Watch Swedish cops restrain a belligerent on the nyc subway. They take him down, then keep asking him if he's ok. Why can't American cops be like this? Why do they talk about "hitting them hard" rather than just "make sure they're ok"? Why is the default relationship adversarial?
There was a belligerent drunk being an asshole to the conductor on my train in Switzerland and these two guys sitting in the back suddenly pulled out their badges (which were on chains around their necks) and turned out to be plainclothes transport police.
It was an amusing interaction to watch because:
* The drunk fellow was much larger than the conductor but she didn't even seem fazed and was pretty much telling him that if he wasn't going to produce a ticket (I don't know if this was one of those buy-in-the-train trains) he was going to have to get off.
* He was being all up in her face but when the cops got up they just walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder
* They did have to restrain him but it was all rather civilized
I can't help but think that considering everything he'd be tackled to the ground where I live now. It was sort of like a movie to watch these two guys dressed like you'd see street punks in a movie suddenly turn out to be transport police.
Naturally it's one incident and I don't know what use of force is like in Switzerland or Sweden in general.
The training regimen for police is broadly one based on acting before you even have to react. Remember the game "slaps"? The one where you have to move your hands before your opponent moves theirs from below to above your hands, and slaps them.
