Si Biles - @[email protected]

Quite a few queries from yesterday’s post about how you can help a Police Officer, if they’re being assaulted? 👀 Ok so first off I don’t think it’s a daft question at all. 🤷🏼‍♂️ When you join the Police and go to training school, you learn a *lot* of legislation. 📚 Some of the most important pieces are around use of force. 👊🏻 So let’s start at the top and I’m not going to quote legislation because you won’t remember it, I’ll try and break it down so it makes sense and is applicable in the real world: 🧍‍♀️👮🏽‍♂️- Common Law, is based on case law, where the amount of force used to defend yourself or someone else has been found by Judges to be reasonable. Essentially if you see a Police Officer trying to keep hold of a shop lifter and the shop lifter punched the Police Officer, you intervened and helped the Police Officer that would no doubt be deemed to be reasonable. If however you intervened, helped the Police Officer and then continuously assaulted the shop lifter who was no longer assaulting the Police Officer or you, that would most likely be unreasonable. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 🏃- Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 - You’re walking home and from behind you hear “Stop him, he’s got my purse!” - A man runs passed you holding a purse and you give chase. You’re faster than the thief and you managed to not just catch up, but rugby tackle him to the floor and hold him down until the Police arrive. Essentially you quite rightly believe an offence has taken place and you’ve identified the suspect and can catch and detain him using reasonable and necessary force, so you’re on to a winner. Once again, if you were to assault the suspect once they were detained and no longer resisting, that would be deemed as unreasonable. But, holding on to them so that they cannot escape would still be reasonable. An important distinction. ✅ These are the main two powers you can use to help a Cop or someone else, but there are others. 👀 For example, Article 2 of the Human Rights Act, is the right to life. So if you do something to save someone’s life, whilst most likely you would be using Common Law, it would also qualify as upholding this article of the HRA. 🤓 Police Officers use these powers alongside many others every day and are well versed in the nuances, but as a member of the public, if you see someone in trouble and decide to help, it will most likely fall into one of those categories. 🫡 #ThinBlueLine 🚨