A warning to all as this one is going to get very, very long I have no doubt. I feel the need to share it to the wider public as I think it is relevant to this thread and the police force and the broader community.
I would like to preface the following with a disclaimer. This is in no way a troll post, it is not flame bait and it absolutely is NOT due to a loss of items or anything so small minded as taking a loss. It is however incredibly bullshit in my eyes and needs to be addressed properly. I will refrain from naming names as I don't feel its needed and will only dilute the point i am trying to make, its not the
what that happened, its the
how and the
why and the consequence.
Yesterday in the middle of the afternoon UK time, early hours of the morning for me, I was with a friend driving through the city when we passed a police car in the middle of the street and a bunch of officers essentially clowning around with a person who i believe was from AE looking at the uniform. It seemed likely they were just pissing about through boredom or whatever, I slowed my van and came around them and observed all traffic lights heading westbound towards LS customs near the airport. The back window was out (usual cosmetic bug) and I believe this was the reason for the ensuing traffic stop.
The police car pulled up and the "officers" jumped out all talking at once with noone really making any sense. No warrant card was shown, no reason given for the traffic stop, leaving both of us entirely confused. My friend was in the back of the van and the officers were giggling and laughing with one climbing in the back saying he's doing a "welfare check" on the guy in the van. Another walks around and gets in the front of the car in the passenger seat. It was chronically unprofessional and led to a cluster fuck of an interaction.
Multiple conversations are happening, I, at this point, am very confused so i said officer do you want me to get out of the van? I am at this point fully compliant with the police as I know, when following normal protocol for a traffic stop, they need reasonable grounds for a stop and search. I am fully intent to let them have their bit of rp, I have mine, be respectful and compliant, and we go on our separate ways.
What happens next is the big issue and the ensuing chaos which came from it. I walk around to the rear of the van. I do not get to lock it in time as the "police officer" in the front then drives off with the van. Drives down the street and apparently empties it (this was said in teamspeak after the situation) then drives it back. I feel it pertinent to add that inside the van was 140 crack cocaine rocks and 10 cocaine in the glove box. This is not strictly true as when he drove it back I saw 2 officers (one was I believe the Probie if one of you is reading) dive in to the van and show looting mechanics to say they were taking stuff out. I questioned them on it and there was no response other than laughter as they got back in their car and drove off. I checked the van seeing it had been emptied.
At this point in time I would like to highlight that the "lead officer" was a staff member, albeit quite a new one, and I would have fully expected a higher standard of RP than the shit show we were subjected to. We requested politely in teamspeak to discuss it as that was beyond a joke and if you want to get really technical "conduct unbecoming a police officer".
After trying to attempt in the initial phase of disagreement between myself, my friend and the 4 officers, the senior officer and the apparent thief split off from the 2 juniors and we sat in a channel to discuss what had happened. The junior staff member asked if we wanted another staff member (neutral third party) to preside. We agreed.
Without going over the entire back and forth both felt that the crux of the matter is as follows. It was completely shit rp. It was also a form of power gaming (using the police assets, guise etc and powers) to pull over a private citizen. The power gaming claim was dismissed by the staff member as it was all OK to do so in character as police. Their counter claims of well take it through the judiciary etc knowing full well we were carrying illegal items and were in NO WAY ever going to do so for self incrimination which is just ludicrous only lends credence to the power gaming claim in my mind. It was a forced situation where the only people who would benefit were the "officers" and that's exactly what happened.
The key point i raise now is that this is normal and acceptable within RPUK to play a corrupt police officer, so long as you are of the rank of sergeant or below. It is not OK to be an inspector and be corrupt. I find that laughable and borderline bullshit but that's the explanation that was given.
As said previously I feel the standard of RP was absolutely shithouse and should have been so much better. Plenty of arguments were made from the police officers side saying you didn't have to stop, you could have done other stuff, basically everything was an excuse to get out of the fact they did something which is entirely shitty and found it completely hilarious to do so, Staff member included. The fact that the Offending officer even tried to say well i climbed in your van and saw cocaine in it (using an in char excuse for an out of char issue) which obviously he didn't was comedy at the least.
When the 2nd staff member joined the call to preside over the discussion we were both asked did we have footage. My friend didn't as he was on a laptop(not that powerful), I didn't because I'd closed medal for that evening due to lag as the server filled and didn't have it on. Given the fact of the issue brought about by the 2 remaining police officers, for integrities sake, I am reasonably confident they would have had clips recording but as was, neither proffered to upload said footage as I believe it would be self incriminating. Again, this is after the fact and I am trying to show the justification for the post and the shit show for what it was. They could have easily offered this but both kept incredibly quiet.
In the end the call went round and round and round. While the 2nd staff member ruled that no official server rules were broken and there was nothing to be discussed on that, one of the officers said OK well if you feel so strongly ill hand the stuff back. At this point we were informed no "I am not happy with you 2 browbeating over this issue to get your stuff returned" and it was not given back. This was by the neutral third party. Again, really not the issue but if you're gonna tell a story its better to get all the facts. Their defence was basically fix this in rp, file a complaint, blah blah blah, anything but we abused our position and gave really shit rp and the more important point here is one which I feel was lost on all people involved in the call and that is that a very dangerous precedent has just been set.
In allowing "corrupt cop" roleplay you have essentially just legitimised and weaponised the police force to become a gang. With a badge and all the privileges that come with it. As has been argued in all the other posts here that the police get everything handed to them (gear wise) you have essentially allowed a group of players (lead by a staff member) to cherry pick what standards they do and don't follow and disguise it as Role-play. They have taken their criminal mentality and fused it with their police personas, essentially taking the best of both worlds to now do whatever the fuck they please on the server and hide away behind "Its corrupt rp, its ok"
I would have had less of an issue with this too had the roleplay been of a much higher standard than 4 schoolboys dressed as police. Rping the sobriety test, rping the potential search of the vehicle for x reasons, even pulling a fuckin gun out and handcuffing us and taking us away some where for a chat and actually trying to roleplay a kidnapping by corrupt police officers would have been pretty fucking cool and I would have gone along with it as it would have been entertaining, having a front row seat to that, a complete plot twist as it were. Instead it was 4 giggling schoolboys. I apologise in advance if this sounds like a flame its merely to show comparison in support of the post.
Cause and effect. The police players complained viciously apparently only a few short months ago about being used as vending machines because people wanted to get hold of guns quickly and they got it changed to what it is now. I remember maybe 6 or 8 months ago Charles vane saying the gun control measures put in place now (the stringent control) was done to stop the server devolving in to a wild west shoot-out over a traffic stop as it stopped some players wanting to play. And now the boot is firmly on the other foot.
Effectively, yesterdays behaviour could easily give full carte blanche to anyone on the server now wanting to use that same excuse to open up on a police officer at the slightest provocation. Traffic stop? Boom Headshot! sorry I thought you might try and rob me. This is swerving dangerously close to american gun culture, given current world events, and not a British server at all. Maybe change the name of the LSPD to Rampart Division instead and go all in on the corruption angle.......
As a white listed faction I expect a higher standard of role play than your average pleb street punk. The police should be held to this. Staff members even more so. You are effectively GM's and should be acting as such. You should be guiding and leading not doing what suits you and laughing about it and sitting quiet when you get caught or called out.
I have never, ever made a report on the forum. I am not 100% sure I would have made a report on this one even with footage as while, as previously stated, no rule was broken I still feel this "situation" warranted the discussion. I have never even been in to a teamspeak call with someone over a situation in the game because 99% of it needs to stay there, in the game, but, as you can probably tell by now, I felt very strongly about this particular incident given who was involved and the general lack of intelligence/empathy to try to see a different POV than the one which they followed.
I think it needed to be posted publicly and I hope I have made my points in a way that shows that the entirety of the whitelisted community RP'ers absolutely HAVE to be held accountable and do a lot better.
One final point, the neutral party staff member said, at one point, "we cant make rules up for every single situation that crops up". NO, i fully agree with that, but you
absolutely can make some more specific rules for governance of interaction on a server by certain factions and that's the entire point of this post.
I would like to also add, that after the conversation over this issue had been ended (i will not say resolved) we left and my friend received a call from another colleague/community partner of his to "discuss" comments made in the ts call. There was no need for this, it was completely unrelated and yet the staff member involved obviously felt the need to go and tell the other person about some of the comments made? What kind of bullshit is this? I add that, again not for flame bait, but simply to highlight facts of what occurred and let the court of public opinion make its own ruling.
Thank you for reading. I hope I have been able to iterate a little clearer, my arguments for why i was annoyed, with the benefit of a good nights sleep and a cooler head and the time to fully articulate properly. I also hope this garners some serious discussion behind closed doors as a result of this and some tangible, positive change occurs.
I think 140 crack rocks is a small price to pay for that, 10/10 would do it again
I agree with what you are saying though and the quality of police driving is something I have been looking into recently. 
