From: "awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : hate to show my ignorance, but what is a plod? A cop. As Salyavin suggests, most cops in the U.K. don't carry a gun. The cops in two countries I've lived in here in Europe do, but the way they handle the business of policing varies depending on the country. France is hard-core and believes in police visibility. If a foreign dignitary comes to town or there is a big public event that is likely to attract crime, streets will be closed off and the area surrounded by hundreds of weapon-carrying police. At the last outdoor public concert I attended in Paris, there must have been 200 cops. And surprise...there was no violence. In the Netherlands, during the recent King's Day celebrations in Amsterdam, there were probably an equal number of cops on the street, but you couldn't see them. They positioned themselves in portable trailers and houseboats only a block away from the busiest areas, but kept out of sight. I made it a point of counting, and in a crowd of possibly 10,000 on Dam Square, I found only three uniformed police. And even more of a surprise...there was no violence. Different strokes for different folks...
