I only have fictional USA material to judge by, but US police always seem to be portrayed as forceful and fond of handcuffs (and not in a good way!) whereas UK police seem to pride themselves on being friendly whatever the situation, though they inevitably have to use force if someone is presenting a risk of escaping or turning nasty. I’ve been stopped three (I think) times for driving “issues” and it’s never been unpleasant. I had a bit of a run-in with a jobsworth officer who wrongly thought I must definitely have noticed and ignored a “no access” sign but everything was fine in the end. I imagine that’s why we’re so shocked when police turn nasty, for example when protests or stop-and-search or large crowds are mishandled but those are exceptions. Maybe it would be different if I did something really bad, but hopefully they wouldn’t treat nakedness as a major threat to public safety requiring the immediate use of a taser or a clip round the ear.
These guys did end up getting arrested (https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/380453.html) but I suppose it being a nuclear base didn’t help!
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