English plainclothes police officer follows himself for 20 minutes

An undercover police officer in Sussex, England, shadowed a suspicious character through the streets a small market town for 20 minutes, following directions passed to him by a CCTV operator who guided him towards the suspect. After 20 minutes, the CCTV operator realized that the "suspicious character" was the police officer himself.

The operator directed the officer, who was on foot patrol, as he followed the "suspect" on camera last month, telling his colleague on the ground that he was "hot on his heels".
The officer spent around 20 minutes giving chase before a sergeant came into the CCTV control room, recognised the “suspect” and laughed hysterically at the mistake...
"The CCTV operator soon had the suspect on camera and everywhere he saw the male the keen PC was on his heels – radioing in to say he was in the same street...”
He added: "Every time the man darted in to another side alleyway, the PC was turning immediately into the same alleyway, but every time the CCTV operator asked what he could see there was no trace."

CCTV police officer 'chased himself' after being mistaken for burglar (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Funny • police • uk

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IvoryTusk

would it be too naiive to ask what exactly the “suspect” had been suspected of having done?
- MarcVader
  
  Embarrassing not naive, it says right there on the last line of the blog post what he was suspected of. Also on a blog like this one that links to interesting articles elsewhere you could always actually visit the link and actually read the article. Amazing isn’t it?
  - IvoryTusk
    
    ok, true, it says so in the title of the linked article.
    
    However, the surveilling officer was patrolling an area recently hit by burglaries. He himself was merely “acting suspiciously”, which is my question exactly.
  - http://twitter.com/tobymgraves Toby Graves
    
    Be nice, man.
    - MarcVader
      
      I liked your first comment better; before you edited it. The one which said “Well at least you weren’t a dick about it.”
  - ridestowe
    
    general note: when you use the word ‘actually’ it comes off as condescending and actually makes you look like an asshole
    - MarcVader
      
      Noted, thank you. One actually would have been sufficient. What would be a good alternative?
    - Guest
      
      When I’m speaking I try to match the tone of the person I am responding to, actually.
- http://twitter.com/sigfpe Dan Piponi
  
  Impersonating a police officer.
Ashen Victor

So, he didn’t tased himself?
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  He handed himself over to the US and is now waterboarding himself at Gitmo.
myparrotsteeth

Lucky the sergeant was there, or the undercover copper might have ended up starting a secret life whereupon he married himself.
Gordon JC Pearce

Sounds like a windup to me…
cbm

It turns out Philip K. Dick was right about everything.
- awjt
  
  Yes, it’s a Beckett and PK Dick mashup!
- 4d3fect
  
  Beat me to it. Was the guy’s name Arctor?
http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

That somehow sounds like good stuff for a fun novel, any volunteers?
- dasanjos
  
  Florian, just read/watch A Scanner Darkly, from Philip K. Dick :)
- http://profiles.google.com/rob.hobson Rob Hobson
  
  Paul Auster might have a few weeks spare.
ialreadyexist

I feel safer already.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Well, duh. At least you know that he can’t molest you while he’s hot on his own trail.
http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Mari Lwyd

I was hoping for PKD and got Keystone Kops instead :(
That_Anonymous_Coward

And now we know who watches the watchmen…
and they aren’t very bright…
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

I’ll just leave this here.

http://i.imgur.com/d8fM5.jpg
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  I’ll see yours and raise you the Banksy “What are you looking at” installation.
  Tried to find pictures, but so much copyright….
- Chuck
  
  A more than appropriate monument to Orwell. After all, he was our first and greatest advocate for the total surveillance society. I’m sure you’ll all agree. The author’s preferred edition of 1984 will be published and delivered to your doorstep soon.
  - http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
    
    What if I don’t have a doorstep?
    - Chuck
      
      As of a few minutes ago, we’ve provided you with a doorstep. There wasn’t room for it where you live, so we’ve installed your new doorstep a half block south of your residence. Look for your copy of 1984 there.
sgarcez

This immediately reminded me of Bruce Nauman’s ‘Going around a corner’ piece:

Basically you go around a big cube with a camera and screen on each of the 4 corners. Everytime you turn a corner you see a glimpse of yourself filmed from the previous corner. Its more fun trying it than reading about it I guarantee it:)

http://www.newmedia-arts.be/cgi-bin/show-oeu.asp?ID=150000000031079&lg=GBR
- serpent
  
  “Its more fun trying it than reading about it I guarantee it:)”
  Yeah, I played Portal.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid

Brits can sleep comfortably knowing that Mr. Bean is on the case.
Narmitaj

More than Orwell, this reminded me of AA Milne – the officer was clearly on the trail of a Woozle: http://www.construxartist.com/knowmadzorg/gallery/pooh/woozle.htm
- Daen de Leon
  
  Yes, I definitely thought of Pooh. Or rather, in this case, Piglet … *cough* … what?
Martin Liebermann

Occupy the police
anomalous D

A scanner Not-So-Brightly ?!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ICNB6L5FHKHWRKALMINNR2IBRY Sam

This is like The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, by G. K. Chesterton.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I’m surprised I’m the only one (at least the only one who’s commented so far) who immediately thought of the short story Narapoia by Alan Nelson.

Narapoia is the compulsive belief that you’re following someone.

http://katie.rivard.org/woodv/narapoia.shtml
http://twitter.com/strugglngwriter strugglngwriter

Ha ha ha ha ha!
Obava Anoni Li

I already saw this on SpongeBob
- TaymonBeal
  
  Oh, good. I thought I was the only one who thought of that scene.
  
  It’s fascinating how everyone has come up with a different cultural reference for this.
suburbanhick

…”and the officer was overheard asking passersby ‘does your dog bite?”".
- cmdrfire
  
  “Zat is not my dog.”
Shinkuhadoken

They’ve finally done it!

A Yakety Sax chase scene of one.
nixiebunny

I once read of a couple police officers chasing a UFO in their squad car around sunrise, only to find out later that it was the planet Venus. At least they had a suspect.
http://paulbeard.org/wordpress paul beard

“Mr Rod Serling, please pick up the white courtesy phone for a message…”
desiredusername

Elevator pitch: A detective is in hot in pursuit of his suspect. Only when he finds out he is the suspect, he has to go on the run to prove his innocence. And he’s running out of time!
Chuck

This is why you should always insist on buying a phone or tablet with two cameras. One for spying on the rest of the world, and the other for conducting surveillance on yourself while you do so.
JMB98115

Yakkity-Sax is what, 3 minutes long, so the video should be played at 3.5x normal speed.
Mister44

So when they figured it out, did he mace himself and break his smartphone?
- MarcVader
  
  And THEN he arrested himself for resisting his arrest!
koko szanel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k5FRbZ1zZm4#t=133s
JohnnyRatcliffe

I’m staggered this has gotten into the press – however that said it’s a rather funny story. There is also more here:

http://www.cctv.co.uk/undercover-cop-in-cctv-wild-goose-chase/
http://twitter.com/twistmeyer Mike Meyer

This is remarkably efficient. I thought we’d have to hire half the population to watch the other half, but now we can just all watch ourselves.
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

Oh, England. How did you go from colonizing world to chasing your own tail?
ill lich

i scan the crowds until i see someone who is obviously insane

and then i follow that person until they go into a building or get into a car

in order to make sure that they dont do anything “crazy.”

–MC 900 Foot Jesus
ChicagoD

I worked at a grocery store in high school. The security in the store was for loss prevention and was generally plain clothes. They tried to blend, but they also skulked behind counters and things. The number of times people came and told us they saw a suspicious man was incredible. You’d have to do something, so you’d call security and tell them someone had spotted a suspicious person in the (closed) deli section. It was awesome.
http://unlikelyexplanations.com laurasbadideas

If the CCTV operator really thought the cop he was “right on the heels” of a suspect, wouldn’t he have thought it was odd that only the suspect, and not the cop, showed up on the CCTV?