I lived in New York City, a city with fairly good cops by American standards, for thirty years.

After almost five years in Amsterdam, I'm still not quite used to relaxed, competent police.

Two funny stories about the police here (and there).

One night we were walking down beside a canal, and there were people with flashlights running around in a building under construction. We thought it was a theatre piece, but as we walked by, we heard someone say, with a Dutch accent, firmly but politely, "I'm sorry, but I have to arrest you for being in this building without authorization," and an American voice say, "Oh."

Many years ago in NYC, carrying a huge amount of gear, I tried to go through a subway turnstile next to the one that a cop was learning on and he flashed me a glance of rage and spat, "Go around!" And I'm a reedy Anglo Saxon male who wears short hair and jackets...

I approached a turnstile in Amsterdam with a cop leaning on it so I asked and said, in Dutch, "Can I go through?" and he said, "You can if you can," which was a little joke correcting my grammar - because kan only refers to the literal ability to do something in Dutch, and to ask permission you would use mag ik, may I? - but also communicated, "There's no need to ask permission".

Don't get me wrong - they're very efficient. We had some violent anti-mask and lockdown protests, and each time the cops did the same thing - they stood around cautioning people until someone started breaking things, then they'd send one cop out to argue with the violent person while staying out of his range, and when the violent person is totally distracted with arguing, a car comes up, two cops pop out, grab him from behind, bundle him in, gone.

Two or three of these and everyone else loses heart and just stands around and goes home.