Officers praised for 'positive policing' after having snowball fight with residents
Officers have been praised for 'positive policing' after footage emerged of them taking part in a snowball fight with residents.
You can check out the heartwarming exchange below:
A lot of Brits (myself included) might assume that throwing snowballs at the feds would be enough to get done on an assault charge or something similar.
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And let's not even go there in America – those guns would be out before the resident would've had a chance to reach the snow.
But this couldn't have been further from the truth over in London this week when the city became blanketed in snow.
TikTok prankster Abdur Siza, who goes by the name Fatabz on the platform, shared the moment he started a friendly snowball war with a number of Met Police officers.
At the start of the clip, he can be seen crumbling a snowball on a cop before saying, "I'm sorry mate, I love you."
Rather than kick off, the officer laughs as Fatabz profusely apologises and the pair even end with a fist bump.
In another shot, the TikToker and a number of other officers throw snowballs at each other outside of a block of flats, with all of them laughing and in good spirits.
It's no surprise that the clip has received a lot of praise, with many applauding the positive impact this kind of policing has on the local community.
"W feds, other feds would instantly arrest you with aggression," wrote one user.
Another said: "Now this is what you call community policing. That’s how you keep people's opinion on the police positive!"
A third said they're 'building a community relationship', while a fourth wrote: "Feds that go with the bants with the public is what will get them closer to the community.
"Least some cops can take a joke," a fifth chimed in. "That’s what I like to see. Not boring old police."
Another said: "Nice to see people having a laugh with them, it's nearly Christmas and they all have families too. Respect to you."
LADbible has contacted the Met Police for comment on the festive footage.
It's quite the contrast to last year when two organisers of a mass snowball fight that saw hundreds of people gather in a park to take part were fined £10,000 each for breaching lockdown regulations.
Police said crowds mixed in the green space in Leeds for more than two hours on 14 January in what was dubbed 'the battle of Hyde Park' online.
Under coronavirus legislation in early 2021, a gathering of more than 30 people was illegal and carried a maximum £10,000 fine.
Two men, aged 20 and 23 at the time, were quizzed and slapped with the heavy charges after being investigated by cops probing the gathering.
Chief Superintendent Damien Miller said: "We take absolutely no pleasure in handing out such heavy fines to these two young men but their actions encouraged hundreds of people to be in close proximity to each other, creating a significant and completely unnecessary risk of increasing the spread of the virus.
"It was a blatant breach of the legislation that is in place to help keep people safe at what remains a critical time for us all."
Thank god these particular Met Police officers were more than willing to have a bit of fun with their local community.
Daisy Phillipson