Children Arrested, DNA Tested for Playing in a Tree? 957
skelator2821 wrote in with another account of a police action gone way overboard. From the article: "To the 12-year-old friends planning to build themselves a den, the cherry tree seemed an inviting source of material. But the afternoon adventure turned into a frightening ordeal for Sam Cannon, Amy Higgins and Katy Smith after they climbed into the 20ft tree - then found themselves hauled into a police station and locked into cells for up to two hours." skelator2821's basic question in all of this: "What is this World coming to? Do you think they went to far?" Well? Do you?
Should have been too far, but it probably wasn't (Score:5, Insightful)
This just in. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
They always have been and always will be. I can count on one hand the number of run-ins I've had with cops that have been anything other than shitty - and no, I'm not a criminal.
Of course they went too far, they often do.
The culture of deliberate, misleading, trumped-up fear we live in today isn't helping anything either.
Frankly, we need more stories like this so more people realize just what the hell is going on.
Way too far (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the law in Britain to take (and store) DNA samples when you are simply arrested? Convicted, yes, I can see....but just arrested? Insane.
(this does not even go into the complete foolishness of arresting them for what they actually did).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
At least some good comes of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti Social Behaviour? (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Elsewhere in the news... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:anyone else... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think complaining to the police about children playing in a tree should be considered "anti-social"...
Anti-social behaviour??? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Climbing Tree is a crime?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry to rant, but I feel disgusted with law enforcement agencies lately.
Why the parents have to be under constant pressure, whether their kids will be in trouble for doing something innocent over the web, that might qualify as hacking, the websites they visit, the files they download, the files they share and so on.[/rant]
Are we losing humanity in cops?? Makes me sick of them. Sorry...
Mulitple Complaints to police? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, no! Three twelve year olds having fun! I better call the fucking cops!
The people who called in are probably chatting with those kids' parents right now about how the police over-reacted.
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The parents agree (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are worried about hyperbole in the article, I'm interested in the police claim that they kids were trying to strip ever branch from the cherry tree. Now, I haven't seen this important civic landmark (not entirely sarcastic: trees can be significant, although it didn't really sound like this one was, except from the police description), but your typical tree has a lot of branches, many of which a 12-year-old would be hard-pressed indeed to remove. Of course, we might speculate that the kids had saws and axes, but then we're stuck trying to explain why that wasn't mentioned by the police defending their actions. So that brings us back to the question: how likely was it to the police that the kids were trying to strip the tree and kill it? Did they really believe that? If so, should we trust their testimony and their judgement on this and other case?
Lucky kids (Score:5, Insightful)
that's the only way... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just like the people who said "if it turns out Iraq doesn't have a WMD program, then I will oppose the war," and when Iraq was found to lack a WMD program, they still supported the war, because once you're in, rationalizations and prevarications are too easy to muster to maintain consistency. You don't want to waffle, do you? On the other end of the spectrum, leftists didn't want to acknowledge the excesses of Stalinism, because they had chosen a side. Loyalty to any party or ideology is incompatible with integrity.
Re:Climbing Tree is a crime?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my opinion,
Matt
Re:Way too far (Score:5, Insightful)
Required or not...do they?
Re:Anti-social behavior... (Score:2, Insightful)
The children admitted to breaking public property by damaging the tree, planning to build a "tree den", and by damaging it, they broke the law, and the law states that law breakers should be arrested and dealt with. Technically, the police officers have done nothing wrong.
So until there is a complete overhaul of how we treat the law, we cannot complain about individual situations like this. It's obviously common sense that they were treated harshly and there was a total overreaction, but it isn't a legal overreaction. It's procedure. We need as a society to be able to adapt and interpret situations differently, especially in legal cases, where the law does not end up doing more harm than good. If the law has a negative effect, how can anyone respect it? Governments need to rethink this and apply a whole new subjective filter to how situations are dealt with, and officers should not fear punishment for not following procedure if it goes against common sense.
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:1, Insightful)
(Not that I support oppressive police action, but getting political news from Slashdot is like getting workout advice from McDonald's. [promotions.com])
Re:Mulitple Complaints to police? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the parents of said kids will then instigate a suit against the 'fucking people' for harassing thier kids.
Calling the cops is one thing ("Hey...there's some kids screwing up this tree!").....what the cops (and the legal system) then do is quite another.
Re:The parents agree (Score:1, Insightful)
...as long as they learn in the right context (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)
There will come a time when a few of us stand up and begin to take action. When this time comes, it will not be the actions of those few that determine the outcome, but the actions of the whole community. Thereby, I encourage the continued exhibition of violations of our rights in not only this, but all public (and hopefully objective) forums.
Re:The parents agree (Score:2, Insightful)
Getting thrown in jail is a very good reason to be crying uncontrollably. Expecially if you didn't do anything wrong. It is very difficult to have no control of a situation. You would probably be sobbing. Give up on the macho crap, it's stupid.
Re:The parents agree (Score:5, Insightful)
No one doesn't. Kids climb trees. They don't normally get arrested for it. Their responses were normal.
These infant-willed "preteens" didn't belong in a 20 foot cherry tree.
Maybe you've never seen a tree before. So you might want to sit down for this.
20 feet is actually quite short for a tree. Most people would consider that a shrub, not a tree.
When you climb a shrub or a tree, it is not necessary or even possible to climb up to the very highest leaves at the top. They won't hold your weight. Therefore the fact that the tree height is 20 feet strongly indicates that these kids were at a much lower height at the time of their arrest. They were probably at varying heights from zero to about ten- the article doesn't say. This would further indicate that emotional stability (as determined by an arrest) need not be a prerequisite for climbing shrubbery.
Re:Anti-social behavior... (Score:3, Insightful)
How can anyone be social without being on World of Warcraft.
There's no chatrooms in that cherry tree.
Disgusting how antisocial those chidlers were being.
What is this world coming to when children go outside to 'play' in 'trees'
Somebody give them a copy of GTA. We'll fix them up good.
Re:My limited experience has been surprisingly OK (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My limited experience has been surprisingly OK (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I'm white, on top of which I go to great lengths to be polite and act in a respectful way, even if I'm thinking "what the hell do you want from me?"
I'm black, I do the same thing as you do, and I've had pretty much the same experience. The one time I've actually gotten a ticket, the officer thanked me for being polite to him. Not that that's the only time I've been pulled over, but the previous three or so times, I got off with just a warning. I'm not sure why exactly, but being nice can never hurt. Luckily, I don't really have to worry about traffic tickets anymore, since I drive to work on 280 [wikipedia.org]. There are no laws on 280.
But I'm one of the people who see the implications of the Zimbardo prison experiment in everyday situations, probably to an extent where most people would be rolling their eyes and saying "you're really reaching now."
Exactly. You take normal people and put them into a position of power, and it changes them. In my experience, treating them with respect instead of antagonizing them tends to soften the effect. I don't see why more people don't give it a shot. Plus, out of all the cops out there, how many of them are truly bad people? I don't think there are that many.
Re:Anti-Social? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's one of those often used terms that doesn't really mean what people seem to think it means. Unsocial is what you are. Property damage is antisocial.
Re:So in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
We feel sorry for the people of your historically important island, but for the rest of us, this is great news. We'll just wait and see how this 'police-state' experiment of yours turns out, and learn the lessons from that.
Please, speed up the Orwellization of your fine country, so that we may arrive at our conclusions the sooner.
Much thanks in advance,
Rest of the World
Re:Start 'Em Young (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm sure they made an impression, all right. These kids will dislike and mistrust the police for the rest of their lives.
Cops have been doing the "well, I should book you, but I'll let you go this time" routine for centuries.
Yup, it's called exercising sound judgement. They should have done it again this time.
Re:My limited experience has been surprisingly OK (Score:5, Insightful)
Being respectful and polite is not the same as "demeaning yourself and giving up all self-respect", unless your self-image is based on your (perceived) ability to rude whenever you want to.
Re:anyone else... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, this isn't your personal property (and I agree that kids destroying a tree in my garden would offend me). As for "tearing down", I don't know if you've ever seen a tree, but they're fairly hardy buggers - we build houses out of them, and before steel came along they were quite popular for ocean-going ships.
I'd be fairly confident that an afternoon in the company of 3 twelve-year-olds wasn't going to significantly damage the tree. Perhaps a few broken twigs, and a little less foliage. Destroying something does after-all imply a fairly major difference to the tree - my dictionary defines it as "put an end to the existence of".
This is quite clearly an example of cops going well-over-the-top in response to a minor incident, just because they can. I'd be more tempted to arrest the busybody who called the cops in the first place, for wasting police time.
If I was the child's parent, I'd be writing to the chief-constable demanding action; writing to the local and national newspapers with the story; putting adverts up in the local shop-windows asking people whether they thought it was right; writing to the local council demanding they investigate; setting up a website detailing the incident so it's public knowldge; writing to my Member of Parliament, and even the PM; in short creating such a stink that the officers in question are likely to get formally reprimanded. On every one of those letters I'd have the officers identified by badge number, the name of their Sergeant, and the actions-taken-to-date by the police to rectify their mistake.
After all, if the police have done nothing wrong, they've got nothing to worry about, have they ? All I'll do is make myself look a fool. Unless, of course, the majority of people agree with *me*
You don't lock kids up for breaking a few twigs. Betcha that tree is there long after the kids are dead. Like I said, they're hardy buggers.
Simon
Re:The parents agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Break a branch, become a criminal, go to jail.
Raze a forest, become a Captain of Industry, go to government.
KFG
Re:This just in. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The result is that people who crave power and who couldn't get better jobs are attracted to policework, and get it. Once they do, they get lazy and start pulling off crap like this.
Ideally, cops would all have law degrees (without lowering current standards) and get paid like lawyers do, but the public is too cheap to pay for that, so instead we pay a lot less and bitch about the resulting quality of service.
Re:Does anyone read TFA anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
It
On
There ought to be nothing wrong with kids playing in public trees, and I'd be willing to bet my house that the tree will survive an afternoon's attention from 3 twelve-year-olds.
Nice spin put on it by the police spokesman "destroying an ornamental cherry tree by stripping every branch from it". It was a tree in a public park, not a centrepiece of an arrangement. I'd love to see the twelve-year-old who could "strip every branch" from a tree... Certainly the ones in the picture didn't look up to it. Hercules'd have problems.
My dictionary defines "destroying" as "to put an end to the existence of". Somewhat emotive language for a few broken twigs, I feel. You don't lock young kids up over a few broken twigs; if you do anything, you drive them home and let their parents give them merry hell for being delivered home by the police.
Or you could just let them play. It's a friggin' tree!
Simon
George orwells vision (Score:4, Insightful)
for others (elected officals and the like) it's actually quite erotic..
Re:Best response to cops: act scared as hell (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Way too far (Score:4, Insightful)
"Since April 2004, the police in England and Wales have been able to take DNA samples without consent from anyone arrested on suspicion of any recordable offence. Recordable offences include begging, being drunk and disorderly and taking part in an illegal demonstration." (It also includes many driving offences) "Both DNA profiles (the string of numbers used for identification purposes) and DNA samples (which contain unlimited genetic information), are kept permanently, even if the person arrested is never charged or is acquitted. A massive expansion in the number of individuals on the Database has not led to any noticable increase in the likelihood of identifying a suspect."
When the national database was orginally setup, DNA profiles were removed if the person was not convicted, and after a while for non-serious offences. Now they keep not only the database profile (the number representing 'unique' ID) but the original full DNA sample as well. Permanently.
The government also insists on the right to DNA profile juveniles. [privacyinternational.org]
We have number-plate recognition cameras going up everywhere to record everywhere we drive, possibly to be followed by satellite tracking for the road tax. We have more CCTV cameras than anywhere else. Oh, and our passports are going to have biometric data, i.e. fingerprints and iris records initially, and likely DNA later. All this info will be stored in the central government database. National ID cards are pretty much dead, but only because of costs. After a few years of the passport office building up biometric data on much of the population, having to carry a national ID card will come back, piggybacked off the passport system.
Don't forget the email and internet records being kept, and the credit card databases, and access to the phone records.
Welcome to total surveillence in the UK. All applauded by the general population, as it will 'keep us safe from crime'. I'm just wondering when mandatory CCTV cameras will be installed in homes, to allow the police to spot terrorists and pedophiles.
Re:The parents agree (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmmm... I wonder whether the report that caused the police response where akin to the first variant decribed above ("Help, a gang of kids are destroying or cherry trees!") or something else. Anyway, I sure once the police actually showed up they had to make up something in order not to look too stupid. They failed miserably though.
Lack of Community (Score:2, Insightful)
The UK seems well on the way to becoming a police state. They have cameras on every street and they cannot own the means to defend themselves. Of course, we are seeing more stories like this on our side of the pond. The only way the US will resist this trend is to turn to Libertarianism and demand that the Bill of Rights be respected by all branches of government.
Re:My limited experience has been surprisingly OK (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm sure those 12-year-olds must have gone real apeshit on those cops for them to get hauled in like they did. Shame on those little punks for not showing proper respect for the cops' authori-tah!
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Should have been too far, but it probably wasn' (Score:5, Insightful)
The police in the UK are trying to build a DNA sample database of the entire population.
So far, they have only got permission to take samples if they arrest someone; this may explain their willingness to arrest everyone they can, for the most trivial reasons. The law then allows the sample to be retained indefinitely, even if the person is released with no charge (hence, the parents cannot sue).
The UK is rapidly becoming one of the countries with the most draconian social controls in the Western world.
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, legal liability is more the cause... (Score:2, Insightful)
In today's sue happy (and criminal prosecution happy) world, people don't dare get anywhere near other people's kids. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A SINGLE, CHILDLESS MALE. Just the the mere accusation of having molested a child is to be handed a lifetime sentence that will never escape you. Even if you are proven innocent without a doubt, people will ALWAYS think you just haven't been "caught" this time.
Re:Nice place, this Halesowen (Score:1, Insightful)
Whats really odd.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The parents agree (Score:3, Insightful)
i think adults want kids to act like adults which is sad.
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why on earth are murderers and rapists being mentioned in this article? I doubt that's where this kid's train of thought was going. I know when I was 12 I had a very bare idea of what a rapist even was. She was thinking "Fuck! My batshit fucking loco, Daily Mail reading mother is gonna tear my fucking hair out!"
The real reason for this article (as you'll see in the comments) is to squak a damning endictment of Tony Blair's Britain (Just search for Blair on the page). The DM readership is ultra-conservative and even the right-wing Labour Party isn't right enough for them. We're talking about a paper which bemoaned the number of Jewish immigrants into Britain during the 30s and 40s - almost as bad an attitude as the Irish government's...
While I have no doubt these pigs lost control (it's not an unusual occurence) the DM is not a source I can trust one iota. A quick check on Google News suggests that this is the only paper covering the story so it might even just be made up from scratch.
Re:Does anyone read TFA anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)
The tree business is just one example. Most new construction in the country uses brick on the exterior, and tile on the roof, so that everything matches the buildings that have already been standing for hundreds of years. It's all part of their culture to preserve their heritage.
So, the police have just done exactly what their laws say ought to have been done. Slashdot needs to be arguing about the culture that promotes this sort of thinking, which results in this sort of law and behavior.
Re:This just in. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Because Judges can be reasonable people, too. It sure sounds from the description that the real estate agent could make a reasonable argument for believing the car was indeed undriveable. Getting lawyers involved over a reasonable request would have made the perfectly nice-sounding guy the "fucker", not the estate agent.
Then why did you let them in? (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a cop approach me today, said someone called 911 from my home. I know this is BS; nobody's home at all, cept for me and I'm heading out.
So they showed up with a bs story about getting a 911 call and you granted them a search on that? I'm all for being polite and cooperative but I'm not going to reward them for giving me a bullshit story. I would have asked for the dispatch non-emergency number and called them right on the spot. Helpful and polite, yes, but I'm not giving them permission to enter.
God bless.... Armerica? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:4, Insightful)
the Stalin worshipping rags such as the Morning Star and its ilk.
No, it's an unhealthy counterpoint. Just because the Morning Star leans too far left doesn't mean it's ok for the Daily Hate to lean so far right. This isn't a balancing act; people actually believe the bilge these papers and others like them print.
Re:Playing Devil's Advocate for a sec... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is similar to the cell phone while driving law issue -- why do we need one when there are already laws against driving distracted or dangerously? If the person is driving poorly, call the police on them, whether its because of their cell phone or from looking for a CD on the floor. There's no need for frivilous laws just to scare the public into specific behaviours that don't necessarily apply to everyone.
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not an Ask Slashdot. If it is, then every story can be made into one, just by ending the submission with "So, what do you all think?" or "Pretty cool, huh?".
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:5, Insightful)
News media should strive for accuracy, fairness and balance in their reporting. If the Morning Star is too left-wing and the Daily Mail is too right-wing, that doesn't excuse the DM (or the MS). It merely means that both have failed in their duties as newspapers .
Forgive the analogy, but your position is a little like implying that paedophilia is a "healthy counterpoint" to violent child-abuse, since one is motivated by exessive anger and the other by excessive "love".
In fact, both are utterly wrong, and neither one excuses the other. It's not a case of "left" vs. "right", it's a case of "impartial" vs. "biased", and that puts the DM and the MS on the same side.
The Daily Mail, the Sun, the Daily Sport and the Morning Star are all comics, not newspapers. Read them when you lack enough feelings of moral outrage in your life, or believe you may have a few too many braincells that you need to get rid of.
Don't read any of them for news.
So cops are less mature than McDonald's workers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago, I worked at McDonald's for four months and a very good friend of mine was punched in the face. Through a plate glass window. A woman tried to order at the pickup window, was told she needed to drive around again, so she punched through the drive-through window, hitting my friend in the face. If she (my friend) had hit her back, there's not a doubt in my mind that she would have lost her job. Instead, she walked away calmly and called her supervisor and the police.
Now, I'm not implying that the police shouldn't use force when necessary. I'm also not denying that they're human too, that it's a nasty, dirty job and I'm sure it's really rough on them. But you know what? Working at McDonald's is in many was rougher (if you doubt this, I could tell you some more horror stories... absolutely the worst 4 months of my life, period.), and yet their workers are held to a much higher standard than the police. Why is that? Why do so many of us make allowances for the police to exercise HUGE leaps of personal discretion, to bend the law whenever it suits them? It's a tough job, but they chose it and we shouldn't let them bend the rules (or ignore them) whenever they feel like it. I saw a TON of asshole customers at McDonalds, yet I didn't say a foul word to any of them. I didn't spit in their food either (no one did--they would've been fired on the spot.) I did my job as professionally as I could, regardless of how shitty I was treated.
And I was a fucking fry cook!
Please please please please PLEASE tell me we can hold our police officers up to the same standards as our burger flippers.
Re:Silver Lining (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. What we need right now is a nice, healthy distrust of our government, and the laws it makes and policies it sets.
The law enforcement people, whether it's police or any other agency, are just the guys with the unfortunate job of enforcing those policies. A lot of them are decent people - I've dealt with the police on a handful of occasions (never on the wrong side of the law) and generally found them individually to be pleasant, professional and well-meaning.
The problem is, as always, the exceptions who are not so inclined, just as most of our society are good people but we still have criminals. Combine laws that are open to abuse with law enforcement people who are willing to abuse them, and that is when problems happen.
Re:Should have been too far, but it probably wasn' (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, however, this only means that his spot was filled by someone either without those principles - or who is unwilling to stand up for his/her principles..
"Anti Social Behavior" (Score:4, Insightful)
They seem to be using it as an excuse to arrest, harass and imprison anybody for any reason, on the basis that they were doing something "anti-social."
And what's wrong with being anti-social anyway? Some people are shy, some people have strange tastes and interests. I know I am not the epitome of a social butterfly.
Worst we've got in America is a recent rash of police arresting people from photographing their encounters, which, given the number of police in this country, seems to be more rare than people in Britain being branded "anti social" for chewing japanese cabbage flavor gum or driving luxury cars.
Re:The parents agree (Score:2, Insightful)
The scope of the police response in this case was completely out of hand.
Only in the UK- for now (Score:5, Insightful)
-sirket
Re:Good point, but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
You probably did the right thing. Children getting abducted by strangers is very rare (anyone got real stats? I'm too lazy). Bruce Schneier's book Beyond Fear has some good stuff about our tendencies to mis-estimate risks, especially for rare events.
Example: I vaguely remember reading somewhere that more people are killed by pigs each year than terrorists, yet we don't have a War On Pork.
Re:"Anti Social Behavior" (Score:5, Insightful)
This goes far beyond just mere victimless crimes to non-crimes.
Re:Speaking of which (Score:2, Insightful)
In light of this, let me moderate my response a little: assuming the story is factually accurate, i.e. that the kids weren't being complete hooligans and vandalizing the tree in a way beyond what you might expect from 12-year olds, I would complain to the police chief and if necessary, the mayor, requesting an apology from the officers involved. If this request did not result in those officers personally and sincerely apologizing to the children in question, I would then pursue having them removed from their positions. Failing that, something would need to be done. I'll just note that natural selection only works if some agent causes selection to take place.
Nice Try, Coward (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't try to BS your way through police procedure. If the officer could reasonably claim proabable cause, she'd simply have done so and gone inside without needing to ask. The fact that she did ask indicates that she didn't think she could stand on probable cause.
Virg
Re:This just in. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
And perhaps that's what you SHOULD have done. It's a judgment call, to be sure, but once you let the officer into your home, anything he or she sees in there can be used against you. A cop can go from Nice to Mean in seconds.
Don't confuse "being polite to cops" with "waiving your rights".
Re:Should have been too far, but it probably wasn' (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only in the UK- for now (Score:3, Insightful)
I presume you're unaware of what's going on here in America? It seems that a majority of folks here consider government surveillance programs (CCTV, mass wiretapping, etc.) not only okay but a necessity to keep us "safe"
I don't know about you, but I prefer the risk of Al Quaeda members possibly living next door than Big Brother knowing whom I talk to, what I talk about (however mundane it may be), where I go and why I go there. Even though I'm not doing anything illegal or even questionable, it just weirds me out that someday, maybe one day soon, some administration will suddenly consider that if I espouse an opposing view during a phone conversation that I'm a potential threat to his second term, so I am a "dissident"/"enemy combatent" that needs to be dealt with because I plan on voting "incorrectly." 1984 isn't such a huge leap, especially with the mass wiretapping, carnivore, and data mining.
Re:Speaking of which (Score:2, Insightful)
Basically, a suspicious and nosy neighbor was able to create an incident from almost nothing. The police believed him over us, and gave us no benefit of the doubt until our parents got involved. The cops could have easily just driven us down the block to the home of one of our parents and straightened the whole thing out, but instead they had to act as though we needed to be taught a lesson. I was taught a lesson alright, but it wasn't the one they thought they were teaching.
None of this is a big deal in any absolute sense, but a cop who's going to use his position to essentially bully kids is not a good guy, and is probably pretty much the same sort of guy that's going to arrest someone for photographing the police [slashdot.org]. People like that shouldn't be cops, and there's no reason to put up with it.
Re:Only in the UK- for now (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, mass wiretapping and other Big Brother-ish stuff we're seeing are pretty bad. However, there's still some things about living in the US that aren't nearly as bad as the UK. For instance, suppose a couple of burglars break into my house, and then suppose my wife (who would normally just shoot them with her shotgun; she's the more violent of the two of us) decides to be nice and we simply tie them up until the police arrive. Here in the USA, and more notably here in Arizona, the police would simply arrest them and take them away, and probably either thank us for making their job easier, or ask us why we didn't just shoot them. In the UK, however, an act like this would get US arrested for unlawfully arresting the burglars!! Sorry, but I can't imagine living in a place where I'm not allowed to use force to protect my own home against invaders.
Here's an article all about it:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml
Re:Lucky kids (Score:1, Insightful)
As for the "no consequences" bit....were any of the involved officers charged with murder? How about charged with anything? No? Fired from their job? No? Sounds like "no consequences" to me. Public opinion notwithstanding, the cowards that shot him pulled the cloak of "national security" around them and walked away.
Re:Only in the UK- for now (Score:3, Insightful)
And why should force be "reasonable" anyway? That's pretty stupid. If someone comes in my house, I should have the right to kill them, no questions asked. After all, if it's the middle of the night and the lights are out, how do I know if they're armed or not? Why should I take any chances? Here in the US, at least in some states (not Massachusetts), this generally isn't a problem. I for one am certainly not going to stop and ask an intruder what he's armed with.
With your "reasonable force" idea, you guys would never win a war. You'd stop to determine what level of armament the enemy had, and then disarm yourselves to that level to make it a "fair fight". When your life is at stake, you don't worry about making anything fair or reasonable. You use overwhelming force to guarantee victory/survival. Would you tell some 80-year-old woman she shouldn't shoot an intruder because he doesn't have a gun?
BTW, we don't have machine guns here. You're watching too many movies. It's possible for civilians to own machine guns, but it's extremely rare, it's only allowed with older guns (there's a cut-off date so only the older weapons are grandfathered in), and most importantly, the hoops you have to jump through to get the license are extremely difficult: FBI checks, etc. There's very very few civilians in legal possession of fully-automatic firearms. Of course, there's a bunch of criminals with them, but (this may be news to you) criminals don't generally worry about obeying the law, so licensing restrictions on firearms aren't a concern to them.