TRIGGERnometry - Police Whistleblower: "I Quit to Share the Truth"
Episode Date: September 2, 2026Triggernometry is proudly independent. Thanks to the sponsors below for making that possible: - Venice is private, unbiased AI. No conversation logs sitting on someone else’s server. No refusals dr...essed up as safety. Try it at https://venice.ai/lp/triggernometry and get 20% off your first month - We use Ground News to escape the echo chamber and stay fully informed. Go to https://ground.news/triggernometry to save 40% on the Ground News unlimited access Vantage plan. - Expat Money: download the report to understand offshore banking, second passports, asset protection and international business https://expatmoney.com/trigger - Wild Alaskan Company: premium, wild-caught seafood. Go to https://wildalaskan.com/TRIG for $35 off your first box Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://shop.triggerpod.co.uk/ Advertise on Triggernometry: https://trigger-brands.com | or enquire at marketing@triggerpod.co.uk Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer.
That's why every step and dollar raised matters.
On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk.
Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research.
Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.
Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.
I think London is on a very, very bad path, and something has to be done immediately.
The police needs reputing from scratch.
I think impartiality has gone a little bit downhill.
We had one training in which one of the questions asked of us was as follows.
How treating everyone equally would potentially lead to each.
inequality. You know, this is a little bit Orwellian.
If something similar happens to 2011, I don't think we'll be able to call it.
We might be indeed seeing the total collapse of the police.
The British government wants to force YouTube to downrank independent content like ours
and replace it with approved messaging from the mainstream media.
The only way you can fight back and continue to enjoy our content,
is to make sure you're subscribed.
Like this video and comment below to have your say
on what the government is doing.
Dimitar, welcome to Trigonometry.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate that.
You're a former police officer
with the Metropolitan Police.
Yes.
We will talk about your story
and some of your views on policing
and other things that are happening.
But the first thing actually we wanted to talk about
is we both ourselves have experienced this.
You know, I've seen people get mugged repeatedly now in London
and I don't spend a lot of time in London.
And more broadly, we hear from our supporters, friends, people who live in London, that they just increasingly feel less safe.
Do you think there's a reason for this? Do you think it's true that people are less safe?
Yes, I think that's most definitely the case.
And I actually think people don't speak enough about how dangerous London has become because they had enough.
They have reached a level of detachment from reality only.
because they have realized they are speaking about the topic, you know, they're bringing it up,
nothing really happens.
So a lot of people know how dangerous London is, but they actually don't talk about it.
So your friends, I think, are rather in a minority of people who still talk about that topic.
For example, the new statistics saying that the crime in London is going downhill.
is going downhill only because people are not literally bothered to report it.
And I'll give you an example from my own self.
I don't have many, many hobbies.
One thing I like a lot, it's mountain biking.
I'm a big mountain bike fan.
So I bought me a brand new, quite expensive mountain bike
because I'm a big guy and I'm quite heavy,
so I wanted to buy a nice piece of machinery there.
After a couple of months, got stolen.
I didn't report it myself.
Why? Because I know it's not going to go anywhere.
So yes, to answer your question, they're absolutely right.
It's getting very, very volatile.
It's getting very dangerous.
I've seen that even when I was back working for the Met.
I remember people will be, you know, someone get their phone snatched.
And then suddenly, you know, people getting pushed away, you know,
pushed on the floor and then getting their fault snatched.
Then people branding knives and getting your phone away.
And I was seeing, you know, the violence was escalating drastically.
That's my personal view, to be honest.
Also, I've seen that a lot of people started to, you know, criminals, started to, you know, attack police officers,
absolute disrespect towards, you know, law enforcement and anything of such sorts.
So yes, I think London is on a very, very bad path, and something has to be done immediately.
And the question that will be on everyone's lips is why is this happening?
And I think your personal story ties very much into this.
So why do you think it's happening?
Okay.
From a police perspective, I think a lot of officers, they call it disillusionment with the job.
They understand in a way that they're fighting a job.
losing battle. I think for the first time in the history of the MET, voluntary resignations has
surpassed people who retire. Wow. And that's absolutely extraordinary. And whatever I say here,
everyone can go and look it up. I am here mostly because I want to speak to the regular
member of the public, you know, for the taxpayer and ask them to go and check these things for
themselves to actually realize that the situation is not good at all. So does that disillusionment
with the job? It's impossible tasks. I used to work in Westminster from being famous Charing Cross
Police Station. It is not exaggeration when I say that is non-stop call after call, after call,
after call. It is impossible for you to keep on top of that, let alone proper investigate further
their own. There's some wonderful people still in the Metropolitan Police, and I think
Londoners are incredibly happy to have them. I have been inspired by such people. Probably
that's why I lasted in the Met so long, because I thought to myself, not everything is lost,
but I think the amount of work is impossible. Nobody wants to join the police because,
specifically lately the last few years, you know, there was a lot of bad media coverage, some egregious
examples, you know, if you want to speak about this egregious examples later on, you know,
we can address that, but they don't recruit and they're losing mostly the best people they have.
This is a recipe for a disaster, and it's just a matter of time before something happened,
and they won't be able to control it. And I think deep down, they know that. I really think deep down,
you know, the senior leadership of the Metropolitan Police realizes that. So tell us your story then.
And how did you decide to join the police?
Why did you join the police?
And then what happened from there?
And maybe just tell, you know, a lot of people were saying you've got an interesting accent.
Just tell us a little bit more about you.
Yes, of course.
I am originally Bulgarian.
And I came to the United Kingdom because of my grandfather, to put it that way.
From a very, very young age, he taught me to read the classics.
So I started with, yeah, with Russian classics.
unbelievable. You have to read those two yearskin, you know, probably in Tolstoy and Gorki,
and you know so much about life. If you want to be depressed. Yes, yes, yes, and informed.
And then I moved to French classics. Yes, of course, wonderful. And then I ended up with
reading British classics. And I thought to myself, one day I want to go to Great Britain,
you know, and I ended up in Liverpool. That was the first place, which I went to leave.
An incredibly unique place.
It's not English, not British Liverpoolian, you know, more power to the people there.
They're very, very friendly, some of the best people ever met.
However, deep down, I always wanted to come in London.
Because when I was in Liverpool, I'll get the bus and I'll come to London.
I'm just going to walk around and I see this magnificent city.
And I'm thinking about the history that brought this city into existence.
All this lovely, amazing people who made it happen for me to have your own.
opportunity to walk as a free man, as an individual, according to what I think is the best
values in the world, the British values. That's what I think. I sincerely believe that. And I was
thinking to myself, well, I am young. I believe I have courtesy and dignity, transparency and
integrity. I'm relatively fit. What can I do to help this place, this country, this city that I felt
in love with preserve itself and not only, but make it the best city in the world. And I think
the best position to do that is actually joining the police because you can make an everyday
difference in someone else's life. And that person can remember that and they can make that
difference for someone else. And you can spread that goodness upon hundreds of thousands of people
for the next 10 to 15, 20 years. So I joined in the police.
I applied, I got the job.
One day before I came to London, I got, you know, a phone call, you know,
hello, Dimitai, you know, you on that university degree path.
Welcome to the police and, you know, you're going to work becoming the best constable
you can possibly be while attaining to this university degree and, you know,
even further fulfill your professional, you know, goals.
I don't think to myself, that sounds very nice.
In my head, I'm thinking this will be probably something very well related to the legislations,
which a constable most definitely needs to know inside out.
That's absolutely paramount.
So I thought to myself, okay, you know, that's great.
I'm happy.
I come to London and I find myself a place.
It was a little bit of a COVID.
We had a few lectures online, and then eventually we started going to university.
And this is the first time when I was starting to think,
this is not very well conducted.
Brand new building in the city of London, East India.
I can name it.
I was assigned to a university called Anglia Ruskin University.
So we go there and sometimes in the beginning,
I know it's the beginning, we're the first course, you know.
They used to call us also the Guinea Pigs.
And please bear that in mind because it would be covered.
very relevant later on.
So we go there.
In the beginning, sometimes
the internet wasn't working very well.
You know, it's a brand new building.
That's absolutely fine.
Then, guys, you are in room 10.
Oh, no, no, no, guys.
I'm very, very sorry.
You're in room 12.
Oh, I apologies.
You're in room 15.
You know?
And I'm thinking to myself,
this is all paid
with taxpayers money.
Millions upon millions of pounds
are implemented into that program.
And I understand we are the first class, but I think there must be some expectations from an establishment which is paid by taxpayers' money to be adequately prepared to make the program a relative and, you know, smooth as smooth as possible.
Anyway, you know, those things, they were a little bit strange.
But then we started having some lectures.
And the materials given to us, I think a lot of it has no relevance with the training of a frontline police constable,
specifically in the beginning of their career.
For example, they used to teach us theories such as broken window theory.
Well, that's okay.
Maybe if someone wants to expand in the professional conduct in the future to come as a criminologist,
maybe they can look upon that in the fullness of time, but not at the moment.
You need to know how legislations are presented and how legislations are presented in circumstances
in which a constable may happen to be part of, you know, was that a burglary, was that theft,
was that robbery?
Do you understand what to do?
You know, it should be more police-oriented specifically about the job, not about theories.
Then we had one training in which one of the questions asked of us was as follows,
how treating everyone equally would potentially lead to inequality?
You know, this is a little bit Orwellian.
Yes, yes, this is a little bit Orwellian.
I'm looking at that and I'm thinking, officers, police officers in training told that
question in a very, very interesting, very interesting wording, you know. And it seems to me it goes
against the very core principles of impartiality. You know, it makes you think, oh my God,
what do you mean? I'm treating everyone equally and my lead to inequality. It's very, very,
very confusing, very, very confusing. And I think this is an extraordinary bad thing to introduce
to office, specifically some of my colleagues who are very, very young people, you know, in their
20s and I'm thinking they're getting confused here. And I thought to myself, well, this is,
this is crazy. I don't want to be part of that. You know, this is waste of taxpayers' money.
I want to be a police officer. People are getting robbed. People are getting stopped, selling drugs,
fights all over the place. Let me be. Let me get off this course and let me specialize, you know.
Let me just be the officer. I wanted to be to protect this city. And I truly mean that from the
heart. Anyway, so I was very, very lucky because my,
class, my class was actually very outspoken about that. On few occasions, we actually made it
very, very clear the whole class that we want to be taken of this course. Guess what we were told
on many, many, many occasions. Guys, you either do this or you're going to lose your job.
I want everyone that will be watching the show just to think for a second if they think it's
appropriate to tell a police officer in training that if you do this, if you don't do this,
I'm sorry, you're going to lose your job. That's coercion to the best, I think, to the max.
This is really, really, really, really bad. And when they said that quite a few times,
I was looking around me and I could see the faces of my colleagues. They were so gloomy.
You know, they had nothing to say about that. And, Dimit, I just interject one thing.
I think it's important to say that one of the problems is that having a university degree was made a requirement for police officers.
Absolutely.
And this is why you're all sitting doing this course.
Yes.
I imagine most of you would rather just be out there being given practical skills to do with how to police.
In a heartbeat.
Right.
In a heartbeat, yes.
Yeah.
And they used to say that quite a few times.
You know, guys, if you don't do this, you're going to lose your job.
However, a few days after that, they'll come and they will say, you know, something, don't worry, guys, you're the first class, you're all going to pass.
And I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, this is an extraordinary thing to say.
I really was, that was bewildering.
Oh, don't worry, guys, you know, you're the first class, you know.
Yeah, we have made some mistakes, but you are the guinea pigs, like I've mentioned in the beginning of our conversation.
And I'm thinking to myself, this is, this is extraordinary.
You know, if this is a serious university, you know, I don't think they'll be acting like that.
You know, there will be a dialogue.
There will be a discourse, a proper discourse of why we actually don't want to be on that course,
not be told where we have to do it or you're losing your job.
But that was not the most extraordinary thing we have been sold.
On few occasions, and I'm not exaggerating, and if some of my colleagues are watching
that I beg of them to come forward and say the same thing.
And I already spoken to one of them and he said, yes, Dimee,
I clearly, clearly remember that.
On one occasion at least, the lecturer who was supposed to deliver a material to us,
read that material to us, said,
she looked at the PowerPoint and she said,
and I quote, oh my God, who wrote this?
Please, guys, don't shoot the messenger.
I'm only here to read you that.
And I'm looking around me and thinking, am I drinking crazy pills?
A lecturer openly mocking the very same material they're going to deliver to us.
I went back to the station, you know, after my university days.
And I said to my supervisor and to my inspector that I want to be taking all the course as soon as possible.
and I stopped submitting any work required, you know, of me.
And everything I have submitted before that was halfway through
because I was really, really scared that.
I'm really going to lose my job.
But I reached a breaking point.
I'm thinking I cannot morally continue like that.
It may cost me my job.
But I live my life on a very, very simple mode.
So if it's not right, don't do it.
If it's not true, don't say it.
I couldn't. I really, really couldn't.
So I stopped submitting anything.
I haven't submitted anything from probably 12 months.
I haven't submitted dissertation, you know, final work, nothing at all.
And I spoke to a chief inspector in learning and development,
and they told me, you need to write us a letter.
And we're going to assess the letter.
And if you made the exceptional circumstances,
criteria, you may be taking off the course.
So I write everything I told you in the letter, and I specifically said to them, I truly think
it is indeed an exceptional circumstance for someone to mock the very same material they're going
to read the stitches.
That's extraordinary.
My application wasn't adequately under the umbrella of exceptions.
circumstances, and I was told that I have to continue with that course.
Then in a little bit more strong worded email from my side, I said, I am not doing this,
and that's that, you know. And then after I said that, I sent that email, I received an email
from another external company, which was given the contract initially, and that external
company has given the four universities the ability to teach new offices.
And that email sets me literally Dimitar, you either do this or you need to resign.
And then it follows, of course, I hope it's not the latter and, you know, we want to help you out.
And that was a breaking point.
That was a breaking point because a few days before that I did an attachment with ARVs, which means
I'm response vehicles and
I was so happy to be surrounded by
such professional police officers
and I did 10 hours
with them and in the end of the
shift they told me
okay Dimitur you can send us
an application and we will see
what we can do for you and I know what that means
I'll send an application probably I'll be given
a chance to prove myself and eventually
join them if I pass all the
assessments required. So
So I was very, very happy.
I went back to my inspector, to my sergeant, and it was like,
Dimmy, we're going to sign you off immediately, you know,
and you can go specialize every way you want.
But we can't because you don't have the degree.
And this is when I send the email, when the email comes back,
you either do this or you need to resign.
And that was a breaking point.
I resigned.
I resigned two days after that.
And my last day was on the 31st of March.
2024. And it was a devastating moment for me and for my partner. I'm not with my partner anymore
because I became very, very detached from everyone, from her. I just couldn't understand
why this is happening. The news doesn't just tell you what's happening. It tells you what to make
of it. And the real red flag isn't what said. It's what gets left out. That's why I use ground news.
Every day, they gather thousands of stories from across the political spectrum.
Compare how different outlets are covering the same story side by side
and contextualize it, including specific differences in how each side is reporting it.
That's how you see what whole audiences are not being told.
My favorite feature is their blind spot feed.
Every day, it flags upwards of 20 stories that are being ignored by either the left or the right.
Let's look at some examples.
Follow along at ground.new slash trigonometry.
Take this story, a pure research survey,
found that 56% of Americans now support banning social media for anyone under 16,
with a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats behind it.
Genuine, bipartisan agreement is rare enough to be newsworthy on its own.
And yet, coverage came almost entirely from the right.
The left barely touched on it.
On the other hand, look at this.
An AP poll found that 66% of Americans now say democracy is central to what it means to be American,
down from 80% five years ago.
That is a serious story about how the country sees itself, especially on its 250th anniversary.
And it got three times more coverage from the left than it did from the right.
Ground News puts all of this in one place.
Headline comparisons, bias breakdowns, ownership insights, and context so you can actually
understand what's going on, not just react to what you're told.
Go to ground.
com slash trigonometry or click the link in the description of this episode.
Get 40% of their vantage plan, the same one that we use, and stop being managed by the media.
I did have two exit interviews, which is quite extraordinary on its own.
On my second exit interviews, on my second exit interview, the chief inspector that wanted to help me out had a conversation with the chief inspector in learning and development.
And they were speaking for over 45 minutes, but I very vividly remember she's saying to her, I'm sorry, but why are we losing this officer again?
His public order trained level two.
He stays a train.
He speaks multiple languages.
His inspector is here.
His sergeant is here.
They're very, very supportive of him.
His team is very, very supporting of him.
Why are we losing him?
I vividly remember that.
And I don't know what the structure of the MET is, what type of a contract precisely they have signed with this university awarding degree.
I really, really don't know.
But they couldn't give me a decisive answer.
They wanted me to wait.
And I couldn't, gentlemen, I couldn't.
I was broken.
I love every moment police in London.
And I think I have benefited quite a few people to say the least.
And I think my colleagues can, quite a few of them can say that I was.
a substantive and well overall in general,
complete officer to begin with.
I have done so many things to help my colleagues,
so many cell exits with other teams,
which I don't know anything about,
pulled people from the bridge,
going into the bat cell,
if I may put it that way.
I did it so selflessly.
I was really prepared,
if the circumstances are such,
I'm not exaggerating to lose my life if I have to,
but to preserve human dignity and goodness.
And I sincerely believe that.
And probably that's why the impact was so heavy on me
and resulted in me eventually breaking up with my girlfriend.
I was in a very, very dark place.
I just couldn't take it anymore on what point.
I thought, you know, I lost my meaning of life.
You know, I was good at this, you know.
I just wanted to make a difference and they have taken that away from me.
And I'm not seeking vengeance.
I just hope people can hear my story so that will never, never happen again.
So other complete, decent officers who want to make a difference
because we need them now more than ever to be honest, more than ever.
Yeah, yeah, that, it's a little bit of a sad story.
Let me continue. I'm sorry, just had a little bit of a flashback.
Three months after I resigned, it was a beautiful summer day. I think it was July.
You know, I'm at home, doing nothing. I open my laptop and I go to my private email.
And I'm seeing there an email from Anglia Ruskin. Congratulations, Dimitza. We have awarded you a diplomat policing.
And I'm thinking to myself, of course, this is a mistake.
They have made so many mistakes.
You know, probably there was, there's some type of an explanation.
You know, that's not true.
You know, maybe they made a mistake, like I said.
Anyway, I was free.
Let me go into my Anglia Ruskin profile.
I go into my Anglia risking profile.
Lo and behold, I have been awarded a Barcelo in policing with no honest,
with no honest, which is an insult to injury.
You know, that is so insulting to my intelligence that I was so bewildered at that moment
and angry and angry.
I'm thinking to myself, I left because of this insanity and eventually you awarded that to me
without me submitting anything for over here.
It was quite, quite, quite interesting.
I'm thinking to myself, let me actually download that diploma because that is extraordinary.
A few months later, because I still talked to quite a few years.
people in the Met. And in the Met, there's a lot of gossip. But the gossip in Met can be very, very
precise because it's a very, very close community. So the gossip most of the time is actually quite
accurate. And I heard that someone was awarded a degree, not only without submitting
dissertation, but without submitting level two in maths. And I'm thinking, it's possible. Man,
it's possible. If they're giving me a degree without me submitting anything, maybe they did that to
someone else, let me double check, let me just check. And I send a freedom of information request,
which I have is on my emails. And the freedom of information request goes as follows, I think,
from memory. Has anyone being awarded a degree in policing without A, submitting dissertation, or
B, submitting dissertation, or achieving level two in English or maths? The freedom of information
request comes back and says no.
Yes, and I think
I think
is either the freedom of information
request might not be
truly accurate
or the university needs to
explain how this is actually
possible to happen. And I wanted
to find out. I went back
to the very building, which we
used to, you know,
have our lectures in
East India. I go there, they're not there anymore. I'm thinking, oh, they're not here anymore.
Well, they lost the contract with the Metropolitan Police. I actually think by now the university
degree has been scrapped for, I think, few years because the backlash was nationally quite
quite loud. You know, people say, this is, this is not, this is not working well. People resign
because of it, you know, the amounts of work officers experiencing, policing, London,
and on top of that, they need to do, quite frankly, in my opinion, Alice in Wonderland,
the grid's quite striking.
And I go there and said, okay, but do you know where they have moved to?
Well, we don't know.
And I can't find anyone from Anglia risking.
You know, I wanted to go there with my diploma, sell them my circumstances, and just ask them how this is possible.
You know, tell me how was awarded that without me submitting anything to begin with.
It seems to me the university never has taken into account that there will be someone like me that eventually will speak about that.
I think they thought maybe to some extent they can intimidate us, but that is not going to happen because they're bigger things about me and them.
And the bigger things are the health and well-being of Londoners and how the police can preserve that.
Not only preserve that, but to make sure the many, many problems of London, which already exist, can be resolved.
This is bigger than me, this is bigger than them.
We need to find out exactly what's going on, because I think is absolutely outrageous.
And I think the worrying thing, look, there's many worrying things about your story,
but the thing that resonates with me is how are we meant to have good police?
officers when we're not doing the training programs that will prepare them adequately for the job.
Francis have an answer for that, and I have to be very, very honest.
I'm a big believer in individual responsibility.
There were other officers like myself that could say, no, we are not doing this.
This is insanity.
However, for one reason or another, and I understand, I understand the price to
pay, it's truly, truly devastating.
Like in my case, maybe some of them thought,
I'm just going to get along with it.
And maybe in future things will get better.
I don't think in future things will get better.
You are holding the office of constable
before you being a student or anything else.
It's absolutely necessary for you to have that honesty
before anything else.
I don't want to do this.
Don't only say it to the people in university or to your sergeant.
Speak to your colleagues.
Unite with your colleagues.
Say it clearly.
I am not doing this.
What are you going to do?
This is crazy.
We don't want to do universities degrees.
I want to be the best police officer.
I can.
It is up to them.
They could stand up and say, no, we're not doing this.
A lot of them didn't.
For one reason or another, I understand some people have family,
some people need that income,
but essentially, to some extent,
they are a little bit part
of why this is perpetuated upon them
because they haven't done enough.
Maybe some of my colleagues won't like that,
but I think that's the case.
You need to stand your ground.
It was crazy.
It was insane.
You can't continue like that.
You know the struggle you have been through
to get an Alice in Wonderland degree again.
I mean, why?
Why you need to go through that struggle?
taking so much way from your time, you know, years that will never come back.
And I think it's up to them. They need to make a stand.
In everyday policing as well, I am a big believer that if you're a frontline police officer,
you should look after yourself. Instead of finishing the shift and saying,
oh, you know, guys, let's go to the pub. That's absolutely fine. You're socialized.
But sometimes you need to say, you know, guys, let's go to the gym.
you can't have
five or six officers
jumping on a
just a regular male
who is a little bit more volatile
in order for you to detain
him, you know?
You need two, three officers,
maximum to be able to do that.
We already struggle with numbers.
We need to expand
on standards.
But standards,
no matter what you give me,
Francis, you can give me the best training
in the world.
If I don't want to do it myself,
it will go nowhere. It starts with an individual.
But that also comes to recruitment, Dimitar, because, I mean, look, this is just when I walk
around London, but I've noticed the standard of police officers, the way they conduct themselves,
the way they dress, and also the shape that they're in, I mean, they don't look like they'd be
able to arrest anybody, to be brutally honest. And they don't necessarily look very professional.
Of course, not all police officers. There are a lot of police officers. There are a lot of
police officers that do. But even in the 40 or so years that I've lived in this city, I've seen a
market decline in standards. I agree with you, yes. You know, I'm not a religious person,
but there are few things in the Bible, which are actually quite correct. You know, open rebuke
is better than secret love. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Again, I don't think some of my
ex-collex
understand
the incredibly
important nature
of the objective
reality,
physical reality
of frontline
policing.
I'm here to
speak only about
frontline policing.
You have to be
most definitely,
in my opinion,
above average
when it comes
to an average
fitness test,
what an average
male can do
or a female.
Some of
one of the
fittest police
officer
I've ever worked with was a female.
She was always downstairs with me in the gym.
She was incredible.
But I don't know what is stopping them.
I think I have a theory what is stopping them.
A very good friend of mine who is still in the police,
he's there, I mean, a few decades now told me that a lot of people come
and when they see the horrible circumstances of what policing means,
they become very, very cynical.
not only the approach in work, but, you know, in their personal lives.
And I think he's actually correct.
It takes a lot of effort to go to the gym.
It takes a lot of effort to be immaculate every single day.
And in my opinion, being a police officer,
holding that incredibly important role in London,
it is a demanding position.
And if you're not ready to reach that level,
perhaps
you can go home
you can speak to someone
in work and say to them
you know buddy I don't think I'm
the best version of myself
let me get some help
what can I do you know
I'm always giving people the benefit
of the doubt I'll never say no that job is not for you
no no no never I want to help you out buddy
but you need to do it on your own
and like you said yes
I quite often go to
central London and
you know
I walk past by people
and when there's a police guy
and suddenly a few offices looking like
just described them come out
I can just hear the public
oh my God look at them
I mean it's actually quite dangerous
because one gentleman
was walking and he saw these officers
having a coffee and he said they look like
a caricature in uniforms
and it's not
only you. It's quite a quite of a situation, and that situation can only be addressed within
the individuals to begin with. However, the institution is quite difficult to inspire them to be
that best version of themselves. But surely, Dimitar, this comes from the top. It's the people at the
top who set the standards of any organization. Because if you don't set the standards at the top, then look,
There's some people like yourself who's self-motivated, who are really passionate,
but there are other people who are just there because it's a job.
And if you let standard slip, then it's going to affect everything and everyone.
To me, this is a crisis of leadership, isn't it?
The people who watch this show have generally done more thinking about how governments operate the most,
but there's a difference between understanding the problem and having actually built insulation again.
That's the world McEl Thorup operates in. He's been living as an expat for over 25 years,
visiting more than 110 countries and calling nine of them home. He founded expat money nearly a decade ago to help others do the same.
When he helped someone build an international Plan B, the knowledge he brings is entirely firsthand.
Every recommendation comes from something he has already done himself.
Expat money works specifically with freedom-minded families and investors who want to reduce their exposure on anyone,
government or any one system. Second residences, second citizenship, offshore banking,
international real estate, legal structures that spread your life across borders.
McKell has put together a free report called Plan B residences and instant citizenships.
It covers five routes to a second passport, including one that almost never gets discussed
how a foreign residency functions as genuine political insurance, which countries actually
make sense depending on what you're trying to protect and what it realistically costs.
ExpatMoney.com slash trigger or click the link in the description of this episode to download the report.
There's no charge, no catch. That's expatmoney.com slash trigger.
To me, this is a crisis of leadership, isn't it?
It is definitely a crisis of leadership. And let's speak about leadership indeed.
I think I don't want to offend anyone in the senior leadership of the metropolitan.
and police, there's some
lovely, lovely,
extraordinary great people there.
But in general, I think
they have reached
a level of
astonishingly
being capable of self-deception.
And I call that
the magic Excel document.
We need
10 people to go
to that place and
we need 20 people to go to
that protest, you know, let's see how we can manage the numbers. It's all about numbers. But the
quality of offices, it's through the window. It's all about numbers. And I always thought to myself,
these people in these positions of so much power and decision making, they should know better
than anyone else. It's not only about numbers. A football team has 11 players. If you take
Ronaldo and put me in, it still be 11 players.
But the performance will deteriorate massively.
I don't think to myself, can they not see the bigger picture?
And unfortunately, I think, which is very, very sinister, I think, maybe some of them do.
But the next promotion, the next promotion is very well paid.
You have a lot of power if you are chief inspector and above working for the Metropolitan Police.
It is a nice place to be.
I think some of them understand that,
and I would like to say that quite a few of them,
understand that quite well.
But why nothing is done,
I think it's because the politics are so complex on that level.
I think the police needs rebuking from scratch.
Not today, tomorrow.
before it's too late.
It has to be solely based on the Pellian principles.
And that's that.
That's that.
Nothing else, nothing more.
Which are what?
Well, for example, you know, treat everyone equally.
I mean, I treat everyone equally.
You know, honesty, integrity,
the rule of law, be impartial.
That's very, very important.
I think impartiality has gone a little bit downhill
because officers like this document I saw in this document I told you.
I saw in one of the trainings, you know, saying that treating everyone equally can lead to...
An equal outcome.
Inequal outcome.
Yes. Impartiality is very, very, very important.
Very important.
just work according to the law, bring courtesy back, bring discretion back.
I think officers have been taking a lot of discretion away from them.
And that's a big problem.
You know, I think you should exercise more discretion, of course, based on your impartial approach.
If someone steals a sandwich because someone has nothing to eat, of course, you're going to give them that discretion.
and you're going to treat them differently
if someone just uses a sandwich because they can't be bothered, you know, to pay.
In that sense, I understand, yes, maybe your treatment
according to the particular circumstances might be different,
but discretion has gone, you know, discretion is over.
And I have been through situations like that,
which discretion I thought to myself could be implemented, but it wasn't.
And I don't know why.
And this thing about equal treatment leads to an equal outcomes.
You're hinting at something that's been a huge discussion in Britain,
which is what people talk about is two-tier policing.
Yes.
And what they're talking about is a mixture of things.
It's not just about, you know, racial disparities and things like that,
but it's, you know, the way that protesters against lockdown were treated versus BLM protesters
and other things of that nature,
where the public see that similar behavior results in very different treatment.
And then we hear from people like you about guidance.
We hear from other people about guidance around the treatment of different racial groups.
We see cases like the Henry Novak case, for example, where police officers arrive at a scene
immediately are effectively misled by the races of the people involved as to who's the perpetrator,
who's the victim.
And overall, a lot of people now have this picture.
that the police have been trained effectively at this point
not to treat people equally.
Is this true? Is this an exaggeration?
What are your thoughts on it?
When in one of the lectures in university,
I think it was just a little bit after BLM around that time.
2002, I think, 2012.
Well, I'm not very, very sure.
I don't really remember.
The very same lecture,
that said, you know, all guys don't shoot the messenger.
Ask a question from all of us.
Guys, what do you think about Black Lives Matter?
And a very lovely, very good-hearted girl in our class.
You said, well, all lives matter.
I swear to God, Constantine, that's exactly what you said.
Oh, can you say that?
And I'm thinking, can you not see the goodness in this, you know,
a young woman's voice.
It was crazy.
It was quite a thing.
Woo, can you say that?
And that, who can you say that,
makes you think, am I right to say that?
That whole lives matter,
which is a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
Am I right?
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I need to find within myself
where maybe I have some type of a bias,
maybe something that I don't understand.
And it makes young officers question themselves.
You know, when a perfectly reasonable statement like, oh, life's matter, it's absolutely fine.
Of course, black lives matter.
All lives matter.
Any lives matter.
That woo was quite of a thing to say.
Were you ever asked about, you know, what are your internal biases and things like this?
Thank you.
I am going to say something now.
They were very, very clever with this.
They gave us a white piece of paper.
Okay?
And they say, guys, this is anonymous.
You don't have to write your name.
Just write down if you think you ever had some privileges.
And I took that piece of paper and I wrote that I'm Bulgarian.
My ancestors were four and a half century under the Ottoman Empire.
Some of the savagories have been well documented from journalists, from
France to Russia and the United States, I have more privileges and I gave it to them.
I don't know what happened with that piece of paper, but it was the most bizarre thing that
I've ever encountered in my life.
What do you think was the point of that exercise?
Did you get a sense of what they're trying to achieve by the conversation about BLM,
by the conversation about privilege?
What is it that they wanted you to learn?
I think this is my opinion.
I might be wrong, but I think giving someone this piece of paper,
asking that that question is solely reading the room to what extent some of the people here
might think they might have some privileges. And if someone has put a privilege or something like
that, we need to address it. We need to train them, you know. Maybe we need to train people that
haven't put that they have any privileges, you know. Maybe they cannot see it that you have a
privilege and you can't recognize it. You know, that's what I think.
I think it's way more sinister than that, without speaking in depth of what exactly you mean someone has a privilege.
I mean, this is a conversation that we can have here for hours on end.
It's quite extraordinary to introduce that out of the blue on a white piece of paper and just give it to front line police officers who need to go back to the street and, you know, tackle criminals, you know, and wrestle with them on the floor.
what privileges are you talking about Jesus Christ?
Yeah.
It's so extraordinary.
I guess what I'm getting at, trying to understand, not getting it,
I'm trying to understand is what the truth is about the idea
that police officers have been trained now for some years
to treat different people differently.
Is this something that you see or saw whether on the front line or in your training or anything?
And I'm open to the possibility that maybe it's exaggerated.
or maybe it's not true, but I'm really trying to understand what your perspective is on it.
Well, this document was obviously introduced to some police forces.
The question which was introduced to us, that definitely was in Augusta,
the Metropolitan Police.
I think when you introduce fundamentally such incredibly difficult topics
without very much explaining them,
you're putting a seed of questioning,
the person start questioning themselves,
do everything I know and do actually might be biased?
It's confusing them.
If you suspect, let's say for the sake of argument,
that someone may be biased
or have some inclination towards treating different people differently,
maybe people that look like him just for the sake of argument.
You may have a training.
I mean, the training is already there.
The police fundamentals, like I said, they're already there.
Transparency, honestly, in honesty, you know, impartiality.
You don't need to make these young people questioning themselves all the time
because eventually they will be confused.
And eventually, when you confuse sometimes in a situation,
which requires your immediate professional attention,
as in the case of may he rest in peace, this young man,
Henry Nova, may lead to tragic outcomes.
And that thing with, I don't think so, mate, makes my blood boil.
To begin with, nobody should ever speak to a member of the public
regardless of the circumstances.
Even if you're a suspect, even if I know you're the bad guy,
hey, mate, don't approach people like that.
Eventually, maybe you get someone and speaking to them for five, ten minutes.
Maybe then you can, you know, slide it in.
Hey, thank you, mate.
Thank you very much.
But in the beginning, as I said, you represent the office of a constable.
You need to be immaculate, in my opinion, of speaking to these people.
I always approach even the suspects, even the suspects.
You know, hey, tomorrow is a better day.
I'm not here only because of them, of the person that call.
me. I'm here because of you as well. Let me see how can I help you out? I never approach
anyone. A mate, listen to me, mate. That's extraordinary. I've seen that. It only escalate things.
And in the case of Henry Novak, why they haven't given, why they didn't attend to him medically,
it's seriously beyond me. Fundamentally, the most important thing of people.
Policing is preserve life.
Even if I know, this guy's a victim, you know, this guy, he is the perpetrator, you know,
I just saw him shooting that fellow over there, but that fella is being attended already.
And in the process of me detaining him, I knock him out so badly that he doesn't want to come back to, you know, to life.
You need to immediately attend to him, no matter what he have done.
If there's so, if there's deranged men on the street, stabbing people,
And in the process of you detaining him, you shot him in the leg or you shot him in the chest, you know, immediately you need to attend to them as well.
You need to preserve their life by all means necessary.
They should have stripped him, and I'm sorry to say, naked immediately and see if he's bleeding, not just roll him over and put in handcuffs.
This is, you know, I can't watch this video.
I watch it a few times and I can't anymore because it makes me truly, truly, truly, truly sad.
Truly sad for this 18-year-old young man.
It's just the most egregious thing I've ever seen in my life.
When you buy seafood, what do you worry about most?
Nutrition, sustainability, taste?
I've asked all of those questions.
This is why Wild Alaskan Company caught my attention.
It is the best way to get Wildcourt,
perfectly portioned, nutrient-dense seafood delivered to your door.
You've not tasted fish this good.
When we first got a delivery from Wild Alaskan Company,
it stood out immediately.
The care that goes into it, the packaging, the clear sourcing, their attention to detail,
you can tell this is a company that does things properly.
What makes wild Alaskan company special is how they source everything.
100% wildcore, never farmed.
No antibiotics, no GMOs, no additives, just clean real fish,
frozen off the boat to lock in flavor and nutrients like omega-3s.
You get flexible shipments, expect cooking tips,
and a box that genuinely feels like it's come from people who care about what they're
My favorite variety is their Pacific caliber.
Firm and meaty, it cooks beautifully in a pan on the grill and goes with almost anything.
And there's no risk.
If you're not completely satisfied with your first box,
Wild Alaskan company gives you a full refund.
No questions asked.
Get seafood you can trust.
Go to wildelaskin.com slash trig for $35 of your first box of premium wildcourt seafood.
That's wildelaskin.com slash trig for $35 of your first order.
Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode.
And I think a large part of the problem, Dimitar, is if you wanted to be a firearms officer.
Yes, indeed.
And I think a lot of people don't want to be firearms officers anymore because they go, well, if I do my duty and I shoot someone who is posing either a threat to me or a threat to the public or both, I'm the one who's going to get arrested here.
Yes, Francis, absolutely.
I don't think like that.
I don't care.
And I don't care in a way of,
I understand that things bigger than me.
I truly believe that just as for all,
it's bigger than the preservation of my own life,
even sometimes maybe my own freedom.
I wanted to join Amresponse,
knowing this might be the case.
But I am prepared to face
the consequences. And I was ready to face the consequences because I knew deep down inside of me,
I will be so well prepared, so well prepared. I will train myself every single day, not only
in my physical ability to do something, my tactics, my firearm tactics, my communications,
even if it's only in my head, my knowledge of the legislations. So if that time comes one day,
face it as a man who believes has reached that level of professionalism. And whatever may happen
after that, I don't care because they're bigger things than me. I can't just say to myself,
oh, you know, something, I don't want to do this. You know, I just want to have a family and,
you know, maybe someone else can do it. No, no, no, no, no. Francis, it's necessary. Someone
has to do it and I was prepared to do it. But I understand that, Dimitar, but there are people who
are going, look, if I do my duty and I'm going to get
punished for it, then why would I do that job?
Well, look at the Chris Kabber case.
Yes.
Look at the, I mean, you're the guy who wanted to be a firearms officer.
I'm not, Francis isn't.
But this is a situation where someone who's committed firearms offenses, is using his car
to try and ram police officers, an armed police officer shoots him.
And there's a big, there's a big media hoopla about this.
And the guy's, the officer who shoots him, is tried for murder.
Yes, he's tried for murder.
I think...
It's grotesque.
It is grotesque.
This country was famous once, maybe one day again, for probably having the best justice system in the world.
Very rigorous, very open, you know.
We all put in the same, you know, level, and we all be, you know, judged accordingly.
So open scrutiny is very, very welcome, you know, very, very welcome.
Though the portrayal of what happened there, in my opinion, was indeed actually taking away from an impartial, honest process.
But it was a little bit one way.
This officer is a murderer.
Seriously?
What do you know about air-a-v training?
What do you know about receiving an information about a vehicle which was linked to arm the fences?
Someone tried to ram you with their own car, maybe having a gun because that's information you have.
Maybe they're trying to ram with you with the car, but maybe next time there was a gun.
You don't know that.
You know that that vehicle is linked with guns and not only that he's trying to ram me with his car.
What do you think is the best solution in that split second?
the police officer in question has made that decision.
And I think the decision was based on self-defense and defense of others.
Because I was walking in North London and this chap came up to me and he said,
I love trigonometry. I want to let you know that I'm a police officer.
There's a lot of police officers that watch the show.
And one of the things a lot of the people in the force believe
is that neither senior leadership nor the politicians have our backs.
There's an incentive like that, yeah, quite, quite strong within the metropolitan police.
But it's true, isn't it?
Like, I mean, of course, they clearly don't have their backs because if they did in this
situation, the guy would get a medal, not a murder trial.
Right?
They could be, they could, they can receive an award for exemplary work.
Yes, that can that can be the case most definitely or they were acquitted.
I think quite, quite fast.
So there's some hope still, though...
It should never have gone to trial.
Never.
Maybe for...
I think I'm not defending them, by all means necessary,
the people who took him to trial.
Maybe for the sake of that seeking that ultimate justice,
it was, you know, this officer was put through,
indeed, a horrific, I think, you know,
trial, you know,
and that's, I can only imagine what he has been through,
but it was not that much about the trial.
It seemed to me to be a witchcraft.
Like they were trying to convince him.
I think that's the problem.
It's not questioning, oh, let's see exactly what happened,
what you have done, could you have done anything better,
all these questions they're asking you.
I think it was a witch hunt.
Which hunt?
Yes, that's what I think.
That was the problem, yes.
Right. But this is kind of what I'm getting at is you say, you know, in the interest of absolute justice, but as you know better than I, just as this justice is a nuanced thing. There are different people. If you hound a police, an armed police officer in the way that he was hounded both in the media, by politicians, by activists, and you put him on trial for murder when he's clearly not only done the right thing, but done the courageous thing in very difficult circumstances, that's not justice, that's injustice.
And this is something that a lot of people feel has now happened in the country where the rights are using inverted commas of people listening of perpetrators of crime, which is what Chris Carber was.
He was a criminal.
Yes.
Are placed far and above the interests of the ordinary person who is the victim of those crimes.
Or in this case of the police officer whose job it is to stop criminals like Chris Carver doing what they do?
I think to some extent there might be some ideologues within the system, the police, the, the courts, which indeed may perpetuate some ideologies and therefore affect the process of justice.
Now, why we have people like that in such position of power, positions of power, is beyond me.
I don't know how they're selected.
I don't know how they think.
I don't know if they can't see for themselves that this is actually not transparent.
I say that word quite often.
This actually is leaning one way rather the other.
let's not forget that the courts are there for one thing and one thing only to be absolutely honest
and clear about the picture. Their job is not to try to find someone guilty or not guilty,
but to find out what is the truth and you here come very, very correct. Unfortunately, I think
we are living in a situation in a world in which truth can be interpreted.
very differently according to the people, you know, people in power.
And that worries me a lot because if we're going to have an ideologues making decisions,
what is wrong and what is right, then we're on a very, very slippery slope of,
and I think we're very, very close to a point of no return with some insanities going on in London
and in England to begin with.
Because we're talking about ideologues setting policy.
Yes.
I mean, there's a lot of problems with that.
But one of the major problems is ideologues see the world through their lens.
It's an ideology.
And with policing, you can't have ideology.
You have to have reality.
Absolutely, yes.
And so you look at something like stop and search, and people are going,
oh, we need to get rid of stop and search.
Now, again, I've never policed a day in my life.
But to me, that seems lunacy.
It is particularly...
It is lunacy.
It is absolutely crazy.
Why is it?
I would tell you, stop and search is very, very controversial because according to statistics,
black kids maybe stopped a little bit more than anyone else.
Okay.
I've done a few stop and searches, and I would tell you something, specifically when I was in
S&T, safe and neighbor.
Who's team. Most of the stop and search were searches were in relation to drugs, you know,
if you can find some drugs on them, you know, drug paraphernalia. Because these kids, they go into
inside properties, you know, on the staircase and they smoke weed and they listen to loud music.
Well, guess who is calling us there? It's the black lady next door who had enough of them.
Guess who called us again? The black gentleman who told me, I can't deal with this kid.
anymore. Not only they're getting, you know, a high on my, in front of my apartment,
on the staircase, last time one of them pissed in an elevator. The people who are calling me
to do the stop and search and go and attend, most of the time were black themselves.
There were black, lovely people living in these buildings who had enough of kids running up
and down smoking weed and causing havoc, you know, stealing your bikes and like this guy said,
you know, pissing in the elevator.
So the stop and search is not exactly as people think.
Most of the time, it's other black folks calling on, you know, these kids,
some of the stop and searches in Soco, for example.
Soho is very famous for getting your phone snatched, your watch snatched.
If there's a hot crime spot and,
you are dressed in a, you know, black Nike, you know, track suit with a mask on.
Of course, that's not enough for anyone to stop and search.
Maybe just the way you want to dress, you know.
But when you're running away from the police and you tried to hide yourself away from the police,
and before that there was an intelligent source described someone like you,
feeding that description of just robbed the phone 20 minutes ago, you might be indeed
get stopped and search, not because you might be guilty, but you may fit very, very well.
The description of that person found in that exact location in which 20 minutes ago someone
got the phone snatched, you know, and you really, really look like that person.
If you have nothing to hide, that's absolutely.
It's absolutely fine. You can stop and search me. You know, if you've got a description of an Eastern European guy, you know, looking like me snatching phones, you know, I want to be stopped and search as soon as possible because I want to eliminate myself. I want the bad guy actually to be found. So stop and search most of the time, in my opinion, looking at my colleagues as well, it's very, very well researched. It's not done for the sake of stopping and searching people. That is not true. That is not true. Actually, the stop and searches which have been conducted are very, very professional, you know, very courteous.
They take that time, they explain everything in detail, they're willing to give you a record of the stop and search if you think it was not right for you to go and say, you know, I don't think that was right, you know.
I don't think that officer stopped me for the right reason.
And that never happens because most of the time the intelligence sources are quite spot on.
And it's not just crimes, it's also preventing crimes.
Yes.
But if you've got the report that somebody is carrying a knife, you could be saving something.
You could be saving someone's life.
Absolutely, yes.
And knives are, how can I put it,
much more prevalent that people think.
A lot of people carry knives.
However, they tend to hide them sometimes, near them,
if they're in a particular area.
They might not carry the knife with them all the time.
But if another gang comes,
they know where the knife is
and they can run and get it.
So a lot of people might be
found not carrying a knife
but they might have knives
somewhere close to them
or within some of their friends
which haven't been stopped and such.
A knife, it's an epidemic.
It's a really epidemic
and it's extremely dangerous.
Yes, I agree with you.
And they have ways around it.
You know, they know what to do.
They really, really do.
People who actually carry knives,
they're quite well.
educated on the topic if that makes sense.
They really do know what.
What does that mean, Dimitar?
Well, like I said, they might hide the knife,
they might hide the drugs,
they might not have it on them.
So, let's say, 20 minutes ago,
you saw someone matching my description,
pulling, you know, having a knife, you know,
just putting a knife in my, in my pockets, okay?
And however, in these 20 minutes
that until the police come and found me, you know,
I'm in my area, you know,
and let's say I'm doing something.
dodgy there, you know, but I know, I don't want to carry the knife with me. You know, I'm going
to be here, let's say, for the next half an hour. I might leave the knife somewhere close by.
And on my way out of this area, I can just pick it up with me. So you have that information.
You come, you stop and search me, but the knife is not on me because I've stashed it somewhere.
That's it. And now you've committed a point, whatever the term would be, a pointless or a
fruitless or a baseless stop and search, and you are now...
Yeah. Negative.
Negative. Yeah, it's negative. Yeah.
And why is there an epidemic of knife crime in London?
Because of how volatile the city is.
The city is...
I will give you an example,
which I think fits the characteristics of London quite well.
I'm from Eastern Europe.
I say that to all my friends,
Eastern European friends, across the seas,
my English friends,
pick an Eastern European country.
Pick any Eastern European country.
Pick any city in any European country, any street, any day, any time.
I will walk there on my own.
No worries.
I would never, ever do the same in London in some areas.
Never.
I'm going to get jumped.
I won't.
I am genuinely scared.
I'll do that everywhere else in Eastern Europe.
Lovely, with pleasure.
Here I won't do the same thing.
I go back home sometimes and I say to it.
to, you know, people in Bulgaria,
it's a province in European country,
how dangerous London is.
And they look at me in disbelief
and in absolute disbelief.
I said, well, yeah, oh yeah,
fights, your watch gone,
people getting stopped almost on daily basis.
I think I'm not very, very sure.
40% of all mobile snatches
in continental Europe, I think,
are conducted in London.
I'm not very, very, very sure,
but it's something extraordinary like that.
Dean, can you check that with Venisei?
It's what we use to fact-check things while we're continuing conversation.
Yeah, please.
I'm interested.
Is it true that 40% of phone snatching in Europe is in London?
Just check that.
Thank you.
And do you put that down to the problems of policing that you told us about,
which is effectively if you don't have enough police,
if you're losing good police officers,
if the quality of the police officers declining,
we know under the Theresa May's government,
there were slashes to,
or when she was Home Secretary rather, there was huge budget slashes and therefore you couldn't, you lost 10, I think, over 10,000 police officers.
Is the reason London has become less safe and more, there's more crime because there's not enough good police officers?
I think it's partially because of that.
And what else?
Apathy. People don't care. People think that they can get away with everything.
The social cohesion of so-called diversities are strength in London, in my opinion, is a fairy tale.
I have never seen a city so beautiful with so much potential and yet so divided.
I am really, really shocked to see that.
I think a lot of these young kids, these gangs, they don't care.
They have absolutely no connection.
to anyone and anything but the gangster lifestyle,
because it seems so easy to get away with it.
And yes, it seems so easy to get away with it
because, like you said, you know,
there's not enough police officers.
The second part is, even there are some police officers,
like Francis said, they look at that and they're thinking,
probably they look like a sack of potatoes in uniform,
I, or Alderadam officer.
They tried to determine, push them over, and get away with it.
I think all those factors contribute to that.
You know, it's interesting you say that you guys were talking about this.
I saw, I was scrolling my Twitter yesterday.
I saw this video of a guy posted this video saying,
oh, the police in London don't fuck about it.
And it's guys on bike snatching phones,
and then a police officer comes in and just smashes them off the bike.
or they tackle them off the bike, or they ram them, not ram them with a car, but they sort of
enclosed them. And I was like, oh, wow, this is, oh, have they changed policy?
That's an AI.
It was AI.
I watched this as well yesterday.
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, oh, this is what we want.
Oh, oh, okay, it's AI.
That was an AI, yes, yes, it is.
Sort of tells the full story, doesn't it?
It is, it is indeed exactly that it's apathy.
They don't care.
Police are not there to begin with.
they don't look respectful enough to,
a police officer should be,
especially frontline police officers should be,
to some extent,
possessing authority.
So when I see to police officers coming from a police car,
I want to think for myself,
you know, something, man, I rather,
I rather do, you know, what I gotta do.
I don't want to mess with this guy.
Exactly, I don't want to get, you know,
detain by these officers, you know,
it's not going to be,
and they obviously seems like they're going to detain me,
you know,
However, these officers are getting less and less and far between.
And that's a tragedy.
And the taxpayers are paying for that.
Dean, do you, were you able to look it up?
So the UK as a whole accounts about 40% of...
Okay. So the UK as a whole is 40% of all phone snatching in Europe.
That's, I mean...
That's insane.
That's crazy.
Oh, Constantine, it's beyond belief how bad it is.
Can I ask a question?
Because this really, like, this is going to, this, as a Londoner, this boils my urine.
You see these kids.
You see them nicking phones.
Yes.
You see them cycling around.
I don't see a police officer.
I'm like, why don't you arrest this kid?
I mean, it's not exactly a difficult crime to solve.
They don't have enough people, Francis.
Like I said, specifically Westminster, which I used to work.
You go from call to call to call to call.
And to some extent, if you're experienced police officer
and you are, let's say, on Oxford Street
and very, very quickly need to go to, I don't know,
just region street, it's not that far away.
You know, somebody snatched your phone.
Let's be very, very precise.
I snatch your phone.
Until the victim finds someone to call the police,
until the police ask you few questions.
until a police unit is dispatched to come and see you,
the fellow on a bike, it's in Lomba.
In that electric bike, you know, he's in Lembert.
And a lot of police officers, they know that.
Yes, of course, they're going to put the blue lights on
and they're going to try to come and speak to the victim as soon as possible.
That's absolutely fine.
But deep down, they know the whole process.
Until they get dispatch, until they come and see you,
especially now Oxford Street will be,
you know, made for pedestrians, Zalona,
is that going to be a crime heaven?
That is going to be something else.
Your phone is gone, so they know that.
They know that, but I will say something a little bit controversial.
Snatching phones is just a little part of actually what is going on in London.
The robberies are something else.
People being threatened with knives,
beaten in front of their wives and partners.
You know, like a few videos like that.
on social media, getting their, you know, watches away from them.
The violence is escalating quite a lot.
A lot of people are not afraid to stand in front of police officer and abuse them,
sometimes even become physical with police officers.
And I think that's very, very, very, very telling.
Very, very, very telling.
I have a colleague who in one of these protests, which used to happen every Saturday,
got dragged in in the crowds.
I think they stole her helmets.
I think they stole her button.
And I think they broke her hip.
I'm not very, very sure if she had a broken hip or not.
And then they spat her off.
Yeah, I mean, it's really, really bad.
It's really, really bad.
If something similar happens to 2011 in London,
I don't think we'll be able to cope.
You're talking about the riots?
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Timit, it's been an absolute pleasure
having you on. Thank you. We're going to go to questions from our supporters. I really thank you
for coming on. I think it's really important for people like you to come forward to tell your story
and to explain to people at the normal level of the person, the frontline police officer,
and this will be true in the NHS. It'll be true in prison of service in many different areas.
What's actually going on? Because politicians talk about politics and media people talk about
this at a political and media level. But just to hear your story from your experiences has been
really valuable. So thank you for coming on. Before we get to questions from our supporters,
what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?
Before Dimitar answers a final question at the end of the interview, make sure to head over
to triggerpod.com.uk, where you'll be able to see this. What does the public most
misunderstand about being a police officer? Why is there two-tier policing?
Is it now time for all police officers to be armed with guns?
What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?
The very painful topic of introducing higher standards when it comes to recruitment.
The very topic of few, I have to say it, I think to some extent the from line has been quite saturated by female offices.
which are absolutely wonderful in what they do.
But when it comes to volatility and being able to objectively restrain someone,
I think they are not prepared to such level of violence.
And they need a lot of backup sometimes.
And because they need backup, most of the times,
they're taking away a unit that might be.
be dealing with someone else. If we had more officers, that's absolutely fine. I want, and I wish
everyone the best. I want everyone to expand in their work, but we are at such stage of low numbers
that if we don't address the quality of policing, we might be indeed in the next few years
seeing the total collapse of the police, in my opinion.
And what do you think the answer to that is?
Because when we had Chris Donaldson, who's a former police officer himself,
and in fact, he worked his way up, I think.
He mentioned that, you know, we talked about the female aspect of this,
that you bring up the physical strength of being able to deal with violence.
And what he said is the thing is there's a flip side to this,
which is where female officers can quite often diffuse the situation
in a way that men are less likely to do,
which I think, I suspect is probably partly true.
So is it about having the right mix or partnering people in the right way or having more people?
Or do you think it's just a question of people being put into positions for which they're not suitable?
I think DEI has introduced a few of these policies that we need a certain amount of that type of people,
a certain amount of this type of people, which is absolutely crazy.
that's insane because the moment you say, I need more Bulgarians, you know, give myself into example,
you are taking away the opportunity of someone else that might be much better suited for that position,
and that's true. And I disagree, actually, with that they're better in diffusing situations.
Defusing situation needs courtesy and professionalism. That's the only thing that it needs.
It doesn't matter where it comes from as long as the other person,
can see that is genuine, regardless if it comes from me or you or some other lady,
it truly, truly doesn't matter.
It has to be sincere.
Courtesy is something that you cannot fake.
Discretion is something that you cannot fake.
Maybe some female officers may possess that more naturally,
but then again what makes a person naturally more courteous?
that we can't
we can't take and choose
when it comes to the reality
of frontline policing
I rather have someone
who is more physically
capable of doing things
and then work on
their courtesy
and discretion
than someone that has only courtesy
and discretion
but it's not working on
the physical ability
to do something
because most criminals
really don't much
care how courteous you are, especially if they're guilty. They want to get away. They want to get away.
Of course, that does me have to pros them. Hey, mate. But they really don't care. They're thinking,
I'm going to get out of this, what I'm going to do, what I'm going to say, you know. It's whole
avalanche in their head. So to some extent, they might be right, but I wouldn't myself use that as a
to just put more courteous people regardless of their sex.
When we saw, I mean, with the Manchester airport confrontation,
I mean, you feel sorry for the female police officers involved in that situation,
who were badly injured.
But as you said earlier, in an ideal situation,
those guys who punched police officers really should have been very hesitant to do so
because of the stature and the presence of those police officers,
and they would ideally be thinking,
I don't want to punch these people,
because that's going to end very badly for me.
Yes, absolutely.
And clearly that deterrent wasn't there, which is what you're saying.
No, it wasn't. It wasn't.
And it's the somers and actually think it might be invitation.
Of course.
And I think we should address something else here as well,
which, again, may sound controversial,
but we live in a very, very, very,
multicultural society.
And I think perhaps we have to take into consideration
that some cultural upbringing may have different views on women.
Yeah, I think we might.
Yes, that is very, very, very important.
Oh, I see you even more what you're saying.
So when it comes to policing, the way somebody from a certain background might
react to a female police officer is different.
Yes, absolutely. I've seen that many, many times.
I've seen that many, many times.
I've been, I have done very many cell exits.
Cell exit is when someone is very, very angry and, you know, you need to detain them inside
the cell.
And, you know, there's a particular way of how you get away from them.
And I've seen people being angry, being handled by female police officers, quite
often and they come from most of the time particular backgrounds in North Africa and Southeast Asia most of the time.
And I've experienced that myself. I have experienced people telling me, why are we English? You're
like us, you're a foreigner, you're one of us. Quite a few times. Most of the times I think I'm Russian
because of my family.
Yes.
And they have been told me, why are with them, you know,
why are with English?
They never say the British.
Yeah.
They say the English.
We think we are British.
They think this is England.
It's quite interesting that we want to achieve something which is, you know,
under the United Kingdom, we're all British,
but they don't see the locals as British.
they see them as English and to some extent I think the animosity is quite open and I'm very very very very
sorry to say that but I have experience that myself I have seen it I've heard that many many times
oh why you're helping them you know why join the police I crazy stuff like that you know from quite a few
quite a few people and it's also as well let's be honest about that in this country you're taught
never to hear a woman now some people do because they're not very nice people they're not good
people morally, but that is what you're taught in this country. There are other cultures,
they don't really have an issue with it. Francis, the insanity of the city, this is my opinion,
again, you know, I think it's an insanity what we have found ourselves to be in. Let me paint
the picture. People in suits paid by taxpayers' money, going to the home office, okay?
For months, thinking about what we're going to do and came out with leaflets saying,
you need the other person to say yes, before you have sex, don't have sex with someone who is asleep.
For the love of God, are we living in an age of total delusion?
Yes.
This is crazy.
You know, I said that to my sister and she thinks I am joking, you know.
people outside of Britain think you people are totally nuts.
And I mean that because I feel sorry for this crunch that has given so much to the world.
And it doesn't really matter in my case where I have come from.
Because where you come from, yes, indeed matters a lot.
But essentially, what matters is your ideas, what you believe in, how you want to live your life.
That's why I have chosen to live in Britain.
I don't consider myself British, maybe one day if I marry a British lady and we have
have kid, maybe that kid will be British, but not me. I consider myself as a subject of this
great place, and I want to help out. But I'm afraid to say that I think I'm in the minority. There's
a lot of people who don't think that way whatsoever are openly hostile, and for the United
Kingdom government to approve that, I think tells you everything you need to know of where we
are heading. Absolutely. Dimitar, it's been an absolutely.
pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Make sure to head over to our substack where
you get to ask Dimitar your questions. This is, I believe, Broken Window series, one of the
best forms of crime prevention in the community. Why is low-level crime not cracked down on
very hard so that you prevent crime escalating as we've seen no longer?
