Portuguese cops are basically all on the lash as well though right?
Do you know what, I think people might have this image as Portuguese police as some sort of lazy, sleepy bunch of overweight slackers, but that is totally unfair, the reality is way worse.
Well, you got in towns two groups of police, the community police who look like this and I guess are relatively benign, seem to be on average older, kinder, fatter, more like you might imagine, they drive cars look like this
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But then you get the other guys who seem to all come from a production line of superfit steroided and angry men in their mid to late twenties. They are always angry, aggressive, they have guns and I find them really intimidating and I can't be the only one. And it seems that every time there is an incident involving me and the police that it's these guys that I have to deal with. And I always feel that they are trying to throw every part of the book at me that they can, presumably hoping that I might make a runner and give them the excuse of beating me up, or better still using part of their arsenal of weapons. Like when he pulled me over the other day he made a real point of saying "I'm gonna find every minor infraction I can and fine you the maxium amount for each one" - which to me does sound like exactly what I what expect to hear from a tiny-dicked steroid addicted loser who is using the small amount of power he has to fight a bitter war against the world that rejected him. Whatever, I hate these cunts, right down to their pastel blue uniform that I can only assume is part of a failed attempt to soften their image.
Well, my laptop is being a cunt, I'm struggling to get the pics to work. but the point is, from my experience of these guys, they are aggressive, armed and seem to be on steroids and I genuinely find them pretty intimidating. In their actions with people it always seems to start with their being kind of accusatory without reason before ultimately winding themselves back in and leaving people walking away thinking "that was lucky" but really that's only the case in that the situation wound down from an unnecessarily heightened and charged one at the beginning.
Of course it's not like in the US, but I recognise a lot of Padraig was saying earlier about the militarised police there when I see these guys. Polis-man means man of the city I think and as such they are supposed to be servants of the city and the citizenry. However my reaction on seeing them is always that they are intimidating and more likely to escalate the situation. They carry guns and several other weapons despite this being one of the safest places I've lived (I realise that statement does leave an opening for people to switch it around and saying "maybe it's the safest place you've lived cos it's policed by an army of fit young men armed to the teeth and simply itching for someone to step out of line").
From the start of any interaction with these guys, it feels as though they believe they are the bosses - I remember in Irvine Welsh's Filth the bent copper protagonist says something along the lines of "We're the biggest gang in town" and that's what I get here too, no sense that they work for you. My eperience ins normally that they stop you, insist on searching you and being quite aggressive, telling you all the time time that if you don't admit to carrying drugs or weapons then they will have to station and arrest you. Then after a long search they tend to soften and say "You seem like a good guy, nothing found, have a nice evening" although one time there was a guy who was convinced that he had caught me red-handed in that that I was in an area where drugs are sold, so he was very confident of finding something, smiling, really smug - like really walking super happy like one of those German officers in war film giving it all that "for you Tommy, the war is over".
But as the search went on and he couldn't find anything he got more and more annoyed, more and more aggressive, demanding that I tell him where they were hidden and threatening me repeatedly with arrest. All I could say though was "I'm stuck here cos I have no drugs and so I can't give you the answer you want me to to" and then he was "Wait a minute Mr Richard, what about your genitals?" and then no drugs there either... by the end he was furious and just went "Get the fuck out of here!" and stormed off in a mood. Hearts and minds definitely not won over.