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Your experience with the Gardai

opfleet

For those of you who have dealt first hand with the Guards either as a suspect or a victim, how did you find them?

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the_syco

In the Gardai station; grand.
Gardai on the street; grand.
Random checkpoint; grand.
Random checkpoint on an L license, no-one else in the car, whilst driving a bright red Honda Civic; grand.
Pulled over by an unmarked police car, with eyes that you could see that they were ready to beat the crap out of someone; a bit hyped up, but grand.

Respect the man, and the man respects you. Most people who I heard got a hard time with the Gardai did something stupid that triggered the reaction.

But you also get the odd ***hole cop that wants to f**k up your day. Heck, I got some random Garda asking why I was wearing a three hole balaclava once; it was fecking -2 degrees out!

wakka12

the_syco wrote: »

In the Gardai station; grand.
Gardai on the street; grand.
Random checkpoint; grand.
Random checkpoint on an L license, no-one else in the car, whilst driving a bright red Honda Civic; grand.
Pulled over by an unmarked police car, with eyes that you could see that they were ready to beat the crap out of someone; a bit hyped up, but grand.

Respect the man, and the man respects you. Most people who I heard got a hard time with the Gardai did something stupid that triggered the reaction.

But you also get the odd ***hole cop that wants to f**k up your day. Heck, I got some random Garda asking why I was wearing a three hole balaclava once; it was fecking -2 degrees out!

Fair question :pac:
Ive never seen somebody wearing balaclava that went above the bottom of the nose :P

maccored

ive always found them to be grand

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Positive in all interactions

Herb Powell

Mostly grand. Was searched and questioned on one occasion alright, and they were thick about it, but I kept my cool and let them at it. It was just a case of wrong place, wrong time, they were looking for someone else. Could have gone either way though, I felt.

StolenKrone

First class. Its only gougers that have a problem with them.

Jayesdiem

thesultan wrote: »

I find that in general that they look for the easy touch ( speeding, drink drivers). They haven't caught a robber in my locality in years. The justice system is a joke but they aren't doing enough on drugs and robberries.

Maybe that's because a robber will time his run methodically to minimise the chances of being caught. Speeding drivers are way more common and way less evasive. It's a bit like saying the rat trap you set out the back garden has only caught rats thus far and as yet has not caught a single horse.

Dr Brown

Very unprofessional...

Badly Drunk Boy

My only negative experience was about 20 years ago. I had been at a nightclub on a Saturday on the Curragh, and forgot or couldn't find my coat. The nest afternoon, I decided to cycle out the the nightclub, hoping there would be somebody on the premises. Cycling across The Curragh, a Garda car passed me and I thought nothing of it.

After a few minutes there was a fork in the road, and the Garda car was parked in the fork that isn't used as much as the other. I continued on the main route and a few minutes later, the car overtook me and indicated for me to stop. There were two Gardaí, an experienced one and a young lad. The older Garda did all the talking:

Garda: I know you don't I? You've been down in the station a few times.
Me: I was only ever there once, for my passport application.
Garda: No, I definitely know you. We had you in for drugs.
Me: Definitely not.

It went on like that for a bit. It was probably yer man showing the young lad "This is what we can do". Completely unnecessary on a lovely, sunny Sunday afternoon, in the middle of nowhere, with no witnesses except a few sheep. It definitely wasn't a case of mistaken identity, as I'm a one of a kind.

BillyBobBS

Two very negative experiences with them dealing with absolute scumbag front line Gardai with one of those resulting in a grovelling apology from said Garda and one very good experience.

BillyBobBS

StolenKrone wrote: »

First class. Its only gougers that have a problem with them.

Absolute horse sh it.

Iseedeadpixels

Pretty much all good bar when I made a complaint as a teenager, last time I went in for a form to get my log book the Guard had a chat with me about the car and the new models they now use.

Another time I went in because I had another logbook issue the Guard couldnt have been more helpful.

Had some funny moments too when out in town, was messing with a Guard saying hes only moving us on because we're from Tallaght, got a ah here I'm from Old Bawn! turns out we had a few friends in common as well.

It really does boil down to treat them how you want to be treated.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

Good and bad, same as with any profession really.

I tend not to let bad experiences cloud my judgement of the whole force though, that's mental behaviour.

The best experience was when a load of armed detectives descended on my apartment one midweek evening, few lads around watching football. Handed my friend a warrant that said they were looking for Cocaine - the did a thorough search and found nothing (later found out they'd gotten the wrong apartment). What they did do, though, and fair play to them for this, was ignored a substantial enough bag of weed that was in a drawer in one of the bedrooms. Given how they'd searched the place there's no way they didn't see this, but fair play to them they left and never said anything about it.

I've been done for speeding a couple of times too, 140 on the 120 stretch of the motorway close to Cork, and 80 on a 60 - both times I knew I was bang to rights so I was polite and caused no hassle, Gards on both occasions were grand, still got the points though.

You get the odd ignorant cúnt at a football match or whatever, but fúck them, move on and forget it.

malinheader

All depends who you are and what connections you have. Some people seem to get away with a lot more than others where the guards are concerned.

razorblunt

Never gave them any reason to give me a tough time.
I've only really "dealt" with them a couple of times:

1. 4 car crash, rear ended and was pushed into 2 other cars, thankfully everyone was alright, Traffic Corps arrived on the scene unscheduled about 2 minutes later, took the time to ensure everyone was alright, the poor girl who rear ended me was a bit shook so he took our details, quick statements from us and sent us on the our way while calming her down and arranging a pick up for her

2. Checkpoint while I was 18 and driving on a provisional, I'd dropped some friends home after hanging in my gaff on a Friday evening. I forgot that once I'd dropped them all off there'd be no qualified driver with me. I owned up saying I was doubling back to an ATM rather than going home. He let me off with a warning. I was driving a Dad mobile so he had me well sussed.

3. Another checkpoint. This guys had a bit of an attitude. Kept insinuating I had drink on me, telling me "this is the last chance now to tell me, the breathalyser won't lie". Hadn't had a drop for weeks, brought my gf (now wife) home after a cinema data. The only thing I could think of was that it was just when I started wearing contacts so maybe my eyes were red. He looked fierce disappointed all the same when I blew a 0.00 or whatever the lowest reading is.

4. Almost got ran off the road by a truck, followed the guy to get him to pull over as there was damage to the car. He pulled every trick in the book, indicate left to go right, eventually got away when he tore through a roundabout. Went to the nearest station to report this, the Garda behind the desk saw how shook the driver was and handled it brilliantly. Made it her point to chase down the driver and company. We had a phone call and multiple calls following it from the company owner within an hour. She tore stripes off them for us.

FTA69

Institutionally corrupt and in need of root and branch reform, probably better off disbanding them and starting again to be honest. Obviously as a large group of individuals there is a wide variance of personalities and attitudes but they operate in a very flawed system. Likewise I think their training and culture inculcates a sense of 'them and us' that isn't very healthy.

A lot of their behaviour in working class urban areas leaves a lot to be desired, many times some of them view everyone from a given area as an enemy and act accordingly - in my view this is because most of them are rural. There are serious questions about their conduct and they also have a charming habit of beating the f*ck out of people and then covering for each other regardless.

The cops have serious issues, and this notion that anyone critical of them or who has bad experiences of them is automatically a scumbag is assumptive nonsense.

Snotty

wakka12 wrote: »

You wouldn't have a good opinion of your child's teacher if they never paid any attention to your child because the class had too many kids would you?

In that case I would have a poor opinion of the school and probably the department of education. The teacher doesn't dictate how many kids will be in the class.
Directing anger at the teacher who is also being negatively affected, just like the child, is completely unreasonable.

sbsquarepants

Had to deal with them maybe 10 times in total, largely negative experiences I have to say. Only remember 1 who I thought was sound 3 or 4 who were complete cúnts and the others just not particularly nice, but not particularly assholes either.
Had a stand up row with one in Tallaght police station - I only went in to get a form signed - he had a major attitude problem.
My own and my girlfriends passport were lost / stolen and I was looking for forms to be stamped to replace them.
You keep them together - well now that's clever isn't it?
Come back to me when you've actually filled the form out, you haven't even signed here, you can write your name can't you? (it said sign in the presence of a garda!)
So on and so forth, he was just a total prick. I ended calling him a wanker and walking out!

andekwarhola

To be fair, no overly bad dealings with them, despite growing up in a very working class area.

In fact, they dealt with me very fairly on one occasion (when I was growing up), where I could have ended up in a lot worse trouble.

Chancer3001

Normal people - guards are great

Scumbags - guards are awful. Thick. Useless.

razorblunt

square_head wrote: »

had to check the date to see was it 1998 after reading this thread

" few bad apples "
" if you have a problem with them , your a scumbag "

do people listen to the news anymore , ask TD clare daly or maurice mc cabe what their experienced were , if they do that to one of their own , what do you think they do to regular citizens

AGS are a systematically corrupt organisation and the majority of members support this either directly or tacitly

It's quite simple really Square Head.
Some people have nothing but good examples, others have nothing but bad.

Good or bad it doesn't mean they're all the same.

Not everyone that has a negative perception of Gardaí is a scumbag but every scumbag has a negative perception of the Gardaí.

malinheader

Chancer3001 wrote: »

Normal people - guards are great

Scumbags - guards are awful. Thick. Useless.

Normal people are prosecuted for little silly,petty things. Scumbags get off Scot free in my experience.

D3V!L

I've had some really good and some really bad dealings with them in the past 4 or 5 years.

A very nice Garda in Dunleer helped myself and my now wife out when we were involved in a car crash on the M1, the guy took our personal stuff from the loan car we were driving and kept it safe. He didn't have to do this.

On the other hand another Garda in Kevin Street garda station brought me to the criminal court in a case spanning over 18 months and tried to do me for defending myself in an assault case. He was laughed out of it in the end when the video footage was shown to the judge.

So as said before good and bad, I'm not too sure about the percentage balance but its not even.

square_head

razorblunt wrote: »

It's quite simple really Square Head.
Some people have nothing but good examples, others have nothing but bad.

Good or bad it doesn't mean they're all the same.

Not everyone that has a negative perception of Gardaí is a scumbag but every scumbag has a negative perception of the Gardaí.

its you who are simple yet even more smug

it doesnt matter what you are , all that matters is if you have pull , the force is riddled with politics with every breath it takes

square_head

StolenKrone wrote: »

First class. Its only gougers that have a problem with them.

good man ! , keep believing that , your the kind of person who is so easy to please ( and fool )

0ph0rce0

Arrested for drink driving, Wasn't driving, Wasn't even at the car. Banned for a year and a fine. You'll find that story many times through the post history from me. That guard was an absolute scumbag arsehole.

Stopped at side of road and searched at a younger age (Outside the chinese waiting on food) One took my shoe and told me to collect it in the Garda station, Had to walk in one shoe to get it back. Why like? Another arsehole.

Stopped on side of the road at about 20/21 years of age, Took my smokes and said I'm too young and to bring ID up to the station to get them back. Yet another arsehole. (although I was quite happy about them saying I looked so young)

Just like any service/job you'll have the arseholes.

Never needed them for anything really so can't comment on how they are professionally when needed.

CalamariFritti

Over the years I met one nasty one and many nice ones. Sadly I will remember the nasty guy more so than the nice ones, but that's how the mind works I guess. Still I have a good opinion of them and will always meet a guard with respect and courtesy. Its a tough and important job and someone needs to do it. I dont think the crap thats happening at the top is representative of the guards in general.

joey100

All good dealings. Done a lot of work and gave me a lot of help in getting a stolen car back within 48 hours of it being taken.

Very respectful when they called to the house to let us know of a death in the family.

Have had a lot of dealings with them through work and even though I've come across the occasional odd ball overall they have been great. Very open to trying to change their reputation in disadvantaged areas and gave huge support to any events being run even though they knew it would be a lot of hassle for them.

EmmetWhitey

Coming from working in a garda station, I have nothing but good things to say about the Gardaí in my town.

razorblunt

square_head wrote: »

its you who are simple yet even more smug

it doesnt matter what you are , all that matters is if you have pull , the force is riddled with politics with every breath it takes

The only pull the Gardaí care about is Saturday night in Coppers.

Also, that's the Police you're thinking of. They're big into stings too.