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR1Ht33uMGMvyRQlIqe7sBhFqRe0zQxYtT1x6UF3WYX5sJViXfO6SD27dzE

Petra

If this doesn't work I think the police should 'nudge' them with an articulated lorry ? that should do it.

I think it is wonderful to see the police dealing properly with the recent spate of moped crime, instead of the usual namby pamby slapped wrist approach.

Of course it will only be a matter of time before the 'abusing their human rights' brigade start their usual howls of outrage.

The pressure is on to be all rounders so that less people have to actually attend. Scary stuff.

Works both ways actually.. recently called police and ambulance and only police attended, the injuries were somewhat beyond first aid and IMO the police were in a dodgy position re dealing with it without proper medics.

Ambulances do not routinely travel about with police escorts and never did.

There were certain types of calls outs which always did in the past mean police would be in attendance too...now paramedics are having to deal with some of these types of incidents without police there too

The police had to do something drastic - the moped criminals were winning. And apparently it's effective so I support the measure.

I take it you don’t agree with bumping these thugs off their mopeds then?

Ambulances do not routinely travel about with police escorts and never did.

Only very recently

Lemongrove they have been at times lone in cars in my area (and they are not happy about it)

They are being trained up because the exact same class of incident that previously would have been an automatic police escort in the past, no longer necessarily is due to cuts.

They may be ‘lone’ in some cases, taking a statement or attending the scene of a burglary, but for most of the time, in cars or on foot they are still paired up.