If you didn’t know already, thousands of miles away in the United Kingdom, there is a small ceremonial county called Surrey. Obviously, it’s the same name as one of our massive cities here in Metro Vancouver.
Apart from having the same name, we will also have police departments with similar names (once the Surrey police transition is complete).
In the UK, its Surrey police department is simply called “Surrey Police” and ours, “Surrey Police Service.”
This isn’t confusing, right? Some people this weekend would disagree.
While there is a slight difference in the police department names, it was not different enough for our locals to try to quickly tag the police department when issues arise.
For example, this weekend, tensions ran high after several arrests were made by police at a protest and counter-protest near a Hindu temple in Surrey, BC.
Videos of officers in Surrey Police Service uniforms were filmed restraining protesters. Since then, people online have been condemning police because of the amount of force used. A Hindu temple even shared a statement calling for the “suspension, investigation, and prosecution of the police officers involved in unjustified violence against temple devotees.”
When some people shared footage of the arrests, they had mistakenly tagged the police force in the UK on X.
In one instance, the Surrey Police responded, “You realize that you have tagged the wrong Surrey Police. We are based in the United Kingdom and have nothing to do with events in British Columbia.”
This message prompted an apology from the X user and laughter from others who found the mistake funny.
This is so funny 😂 😂
— Singh (@RRSSandhu) November 5, 2024
“You probably get tagged wrong a lot. Might want to add a big UK flag or Surrey Police UK so you get tagged less,” one person suggested.
Daily Hive reached out to the department in the UK, which said that in the last three days, it has received more than 50 messages tagging both its account with the Surrey Police Service account and around 35 messages with the word “temple.”
“There are a number of cities and larger areas with the name ‘Surrey’ including British Columbia, and we do see instances where members of the public incorrectly tag our account,” the police department said, and added in those cases the department responds to messages to clarify their location.
“We have measures in place to manage public contact that is either not for us specifically or is significant in volume, to ensure that we are able to continue to serve the public in Surrey here in the UK. Where appropriate we work closely with our international colleagues.”
In an email statement from the Surrey Police Service it said, “Rarely has there been confusion in tagging or attributing online incidents to Surrey Police Service (Canada) and Surrey Police (UK).”
“However, on many occasions UK based media reach out to me/us online with misdirected inquiries about incidents in Britain,” a spokesperson said.
Considering a protest that also broke out in Brampton, Ontario, the SPS spokesperson said they believe there was more confusion with people misrepresenting the incident on the East Coast and vice versa than the UK Surrey Police.
“That’s just what I’ve observed,” they said.