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Police officer deploys doll in joyrider fight

Published: 6 Aug 10 17:19 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/28234/20100806/

A Swedish police officer has run into trouble with his superiors after deploying a uniformed life-sized doll in his home neighbourhood after tiring of local joyriders.

The officer, from Falkenberg in western Sweden, decided to employ his inanimate colleague after more formal police attempts to tackle reckless driving in the area proved unable to curb the practice.

The make believe law enforcement effigy, complete with official police uniform, and bearing a friendly smile and two dots for the eyes, was placed on the street corner near the officer's home.

Senior officers at Falkenberg police have not however responded positively to the officer's innovative approach to police work and are now investigating allegations of misconduct, according to the Expressen daily.

While the officer may have to suffer the professional consequences of his actions, according to the man's family the unorthodox move has borne fruit with road users taking more care in the community.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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18:19 August 6, 2010 by Gletta
Yup - severe punishment required - must have been far to lifelike having a police uniform on a dummy.
18:27 August 6, 2010 by booka
I have seen fake speed cameras in a town i dont see how this is any worse...... maybe the police should look into the amount of dangerous driving in small swedish towns.
19:55 August 6, 2010 by tgolan
His Police superiors are idiots, that's why the police are so ineffective in Sweden, they just complain and have excuses instead of praising a good initiative.
21:57 August 6, 2010 by eZee.se
(What tgolan said)
00:00 August 7, 2010 by jack sprat
Quite surprising anyone even noticed the difference.
00:16 August 7, 2010 by blursd
I'm not a genius, but for there to be any wrongdoing on the officer's part wouldn't there have to be a clear victim in the matter? I don't really see how anyone can be the "victim" of a mannequin (even if it is dressed in a police uniform). Police here in California do similar things all the time ... they park police cars at trouble spots, and it has the same effect. It doesn't matter that there's no one behind the wheel of the police car ... when people see it they start following the law.

Its rather sad that they're focusing their energy on penalizing this officer for taking a proactive stance on curbing reckless driving instead of the situation that caused the need for him to even take such an action. Maybe if they focused more on traffic enforcement he wouldn't be required to place a mannequin out on the street to get people to follow the law, and not endanger other people's lives.
10:13 August 7, 2010 by Mucker
Surely an official police uniform would be of use to criminals and shouldn't be just left lying around on the street
12:06 August 7, 2010 by Jafo
Mucker this is prob the issue they have.

As For Static. Dummy units or Officers. Been Done in the USA for somtime with Posative results. So its Prob wither Sweden is that far behind in Law Enforcement. or the uniform was the the problem.
12:57 August 7, 2010 by Nuname
What Mucker said.

I imagine a police uniform would be very useful if you wanted to go around ripping off old ladies.
13:32 August 7, 2010 by kenny8076
why would he get in trouble for this? and......" not however responded positively to the officer's innovative approach to police work". innovative? they have been doing that for decades in America.

In D.C. they always have squad cars parked in the medians on busy streets or by schools with a dummie in them with full police uniform on. Its not rocket science or harmful..... i am baffled that they are even confused about what this cop was doing. Again, there more things i read here the more i feel that Sweden is border line third world
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