Police appeal after Facebook video sparks concern over officers' conduct

Police are appealing for witnesses after a video of a confrontation involving officers was posted on Facebook.
South Shields Police station.South Shields Police station.
South Shields Police station.

Northumbria Police has begun an investigation into the circumstances of an incident captured on video.

It shows a disturbance between a number of officers and a man on Stanhope Road, South Shields, at around 1.30am on Friday.

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Further to the video being posted online, Area Commander for Southern Area Command, Chief Superintendent Ged Noble, released a statment.

He said: "I want to start by saying again that we expect the highest standards of behaviour and professionalism from our police officers and if these standards fall short then we will take action - because the public must have confidence in their police always doing the right thing.

"It’s also important to say that every day our police officers put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public and this often means having to confront, detain and arrest very violent people and our officers regularly show great courage in doing this.

"In relation to the incident on Stanhope Road, South Shields in the early hours of Friday morning, we have a dedicated team of Detectives actively looking to identify witnesses to this incident so we can establish exactly what happened because the footage that was posted on Facebook is not conclusive.

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"I would ask that anyone who was in the area of Stanhope Road between 1.30am and shortly after 2am to contact police in confidence so we can get to an accurate picture of what happened and then deal with it in an open and transparent way."

Anyone who has information is asked to contact police in confidence on 101.

The police previously said: "We have been made aware of a video on Facebook involving our police officers attending an incident in South Shields.

"We are very concerned about what this video appears to show and would like to assure people we are taking action to identify those concerned and establish exactly what happened.

"We are treating this very seriously, we expect our police officers to act with the utmost professionalism and we will take robust positive action against any wrongdoing."