Police in your country

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

I have had a nice talk in a different forum with lots of international friends about the police in their country. Everyone posted images of their colorful uniforms, their vehicules, some nice little stories and even of weapons and special units. I thought maybe the thread could be interesting here as well.

First of all Germany

The colors are usually green and silver (old ones are green and white)

Our police is generally relatively friendly (for a german) but extremely calm compared to police I experienced in other countries. They dont abuse their power and are not corruptable. If you try to provoke them then that wont change their moods (you shouldnt try that in spain or malta).

The penalty for speed-driving is very cheap compared to most countries I now. Compared to the US you are allowed to leave your car when the police turns you over but since a few years they are advised to have one hand on the gun (but gun belt remains closed)

usually their uniforms are like this

except in Hamburg where they use blue and white

A big part of our police is composed of the BGS (border controll) which, since the opening of the european borders, is involved in dealing with the big-scale-crimes involving drugs, organised crime and illegal immigration.

Our most demanding unit is the GSG9, an anti teror unit, which I consider to be one of the best in the world. (2 were recently killed in iraq)

Famous is our police especially for its horsebackriding awards. Some of police-members are actually world champions, so dont be surprised if you see policemen and police horses jumping over fences in green uniforms. Furthermore do we have Porsche police-cars. The Porsche company is awarding the police with a new Porsche every times they bring out a new model.

If I am correct the weapon used by our police is the Beretta Parabellum 92F 9mm. Shotguns are not in use. Instead short automatic rifles such as HKs are used.

I noticed that we so many members that hesitate to post in this forum because of the level of sophisiticated contributions by individuals such as denoir and Bals    I therefore thought a topic for everyone would be kind of welcoming all sorts of people to contribute)

[AKK 0]

Let me start by saying that what I am about to write is my opinion only and in no way will I attempt to be "the voice of America"

But.

I feel that over all our policing system here is fair and even.

Again BUT.

There are many aggregiouse actions incurred on a regular basis by these organizations as can happen in any situation when one person has authority over another.

I would try and put up colors and  the such of these Org's but being as there are different colors and markings for not only every state org. but county and city aswell I will not.

Many poeple "HATE" the police. I myself do not. I say to these people "OK lets halt ALL police manuevers and actions for one week and see what happens!!!".

Not a pretty sight in my opinion. I feel that most people dislike police on the basis of the "I wanna" attitude. And in most cases can not beacuse its illeagal.

For all you people who say "But you don't understand, I was wronged". And if you were trully wronged than take it to court. If you were truley right than you should be able to prove it in a court of law!

I say stuff it. I have been busted for Possesion of marijuana. 2 DUI's (driving under the influence) been to county about 5 times not to mention that because of my indescretions with drugs and alcohol I have been O.T.H.'ed from the ARMY(dont know what I mean. Too bad go see your recruiter and find out). And therefore could come up with all kinds of reasons to resent Law Enforcement, but maybe I,m just a realist.

So take some peronall responsability and accept the cops for what they are. LAW ENFORCERS!!

hope this aint a flame but again its just MO

PS. Nice lookin Mounts under those patrollemen. I'm guessing Oldenbergs or Hanovarians though I'm thinkin that the mount on the left is a Trakehner but kinda thin for a Traky  

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

What about the police cars in your area, the uniforms, the GUNS (oooaaahhh!)

[Harnu 0]

What about the police cars in your area, the uniforms, the GUNS (oooaaahhh!)  

Car's that I've always seen are a basecoat of a glossy, almost off-white it seems. After the white, the accents of the local area are put on. I.E. Chicago uses a light blue stripe as an accent over the white (Same color as the flag).

Uniforms are blue and/or black around here.

Weapons are different from cop to cop. I think the standard pistols are the .357 magnum and a Glock (I think). Other officers I have seen use M9's and .45's.

For heavier weaponry, Shotguns are used. I don't know the designation, if someone could help out with that.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

feel free to post some pics!

[AKK 0]

Oh yeah forgot

too busy bitching

Most side arms of our police are of either a 9mm or 40SW(smith and Wesson) calliber.

I believe each unit desegnates the make and model. As I can immagine no 2 arms rooms are the same.

I see mostly glocks and Sig's. they have pretty much ousted the revolver.

Most patroll cars come equipped with a I think Browning Roit pump action 12 gauge.

Some of our boigger cities have started to go the rout of international police and issuing MP5's for each squad car. Now I believe that is dependent on agencie and unit. I see many still utilizing the M16A2 and the varients. I've read that some DEA are utilizing an M4 varient put out by....ahhhhh cant remember the manufacturer. But mostly the semi and auto weapons used are M4/M16 based.

Many Elite tactical units such as Swat opt for the Springfield Armors M21 Tactical. Which is a variant of the M14. Though I have seen pictures of police sharpshooters useing M24's

Beyond that the allocation of weapons is so widely diverce that covering it would be enormouse!

[shinRaiden 0]

My locale is still pretty much sticking with the good old Ford Crown Victoria's. That won't be changing anytime soon. Most precients have been getting away from old shotguns and stuff, and switching to heavier take-down guns like AR-15's and M-4's. We've had several bad cases of dopers that would eat whole pistol clips and keep coming. One little ~115lb woman on heroin or something picked up a ~275lb deputy and threw him out a second story window, breaking his back.

The only time I spent in one was on a scout trip gone bad. I was driving a vanload of boys and gear home, and we started peeling tread off the right rear tire of a 12-pass ford van coming up I-5 at the south end of Ft. Lewis. So we swapped the tire quick (fast work, lots of scouts) hopped in, and turned the key. Click-click, dead.

Fortunately I had a big white tarp and my 44Magnum mega-graffiti marker I got at a hiphop shop in western Japan, so I wrote "Jump Plz" on the tarp, and my brother and I stood in the pouring rain and truck spray for ~2.5 hours until a little car came by. He was of no help, and then another truck came by and looked at it, clipped the jumper cables directly to the solenoid, and confirmed that the starter had died.

About this time a bored trooper pulls up, and all he can see is half of a car and a truck sticking out at weird angles from a big van. Looks messy. Anyway, we assured him that everything was reasonably under control, and then he loaned me his cell phone, which I proceeded to rack up a pile of calls on.

I called my mom to get somebody to coordinate somebody to come pick up the boys, and to find out why I had not be re-enrolled in the AAA auto club after I got back from Japan. She was busy due to coordinating a veterans service at our church, but gave me my dad's pager number, as he was at work fixing a crane that just fell from the rafters of a factory into either finished parts or the caustic etch tank.

Finally I manage to reach one of the boys' mom, who said she was on her way. Fortunately I got the one I did, as I also had her nephew from Japan with me, who only spoke japanese. Anyway, my dad called me on the trooper's cell and asked what was up. I could hear all sorts of alarms and klaxon's in the background. Anyway, I mentioned that I had a bad starter, gave him AAA's number, and asked if he could re-enroll me so I could call for a tow.

The trooper meanwhile totally laughing it up at this never-ending farce. (I'm also wearing my massively unwieldy barn boots too). I reached for the door handle to go back to the van, and for some weird reason it didn't work. I mentioned that to the trooper, and said "Oh yeah, let me roll down the window." I said "You know, I appreciate all your help, but could you do something about this rear seat? It's not very comfy." He laughed and said that normally if you're in the back of his car, keeping you comfy is the least of his or your concerns.

Meanwhile, his ancient IBM 486/25sx Win311 laptop BSOD'd and died. He said, "Hey you aren't a computer guy by any chance are a computer guy?". He opened the screen and I squeezed an arm and my head through and started banging on the keys. I got it back up into DOS, and started a scandisk. Turns out it had bad sectors in I think emm386.sys and win.ini, of all places. So I said "I think I can hack this, and recode you a basic win.ini from scratch, but you're not going be able to do anything with it. You'll need to talk to your IT shop, as it looks like it had a head crash."

Big hint: Don't use the word "Hack" when talking about computers around cops. Anyway, I had to do some real fast explaining as to the difference between hacking and cracking, before I got stuck in the back for good. We ended up getting home something like ~6hrs late, with a $90 towing bill, and soaking wet too.

Other than that, not much experience with cops, I keep my nose clean, and I know where they hide. The local ones mainly dress up as ranchers and bust up mexicans for smuggling dope through the dairy farms around here.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

highly interesting to read. Some more pics would be welcome!

[Harnu 0]

Standard "Black and White" squad car.

Chicago Police:

Interstate Highway Patrol are starting to use more and more undercover cars.  Just a few months ago I saw one car pulled over by a green mustang who's police lights were added into the headlights.

Weapons:

.357 Magnum

Glock 17

M9

I haven't seen any police carrying (On themselves or in their car) any weapons that are fully automatic. (MP5, M16 or others). Always their pistol in their holster, and if they are working with a partner, a shotgun in the squadcar.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

awesome! I hope you are aware of the fact that for us a car like this reminds us of one billion US movies. Most of US grew up with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer movies (not forget Blues Brothers). For you it may be a regular an boring happening, but when a european sees a car like this he has to take a photo. I dont know where in my collection it is hiding but I took several pictures of US cars.

They got pretty angry at me once (I was still a teeny) when the police in Michigan stopped our car and I got out right away. They dont like that in the US, do they? In germany it is kind of polite if you open the door to and get out instead of pulling the windows down!

[Doc. Zaius 0]

New Zealand Police:

The bottom image shows members of the Armed Offenders Squad, our equivilant of SWAT, who respond to regional call-outs. Of note is the fact that our beat/patrol officers don't carry side-arms. There's hushed talk of Sergeant's patrol cars with arsenals in the trunk, but as far as I know that's a rumour.

My experience with the police has been rather limited, though the cops I've met and dealt with have been okay guys. One time, a friend of mine was driving with passengers on his restricted license (You must hold a restricted for one year prior to holding a full license. One of the terms is that you aren't allowed to carry passengers) which is a finable offense. But, this officer simply asked my friend to do twenty push-ups, gave him a warning then sent him on his merry way.

[shinRaiden 0]

Ah, that too. 'unmarked' trooper's vehicles are ditching the obvious "XMT" (exempt) tag on their license plate, and switching to plates with *-WSP (Washington State Patrol).

But, there are 'undercover' cars too. I was taking my dad to the airport, and we were doing ~10 over with everyone else. Some wank came up fast, rode my tail, then cut around me on the right (wrong side to pass) nearly clipping ~4 cars in the process, and sped away doing ~25~30 over. I eased back to give him some room, and my dad blurted out "Slow down!" A completely blacked-out Impala came out of nowhere and nailed him. The cars hadn't even slowed down when the troopers were out on the run to the car. That guy just got screwed. The windows had full limo tint, no marks on the plates, and all the antennas were plates on the inside of the windows.

A few days later I watched a soccer mom in a big SUV swerve in front of two harley-cops and missed them by about ~1~2m while they were doing ~100kmph. They looked at each other and just flipped on their lights. No soccer game for those kids.

Here's my sherriff, you may have seen him in the news. He's the guy who's been trailing the Green River Killer - the ~70 count serial killer / rapist - for the last 20 years.

Sherriff Dave Reichert

King County fallen deputy's memorial page - old, we've lost another 1 or since then,

[shinRaiden 0]

Newer, badder Crown Vic'

Older Crown Vic'

WSP memorial

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

This thread is getting interesting. I bet the Police in New Zealand is realy calm all the time and polite as hell.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Undercover-cars, yeah dont be surprised to be pulled over by a dutch looking caravan.  here they love undercover vehicules to catch speed-sinners.

But dont you have an anti-terror police-squad in your country like the GSG9 that acts ONLY against terorist threats? Or  is the military doing that job? BTW: strange and funny is the fact that all members of the GSG9 have the black-belt in several fighting sports (i bet not even germans knew that)

So far they have a pretty good reputation. They finished one big hostage taking of a plane in a pretty unbloody way (all hostages alive, only terorist were killed)

come on be a bit competetive (in a childish way) promote your national police force

[shinRaiden 0]

Oh yeah, you guys might remember the WTO battle in seattle in 1999? The mayor and police chief of the city said "Let's be friends, we support your cause" to the out-of-state anarchists. The sheriff was un-invited as he was a 'worry-wart'. Anyway, all heck broke lose, police got run down, car tires slashed

communication channels lost, and police on the run. They actually ran out of tear gas in the morning - the stories about the massive gas clouds were the supplies brought in by the sheriff, and were being pushed down to the water edge when the sheriff rolled in with his deputies. They even used the bulk of the county bus fleet as barriers

I have a friend who was a SPD beat cop that day, they said that it was chaos until the sheriff showed up and assumed command. The sheriff heard that a RadioShack (store) near his loc was being fire bombed, so he spun around, raced over there, and personally tackled and cuffed the offenders without any riot gear on dodging bricks and rocks, and turned around only to realize that a TV camera had caught the whole thing.

-----------------------------------------------

More: (bad referers. )

www.carorama.com/classic_metal/list/wa/images/kingcounty.jpg

http://www.anzwers.org/free/calscan/images/kcso1.jpg

[ralphwiggum 6]

Los Angeles Police Department.

http://www.lapdonline.org/

Standard Issue Firearm: Beretta 92FS

Cruiser: Ford Crown Victoria

SWATs have MP5s and M4s, and use Kimber LAPD tactical which is Timber custom TLE.

[Col. Kurtz 0]

This thread is getting interesting. I bet the Police in New Zealand is realy calm all the time and polite as hell.

As I live in New Zealand, I would have to disagree here. While I'm sure most of the police are fine, there are plenty of ones you don't want to cross, and the Armed Offenders Squad have a habit of being a bit heavy handed.

A few months back the Armed Offenders Squad was called out because a man who I vaguley know had not been taking his drugs (anti-physcotic ones) but he was still a very calm and mellow person, and not one to cause violence. Despite this fact the Armed Offenders squad fired tear gas into his house and then dragged him off and later claimed that firearms were involved, when in fact it was only the police that had guns.

Another problem is when the riot squad gets involved in disputes. There was a lot of trouble back in the 80's and even in recent times. For example, to break up a noisy party composed mainly of young people they brought in the riot squad.

Still, most police probably are good people and good police officers.

[Doc. Zaius 0]

I agree, Col. Kurtz.

The Steven Wallace case sticks out in my mind.

[Milkman 1]

Travis County Sheriff

These guys are the nice folks, despite the M4A1, Sig 226 and Remington 870 they carry in each car.

http://www.tcsheriff.org/

K9 Police Vehicle

http://www.upv1.com/images/truck10.jpg

Austin Police Department

City police, some of the most incompetent police I have ever met. They are famous for their overzealous actions against local citizens.

http://www.wpsavoie.com/patch_pages/texas/tx%20austin.jpg

Sorry, there are not many pics available of these agencies.

edit: both file sizes over 100kb!

[ozanzac 0]

http://auspolcars.fateback.com/sau/index.html

South Australian Police

Our coppers are a mixed bunch. The younger guys and girls are more likely to be bastards than the older cops. But it depends on the scenario.

They usually carry pistols, don't know of what sort, but some are revolvers, some are semi-auto. Vehicles range from choppers and fixed wing aircraft, to paddywagons, normal patrol cars, highway patrol cars (above), 4 wheel drives and motorcycles. In marked and unmarked forms. The 'special ops' coppers are STAR Force group. They have MP-5's and other tricky gear.

A story....hmmm.

Allright. We were celebrating schoolies (Graduating High School) down at Victor Harbor (that is correct spelling) for what is essentially, a week of partying, and all that is involved celebrating the end of our school lives. Unfortunatly, the place is a dry zone (meaning, no alcohol in public places) and we'd already bought booze, and didn't have the cash to get wasted in a pub. So we went to maccas. Each bought a few large cokes. Discarded the contents, and poured our beverages in their place.

Their were concerts, raves and all sorts of stuff organised for the thousands of youths that flock to the beachside town. And as such, there was quite a police presence. And also as such, there were alot of underagers walking around, bored because they couldn't get into the pubs, and hadn't thought of alternative ways to consume alcohol. Me and I can't remember how many mates, probably around ten, looked like the only ones outside of the pubs having a good time, and indeed we were. None the less, we attracted attention from coppers on numerous occasions throughout the week. I beleive Saturday night was when there presence was highest, and so were we.  

We hid our drunkenness with drunken 'shuuuushhes' to one another as soon as one of us spotted a cop. And got away with it for most of the night, but this one cop, eddie on the peddlie, suspected something rank about us. And proceeded to stop and chat to us. Instead of busting us down, he had a chat with us asked questions like: hows the night been, been getting with the ladies  e.t.c., and we answered honestly, and queried the dry zone laws, in hypothetical terms, in reference to us, laughed alot, witnessed someone urinating on a wall, laughed some more with him whilist he turned a blind eye, said fairwells, and went on our merry ways.

Their are a few other stories, all freindly, none on the wrong side of the law for me, but when it comes to driving offences, they have been utter bastards to my freinds.

As I said, their a mixed bunch. Sometimes professional, sometimes not.

[badlymad 0]

well, i live in Canada, Toronto to be exact

some typical cops in Toronto. They are armed with glocks and have standard bulletproof vests (gun crime has risen dramatically in the city over the past few years)

Canadian SWAT, otherwise known as ERT (emergency response team) armed with MP5s, C8s and sig pistols

typical Toronto police car, a Ford interceptor

No interesting stories, although the area i live in has had some shooting deaths from illegal guns (9 deaths in the past year or so) Police in the area are generally fair although some allegations of racism have been shown.

[red oct 2]

the only thing the police in my area are aggressive at is handing out speeding tickets . can't seem to find any pics of my local police, Highway Patrol, or sheriff anywere so heres what the Ohio state troopers look like

Ohio Special Response Team

edit: heres a link of some videos recordings from the dashboard camras if anybodies interestedhttp://www.statepatrol.ohio.gov/newsroom/video.htm

[One 0]

im from Ontario Canada. place known in Southern Ontario as the Durham Region. city called Oshawa. home to General Motors largest plant in North america. Check out this badass Cop car. The Stealth.

rather than the normal red & blue stripes, its got reflective white stripes and lettering, so its hard to tell if its really a cop car. I don't know the exact purpose, but i think it kinda plays tricks on people, into thinkin its not a cop car, hence the name stealth.

[4 IN 1 0]

Hong Kong police force is in its 150th year of its service to the public, heres the offical HK police force history:

http://www.info.gov.hk/police/english/m-his1.htm