Facing down the 'Angry Man'

Diplomacy was never an option

It’s just part of the Job, right?

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Today, dear reader, buckle up. Like the Angry Man this article concerns, I’m not pulling my punches.

Sometimes I’ll happily criticize the police and at others I’ll be their champion. This piece is unapologetically the latter. Why? Because occasionally the only thing between us and the Angry Man are police officers. And it is a Man. Men are demonstrably more violent than women; those of us with a ‘Y’ chromosome are overwhelmingly more likely to end up in confrontations with police.

What do police officers mean when they talk about the ‘Angry Man’?

It refers to a situation where you’re faced with unambiguous violence and have to fight. A rite of passage, the moment when many police officers discover who they are. For many, facing the Angry Man is part of the source code of being a copper - and you don’t necessarily need to win. You do, however, need to stand your ground and fight.

It’s why so many police officers go completely Colonel Nathan Jessup when outsiders make hackneyed or lazy comments about the use of force. More than a few cops suspect the Media normalises outliers (i.e. punchy coppers, who of course exist) as an excuse to peddle an agenda, while wilfully ignoring uncomfortable realities. Policing, in its rawest form, is fundamentally coercive. This isn’t a story about policing by consent. It’s a story about what its like to police by force.

What I’m saying is this: You’ve either faced the Angry Man like a cop does – with all the obligations and risks that entails – or you haven’t. Until you have, many cops will think you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Let alone judge. I realise that’s defensive and tribal. But it is what it is.

If you’ve faced the Angry Man, you’ll know what I mean.

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Don’t imagine facing the Angry Man is an exclusive experience; anyone who’s served as a constable is likely to have been through it. It binds police together, with those who move on to less confrontational roles never forgetting what it’s like. I suppose the military is the only other occupation (along with long-suffering door supervisors, I suppose) obliged to accept fighting as a routine part of their job. On the other hand, soldiers are on a battlefield with force multipliers like machineguns and mortars. Talking of weapons, I joined the Police in the early 90s. When I did my initial uniform service there was no taser. No friction lock batons. No body-worn video. Our weapon of choice was almost exclusively our fists.

I fucking hated it.

I never experienced the euphoria of ‘combat’ some people describe. Just pain and regret. And, strangely, shame. I don’t like hurting people, even when they invite it.

But back to our Angry Man. Sadly, there’s no shortage of the fuckers out there. He’s a screaming, saucer-eyed lunatic, intent on one thing and one thing only; smashing your fucking face in. All of his problems, insecurities and primal rage suddenly crystallise into one perfect target.

You.

He’s a monster immune to reason and there’s only one thing capable of stopping him.

Brute force.

You’ve got to fight back, hard, else you’re going to get hurt. Possibly seriously. My first properly Angry Man – still a minnow on the Angry Man scale – was a Kurdish shoplifter who went crazy after being caught stealing lamb chops. Man, what a fight over so little. I managed to handcuff him after what felt like ages but was probably a minute and a half, using the cunning tactic of falling on him (I am, and always have been, a lump). I walked away with a bloody nose and a face full of phlegm, as getting spat on is often part of the Angry Man experience. The CPS dropped the Assault on Police charges at court when the case came up late on a Friday afternoon. “I’m sure you understand, officer,” said the lawyer. I’m being perfectly serious. There’s a reason many police officers hold certain views about the Crown Prosecution Service.

Anyhow, as per my training I tried talking to the shoplifter despite the deranged gleam in his eye. I fancied myself silver-tongued, you see, but I was young and stupid. I was unaware the Angry Man won’t be policed by consent or persuaded by reason. Communication skills, emotional intelligence and empathy are of no use whatsoever – in fact talking only makes him angrier. Imagine a bonfire and an emollient tone is four-star petrol.

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In only three years of uniform policing in London, I met more than a few Angry Men. I must reiterate, there’s nothing remotely unusual about my experience. I’m confident most former or serving police reading this know what I’m talking about.

There were fights outside pubs and at Irish traveller’s wakes. Although, to be completely honest, I wouldn’t have missed the wake for the world. What a spectacle! A genuine barroom brawl, straight out of a Western with people smashing chairs over each other’s heads. What can I say? I’m an experiential person.

There were domestics-gone-wrong (including the classic where you try stopping a man from hitting his wife, then they both attack you instead by forming a co-ed Angry Person tag team). There were the stop-and-searches that went pear-shaped. I noticed foot chases often ended in Angry Man scenarios too, possibly because both the suspect and copper were giddy on adrenaline. Fight and Flight.

Although coppers NEVER run from an Angry Man. Not if you’re a proper person. It was a cardinal rule. You take a beating rather than have it on your toes. Hold the line until backup arrives. We’re the Police. We’re the biggest gang on the block, right? Remember, facing the Angry Man is your duty. A near-sacred obligation. You made an oath. Your colleagues are watching to see which way you’ll fall. Sometimes quite literally.

This is when your sneaking suspicion you aren’t Chuck Norris is finally confirmed – you’re just a mug wearing a Victorian helmet, armed with a small wooden truncheon and a handful of risible ‘officer safety’ lessons. These are taught by a Hendon training hero who hasn’t been in a scrap for fifteen years. In fact, the lessons are a bloody liability. While you’re trying to remember how to perform the ‘hammer lock and bar’ in the Home Office-approved manner, the Angry Man’s already punched you twice in the grid. One will almost certainly be on the nose. Fuck that hurts. In its own, very special, way. Next time you’ll fight differently and won’t be scared of making a pre-emptive strike.

You quickly discover fighting’s nothing like the telly. First of all, nobody tells you how genuinely exhausting violence is – after a few minutes of scrapping you’ll be gasping like a fish dragged out of water. Punches don’t make that sharp snapping noise when they land. People bleed more than you expect, especially from head injuries, but have a surprising capacity for pain (that’s adrenaline and dopamine, it’s like crack for the Angry Man). An Angry Man also needs more than one person to safely restrain him, which is why you see those unseemly six-coppers-versus-one-suspect dogpiles.

These are the most often the incidents that find their way onto the BBC and YouTube and of course the fucking Guardian, where neckbearded keyboard warriors offer below-the-line commentary based on a couple of Judo lessons or repeated viewings of Cobra Kai. Once upon a time I would fantasise about releasing a load of journalists and social commentators, Hunger Games style, into woodland infested with Angry Men. I’d arm them with small wooden sticks and cackle like Donald Sutherland in his opulent Capitol office.

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I think – actually I know – people don’t want to consider the necessity of violence or its effect on those people we expect to use it on our behalf. It’s like emptying septic tanks, or the slaughterhouses where they do horrible stuff to livestock to make pies – we know it happens, we just don’t want to see it. But violence is a constant companion for police officers, most of who deserve the benefit of the doubt. Not that punchy police officers don’t exist. Of course they do, just like some doctors abuse their position to murder or exploit women, or some nurses are accused of child murder. Or how hospitals occasionally cover up organisational failings that kill. Those situations though, for some reason, seldom end up on YouTube or discussed with quite the same vehemence. Nobody ever banged pots and pans together for old Bill. I’ve written before about why police officers become what I call ‘Avatars of Cynicism’. This is yet another reason why.

I realise violence is a complex subject. I know policing involves untangling a gordian knot of unsolvable societal issues. I appreciate the myriad reasons people might pose a threat to others – although, trust me, some blokes simply love hitting people. I even accept we need an element of Queensbury Rules when police face off against violent suspects. Although when you face the Angry Man for real, you realise proportionality is nothing but a courtroom talking point. A comfort blanket for senior officers at press conferences. A luxury for those who’ve never had to face the Angry Man.

Anyhow, journos and researchers and academics, here’s a banal but everyday reality: it’s 02:45 and the Angry Man’s fuming outside his neighbour’s flat. With a litre of vodka onboard and coked-up to his eyeballs, he’s ranting about the local parking situation. It’s a fucking liberty. That cunt next door’s parked his van too close to my new motor. And he hates his ex-wife and her solicitor’s letters, mugging him off for more dough. He’s kicking the neighbour’s door down now, his eyes white and his teeth bared. He’s got a shitload of previous convictions for assault because every time he goes to court he gets a suspended sentence from some muppet of a magistrate. He flashes WHISKY MIKE VICTOR on the PNC. Weapons. Mental. Violent. The unholy trinity of warning markers.

A single-crewed police car arrives. The management-mandated ‘dynamic risk assessment’ suggests the lone officer should wait for backup. Yet we all know what we really expect the cop to do, as the neighbour’s going to get filled in for parking his car two inches into Angry Man’s parking space. If they’re lucky, the officer has taser (which might not function properly on a person high on drink and drugs). If not, it’s time to face down the Angry Man the old-school way; cry urgent assistance on the radio, draw the baton and let slip the solo Dog of Law.

Maybe enough cops arrive to control the Angry Man. Until then, he’ll fight and spit in your face, but spit hoods are barbaric so you’ll have to suffer a hepatitis test later. It’s why you’re paid the big bucks, right? Just don’t kiss your partner or kids for a few weeks, okay?

If you’re really lucky, the Angry Man won’t be too badly injured. If he is, he’ll make a complaint – he has a lawyer on speed dial for this shit and there’s decent money in claims against police. Then you’ll be the suspect. You might get cleared in six months despite your body-worn video evidence, because the politics of the situation demand a referral to the IOPC.

Just think about it. Coppers do this stuff up and down the UK every single night.

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I’m going to say it again; this is the reality for too many young, inexperienced and poorly-paid frontline police officers. And what’s that sinister shadow on the horizon? Yes, it’s a future Mental Health apocalypse. To makes things worse, a generation of direct entry police leaders are coming through who’ve never dealt with the Angry Man. They’ll be making decisions about supervising and disciplining those who have. Leadership seems to attract too many people who are unprepared to earn its privileges the hard way.

Add to this the constant focus on police culture, whereby officers are scrutinized off-duty in a way my generation never were. I recently spoke to a young response officer with less than three years’ service. Taser-trained, he had a positive view of technology. “If I see a suspect playing up, I switch on my BWV. I talk to them nicely and ask them to comply. If they’re aggressive, I can use force and I do.” He’d tasered several people and wasn’t worried about doing it again.

I think, watching videos of arrests, younger officers prefer taser as opposed to getting their hands on people. And a handcuffed person is safer to everyone (especially themselves) than an uncuffed one, tasered or not. I think this is cultural and, to a certain extent, inevitable. Forget the constant bleating from Amnesty about taser, it’s a safer way of incapacitating someone than bashing them with a weighted steel baton. And, hey, people always have the option of complying with police instructions in the first place. I think witness perception emanating from constant social media means officers want a ‘clean’ encounter without the messiness of a scrap – which taser provides. It’s a simple model – camera on, have a chat, oh you’re being violent? Ride the lightning!

The problem? Back to our young officer. “Despite taser, too many officers aren’t confident in themselves. They don’t know how to talk to people and hate any sort of confrontation. They’re worried about being videoed on phones and being accused of brutality or racism. They hide from people on the street.”

The problem is the Angry Man doesn’t care if a police officer wants confrontation or not. He does, and that’s all that matters. And if someone’s too scared of their own shadow, it doesn’t matter what tools you give them.

And the really horrible secret? Nothing gives you confidence like facing down an Angry Man.

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Is there an answer?

Well, intelligent, engaged members of the public might choose to be more open-minded when presented with police brutality narratives. This isn’t to say we should ignore brutality, but the problem nowadays is every argument is presented as an either / or binary. There’s a class element at play here too – when I was serving, working class communities who experienced crime first-hand were far more supportive of robust policing than the laptop classes. Maybe if the public knew the truth about the Angry Man – and how lucky they are some other bastard has to deal with him – they’ll start giving police at least some benefit of the doubt.

Another problem lies – as usual – with police leaders more interested in optics rather than officer welfare. Crowns and Bath Stars are at stake, after all. If I were in charge, I’d make them do night duty so they can face the Angry Man again (if they ever did in the first place). It might provide them with a few valuable insights for their next appearance at a press conference. Until then? They’re unwittingly enabling those who, for whatever reason, want the police defunded or off the streets entirely. If that happens, as they’re finding out in America, everyone loses.

Except, of course, for the Angry Men.

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