Man falls off couch laughing - gets pepper sprayed and arrested

[Blind_Io]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ed-arrest.html

A man was handcuffed, arrested and dragged before a court after falling off the settee with laughter while watching Have I Got News For You.
Christopher Cocker, 36, was enjoying the BBC1 show when a joke made by panellist Paul Merton had him doubled up with laughter.

He collapsed on the floor - but the thud startled his downstairs neighbour who, believing he had collapsed, called police.

Officers arrived and said Cocker was initially co-operative but became 'aggressive' when they asked his name and tried to shut his front door.

He was eventually disabled with parva spray through the gap and arrested.

Jonathan Taylor, defending, said: 'The officer accepts in his statement that he struck my client and then sprayed him again.
'He was handcuffed and unceremoniously thrown into the back of a police van. When he ended up in a police cell he was asking himself how all this had happened.'

Mr Taylor told Blackburn Magistrates' Court, Lancs., said that having informed the police he was the only one in the flat and he was fine, his client could not understand why they wanted his details.

'With hindsight he should just have told the police what they wanted to know and they would have gone on their way,' said Mr Taylor.

Cocker, of Blackburn, Lancs., pleaded guilty to resisting a police officer and was given a conditional discharge for six months following the incident on May 20.

A charge of assaulting PC Michael Davies was withdrawn.

Speaking after the hearing, Cocker said he had been in his flat minding his own business.

He said: 'I can't believe it - I was thrown in the back of a police van before being stripped naked and put in a cell.

'I was handcuffed behind my back and my ankles bound with plastic ties before six of them carried me to the van.
''It was something Paul Merton said and I remember falling of the settee, I didn't think it would end up in court.

'I hadn't had a drink or anything, I was just watching TV and all this happened. Paul Merton is one of my favourites. He's really funny.'

Prosecutor Alex Mann said the police went to ensure everything was all right and spoke to Cocker who was 'co-operative and relaxed' and he assured the officers everything was fine.

'He only became worked up when the police asked for his details,' said Mrs Mann.

'The police tried to explain they just needed the name for the report but he became aggressive and started swearing at the officer.'

After the hearing Joan Codling, 57, who lives in the flat below and made the call to police, said she contacted officers after being concerned that he may have fallen ill.

She said: 'I was worried in case he was having an epileptic fit. There was a lot of noise and I didn't know what to do so I called the police.'

A police spokesman said Cocker became 'aggressive' towards the officers who feared for their own safety.

The spokesman said: 'Parva spray was used to stop any confrontation and was necessary to protect the officers and any members of the public who were around at the time.

'Within the circumstances, we feel we used reasonable force. '

Cliffnotes:

Man laughed at the television and fell off the sofa.
Downstairs neighbor, fearing for his health, called the bobbies
Police show up, man answers the door, says he's fine.
Police want his personal information, man gets defensive and tries to close the door.
Police pepper spray him, hog tie him, and toss him in the back of a van under arrest "to protect the officers and any members of the public"... from the man who was alone, unarmed in his own home and just wanted to go back to watching the tele.

That's some nice use of force there, Lou.

Ok, he could have just given up the information that they wanted, but I can see his point. If the cops showed up at my door with no explanation and started demanding my information I would tell them to get lost or show me a warrant. I don't think his actions were entirely unreasonable, and the cops, once they saw he wasn't dead, should have just left. It was their concern with their own paperwork that fuel the confrontation, not an interest in his well being. It result in them entering his apartment, pepper spraying him, hitting him, pepper spraying him again, then hog tying him and hauling him off to a strip search, all for some neater paperwork.

I also find it interesting that they filed a charge of assault against him, which was dropped.

Maybe it's that I don't really get the culture in the UK, but I don't know how that type of behavior can be tolerated.

[vikiradTG2007]

Idiots.

[Quadrax]

The spokesman said: 'Parva spray was used to stop any confrontation and was necessary to protect the officers and any members of the public who were around at the time.

Walking away and leaving the guy alone who had not done anything wrong would have also stopped any confrontation.

[Speedtouch]

I guess that was the 'I'm on the sex offenders register' joke.

And yeah, that is retarded. 'Reasonable force'? For what? These damn criminals who don't want to talk to the police. Ugh.

[airmenair]

A police spokesman said Cocker became 'aggressive' towards the officers who feared for their own safety.

You have got to be kidding me right? Feared for their own safety? There are to be at least 2 of them there and they can't "handle" some guy cursing at them?

[LeVeL]

Maybe the thud was his dead body hitting the floor and the man that opened the door was the killer? I think it was perfectly reasonable for the police to ask him for some basic information and stupid of him to try and shut the door in their faces.

Originally Posted by airmenair

You have got to be kidding me right? Feared for their own safety? There are to be at least 2 of them there and they can't "handle" some guy cursing at them?

Picture the situation I described above. I would be a little uneasy if some guy (a possible murdered) was cursing at me when all I did was ask for his identification. Why get so worked up over it? Why not just pull out your license? He could have gotten rid of those cops within two minutes by simple cooperating.

[Peter3hg]

I call bullshit frankly. There are many details that are missing from this story.

[Blind_Io]

What are a homeowner's rights in the UK? If the police prevented him from closing the door they had to cross the threshold and technically entered without a warrant. In the US that's a big no-no, especially if you are just there doing a "welfare check."

Could there have been a killer? Yes, there is that possibility, but there wasn't. There are always other ways of dealing with the situation. For example, go downstairs to the neighbor who called and ask her to identify the owner of the upstairs unit.

[Peter3hg]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

What are a homeowner's rights in the UK? If the police prevented him from closing the door they had to cross the threshold and technically entered without a warrant. In the US that's a big no-no, especially if you are just there doing a "welfare check."

If they have crossed the threshold, which it sounds like they probably had, then they're in and you can't do a lot about it. If they hadn't then they would need a reasonble suspicion that an indictable offence was taking place/had taken place/was going to take place.

[anti-net]

Originally Posted by Peter3hg

I call bullshit frankly. There are many details that are missing from this story.

It is the Daily Mail, This the kind of story the ignorant racists that read the Daily Mail like.

[the Interceptor]

The whole thing sounds a little strange, I wouldn't bet money that it went this way.

[thedguy]

Nothing more frightening than a man trying to close the door on an officer! I mean he could have stubbed a tow on the door or got his night stick caught in the door jamb! OH THE HUMANITY!

[Polly]

Fuck zero tolerance.

[Blind_Io]

Originally Posted by anti-net

It is the Daily Mail, This the kind of story the ignorant racists that read the Daily Mail like.

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, "come again?"

[fluke667]

Fuck neighbors calling the police without ringing at your door first

[teeb]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, "come again?"

Bear in mind the Daily Mail was the only paper supporting the German Nazi Party, right up until 1939.

Even today it keeps up this proud tradition of narrow-minded ignorance with constant scare stories about immigrants, Europe, rapists, murderers and anything else it can make up in order to sell more copies to the old, doddering fools and the middle classes.

It also employs Richard Littlejohn as a columnist, one of the most right-wing columnists in the UK, with such highlights as (after 5 prostitutes had been murdered in England in 2006) saying they were "disgusting, drug-addled street whores" whose deaths were "no great loss", and for prostitutes, being murdered is "an occupational hazard" stemming from their own "free choice". He described the feminist debate about how to rescue women from the murderer as "hilarious." Note this, also : "In the past year's Sun columns, Richard has referred 42 times to gays, 16 times to lesbians, 15 to homosexuals, eight to bisexuals, twice to 'homophobia' and six to being 'homophobic' (note his scornful inverted commas), five times to cottaging, four to 'gay sex in public toilets', three to poofs, twice to lesbianism, and once each to buggery, dykery, and poovery. This amounts to 104 references in 90-odd columns — an impressive increase on his 2003 total of 82 mentions. There is, alas, no space for us to revisit the scientific study which found obsessive homophobes more responsive to gay porn. But Richard, we're begging you: talk to someone."

There's a reason many call it the Daily Hate Mail or the Daily Fail.

[fbc]

Originally Posted by Peter3hg

I call bullshit frankly. There are many details that are missing from this story.

Agreed - I think there's more to it than what's been reported.