{"id":2283,"date":"2026-03-27T08:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/?p=2283"},"modified":"2026-03-27T09:36:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T09:36:41","slug":"man-who-harassed-insulted-journalists-in-london-was-serving-officer-police-confirm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/27\/man-who-harassed-insulted-journalists-in-london-was-serving-officer-police-confirm\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who harassed, insulted journalists in London was serving officer, police confirm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The man who insulted Al Jazeera journalists covering developments following an arson attack in north London was a Metropolitan Police special constable, according to reports Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A group of journalists covering an arson attack targetting Hatzola ambulances, a Jewish community-run service, on Monday, were surrounded by a crowd who told them to &#8220;go home.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Footage showed the man calling them &#8220;you donkey, you dog&#8221; in Arabic, as first reported by investigative outlet Declassified UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Serving Met Cop harassed protestors\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wU1cm0LYIiI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Metropolitan Police later confirmed the man was David Soffer, a special constable with the force. The BBC reported that the incident was referred to the police&#8217;s professional standards team for assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soffer also called one of the team a dog in Hebrew and warned another person nearby not to be violent, according to the report. He has since removed &#8220;special constable&#8221; from his LinkedIn page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: &#8220;Freedom of the press is important and journalists must be able to do their job without being subject to intimidation or harassment.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Officers did intervene but we recognize that there was an extended period where the journalists were put in a difficult situation which led them to leave the area,&#8221; it added. &#8211; AA<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-real-news-real-impact wp-block-embed-real-news-real-impact\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"CA4ZCjcSYb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/fresh-attack-on-manchester-mosque-shocks-muslim-community\/\">Islamophobia on the rise in UK as right-wing populism spreads<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Islamophobia on the rise in UK as right-wing populism spreads&#8221; &#8212; REAL NEWS,REAL IMPACT\" src=\"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/fresh-attack-on-manchester-mosque-shocks-muslim-community\/embed\/#?secret=5HhyvbKsSB#?secret=CA4ZCjcSYb\" data-secret=\"CA4ZCjcSYb\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/web.whatsapp.com\/send\/?text=Islamophobia+on+the+rise+in+UK+as+right-wing+populism+spreads+%0A%0A+https%3A%2F%2Folivenewsnetwork.com%2Findex.php%2F2026%2F03%2F25%2Ffresh-attack-on-manchester-mosque-shocks-muslim-community%2F\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The man who insulted Al Jazeera journalists covering developments following an arson attack in north London was a Metropolitan Police special constable, according to reports Thursday. A group of journalists covering an arson attack targetting Hatzola ambulances, a Jewish community-run service, on Monday, were surrounded by a crowd who told them to &#8220;go home.&#8221; Footage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140,205,168],"tags":[337,143,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-2283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-must-reads","8":"category-secondary-story","9":"category-world","10":"tag-al-jazeera","11":"tag-islamophobia","12":"tag-met-police"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2287,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions\/2287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}