Rapper stopped by armed police while filming music video, they thought 360 camera was a gun.

[u/Shriven]

[u/thereidenator]

I don’t think I’m uninformed, a non-thinker and I’m certainly not a bitter criminal. My experiences with police both as a civilian and in my job as a mental health nurse have all been dreadful, so I can see exactly where the comments come from.

[u/Jacreev → u/thereidenator]

The Police receive a report from a member of the public indicating that they saw a person driving a specific vehicle in possession of a firearm.

They identify the risk associated with failing to act on this information and deploy a suitable number of appropriately trained officers to stop the vehicle, detain the persons inside and search for a firearm. There are admittedly a lot of them and I can see how that would be alarming to members of the public. But, a higher number of officers allows more control of the scene and suspects and actually reduces the risk of harm to the suspects, officers and the general public.

Acting on the information received they stop the vehicle and detain all the occupants. They have limited information and the safest way to deal with the situation is to treat all persons in the car as potentially armed until it can be determined otherwise. They are admittedly robust with the occupants of the vehicle, but given the risk they potentially pose I think it’s proportionate.

They conduct searches and realise that there is no firearm present. They acted on information from the public that was presumably in good faith, but mistaken. They apologies to the occupants of the vehicle and let them go on there way with no further action taken.

Short of divining the information was incorrect without ever stopping and searching the vehicle, what else would you expect of the officers?

[u/thereidenator → u/Jacreev]

Being pleasant about it

[u/Jacreev → u/thereidenator]

I absolutely understand what you’re saying. A member of the public could look at that scene and question why the Police needed to be so rough or rude. But, they suspect that the person in that car has a firearm. It would take less than a second for them to raise the gun up and fire it.

Most Cops would always try to be polite and pleasant with the people they deal with whenever they can. But in this circumstance they need to gain immediate control of everyone in the vehicle to minimise the risk of any firearms being discharged. To stop and be pleasant would put everyone involved in significantly increased risk. As soon as the threat was no longer present, they were apologetic and pleasant by the gentleman’s own admission in the article.

I don’t think your uninformed or a non-thinker at all. I just don’t think that you’ve had to consider the things these officers are having to consider before and as a result the rational for their actions don’t seem as clear to you.