r/Glasgow Tools

I've never had a good experience with police. A lot of my work is in homeless services etc and even when I've had to call them in my professional capacity they've been rude and sneering. They usually don't bother to show up to incidents. We've called them to report a service user with a knife threatening suicide and they've told us that it's just not their problem.

Outside of work - they have been much worse. I once had a former flatmate who left with a lot of my belongings and then harrassed me. They claimed they couldn't find him - turns out they had interviewed him about another matter - they told me they had gone to his address and he wasn't there - that wasn't true.

Another time I was drugged in town - I'd gone out for one drink after work to watch the commonwealth games opening ceremony on a big screen - and woke up without my glasses, bag or even jacket in a doorway at dawn - I stumbled up to a security guard somewhere. Police refused to believe me, insisted I'd gotten drunk, they claimed I had wine round my mouth (I'd never drink wine as I HATE the taste) and that I had gotten drunk and lost all my stuff (including my glasses which I literally cannot see without!) they refused to take me to hospital, to take any report other than a lost property report. They did finally agree to drive me home - but they were checking my address on the way there and found that they had someone else registered living there (previous tenant I think) and they started asking if I had a boyfriend, I say no, they tell me they have a guy registered living there, I say I don't know him, they tell me they wouldn't have driven me home if I had someone to come get me, they start saying to each other that they should just pull over, leave me at the side of the road, I can get someone else to come get me, they thought it was funny. I was SO scared. If they had left me at the side of the road like they said they were going to I would have been miles from home with no way of knowing where I was. They did actually take me home though - and left me outside the door. They told me an emergency locksmith would arrive shortly as I had no keys. I THANKED them for this and they left me there. Several hours later a traffic warden found me half fainting in the street, got the whole story out of me and gave me a number for a locksmith to call. No police locksmith had ever shown up - when I called the police station to follow up on my lost property report and find out what happened to the locksmith I was told they had no record of any of this. The lost property report I had given the police didn't exist, they had no idea what had happened to me, no locksmith had ever been notified. I don't even think sending out locksmiths is something police do - but I had believed them. It was one of the most traumatizing events of my adult life.

I have to work with police a lot since then but I have never trusted them. I've seen how they will treat people when they think they can get away with it.