UK police community support officer orders man to clean up his dog's urine

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is another very strange indeed ridiculous story because the behaviour of the police community support officer is extraordinary and ridiculous.

Steve Schuurman, 56, an NHS worker, was walking his dog in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England (information provided for non-UK citizens) last week. His dog cocked her leg to relieve herself which is what we expect dogs to do.

Dog urinating in typical style! This is not the dog in the story. Image: The Telegraph.

In the UK, the modern policies to pick up dog faeces which makes a lot of sense and people do it all the time these days. But there are no rules about trying to scrub off urine from surfaces. That's entirely impractical and ridiculous.

However, a police community support officer became aggressive towards Steve Schuurman, according to him. He claims that the Dorset police community officer told him to "clear [up] your F*****g dog p**s".

He challenged her at which point the officer threatened to have him arrested if he didn't move on.

At that time, Dorset Police and Bournemouth Council had a stall and a van in the town centre as part of a day of action and after several high-profile crimes in the area.

Steve Schuurman said he would have cleaned up his dog's urine but didn't know how to do it.

He reported the incident to the Dorset Police complaints department. They are looking into it! Steve Schuurman said that the woman "got really aggressive" and "was waving her hands around and putting her hands on her hips, saying it was disgusting."

He asked for an apology. Apparently there were two female police community officers as I understand it. On asking for the apology they told him that he would be arrested if he didn't move on.

As I said, it is extraordinary. And an abuse of police powers. For those living abroad, a "police community support officer" is a kind of lesser police officer with shorter training but they wear a uniform and have certain rights/powers but not those of police officers.

Further comment: obviously these officers were asking for the impossible and therefore they were acting stupidly. And of course if we are to be totally fair, nobody ever asks cat owners to clear up the cat's urine when they pee in public places. Not that it's practical or feasible but it's another point worth making about the idiocy of the behaviour of these two police officers.

There is one last point to make and that is this: of course, when an animal urinates in a public place it is not nice. It is possibly unacceptable but it happens all over Great Britain and other countries all the time. It'll be up to the government of any country to create a law which forbids it. But the police officers can't make up the rules as they go along.

Such a law would be very difficult to pass through Parliament in the UK and in any other legislature in any other country. In fact it would be impossible today but one day it may happen. It really might happen one day.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.