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?
Only if.. (Score:4, Funny)
"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:"Anti Social Behavior" (Score:5, Insightful)
This goes far beyond just mere victimless crimes to non-crimes.
treehouse of love (Score:5, Funny)
Re:treehouse of love (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Some ambiguity in the readers' comments too (Score:3, Funny)
Thankfully, I live in the USA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thankfully, I live in the USA (Score:4, Funny)
Welcome to the new police state. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If they'd only chopped down the tree instead... (Score:4, Funny)
Gotta protect the underage cherries.
Do I think they went to far? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:5, Funny)
"Two young snipers in a tree,
K-I-L-L-I-N-G..."
I mean, it's a common mistake.
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:3, Interesting)
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: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: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.
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:5, Funny)
I am wondering why askslashdot is being used to push agendas/post news stories, i know this isn't a new thing, but aren't there real questions to be answered? Why couldn't this story just be a normal news submission?
Good question! You might submit it to askslashdot for some fine answers.
I have the justification (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have the justification (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do I think they went to far? (Score:3, Funny)
Should have been too far, but it probably wasn't (Score:5, 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:Should have been too far, but it probably wasn' (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Should have been too far, but it probably wasn' (Score:5, Insightful)
Start 'Em Young (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, what if they got hurt falling out of that tree? The police are here to help.
Re:The parents agree (Score:5, Funny)
Dammit, at their age I was carrying a gun and defending my land from railroad surveyers and rabid dogs.
Re:The parents agree (Score:3, Funny)
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?
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: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:The parents agree, "Ni"! (Score:3, Funny)
I have just one question, were these "children" in possession of a Herring? Ah yes, just as I thought. Indeed, plainly this caper was part of that infamous criminal cohort the Knights who 'til recently said "Ni", now commonly referred to as the Knights who say "Ekky-ekky-ekky-ekky-z'Bang, zoom-Boing, z'nourrrwringmm".
http://lorien.sdsu.edu/~carroll/shrub.html [sdsu.edu]
Re:The parents agree, "Ni"! (Score:3, Funny)
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.
what's so bad about that? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
My limited experience has been surprisingly OK (Score:5, Interesting)
Feeling as I do that this power relationship brings out the uglier sides of human nature, I'm always sure to let them be the alpha male (or female) so I don't trigger any "I must prove that I'm a badass" reactions. 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."
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:My limited experience has been surprisingly OK (Score:5, Interesting)
The bigger problem is that ALL the "good" cops just look the other way. The police have perfected the prisoner's delima. They call it a "blue brotherhood" or whatever. Basically the police have figured out that if they all keep quiet then nobody will ever get in trouble.
Granted, the trend in many places seems to be getting better. Cops no longer cover each other on blatant criminal activity (profiteering, murders etc). But it still seems to be OK to routinely abuse your power and nobody will speak up.
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!
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: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:This just in. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Cops are human beings, and unless you're living in an area that disables them from being a human being, you needn't be an ass all the time. Imagine being spit on, insulted, and assualted every day, all hours of the day, by drunks, drugheads, and assholes who try to make trouble. Eventually, you stop blinking, and stop being nice.
Sure, some places have corrupt cops and a corrupt justice system that does not work. I'll agree that our justice system is infact broken, all the way around, and that that the entire government is illegal at a fundemental level and I'v got books and documents that proove as much. But not every area requires the same amount of crap to be taken nor given.
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. She asked me to check; I checked, and explained where everyone was and that everyone was accounted for. She asked to take a quick look inside; I allowed her to, and she was in and out within a few seconds and I watched her every second. I was polite, curtious, and overbearingly nice and I made her feel like crap afterwards and even said "have a nice day, hope you find who called". The point? I COULD have said "Mam, I do not consent to any searches of my property" and we could've gone from there depending on what she would've wanted to do. But when the cops are nice, and courteous, and trying to do their job, if you're nice to them, they will be nice to you.
And I'm sure she could've been an ass about it too, but her business there was to check the 911 call.
I had a cop come to me with a complaint from some neighbors over a car in my driveway that was newspapered and being painted; I was waiting for a cool, dry day to do the painting on. The realestate agent down the block didn't like it, and filed a complaint stating the car was a junk car and was undrivable. I was as nice as I could be to that cop, and know what he did for me? Told me exactly how to comply with the law and gave me a week before he stickered it; IE, make sure it was lisenced plated, stickered, and was drivable. So all I had to do was rip off the paper, put the plate on, and drive it to a different spot in the driveway and he said "ok, you're good". All the car had on it was primer, and all of the trim had tape on it so it didn't look great. He didn't sticker it at all, said it was in compliance, and went back to the station. He wasn't exactly 100% nice about it and was I'll admit, somewhat condescending, but he was civil and gave me the benefit of the doubt.
And I'm sure the real-estate agent is still quite pissed.
Otherwise, you exercise your rights when you need to. If the cop gives you attitude and talks of using excessive force, know your rights, how to state them, and be civil about it. If a cop decides he doesn't want to trust you as a human being, or treat you as one, by all means exercise every right you have. "I do not consent to any searches sir", and "Sir, can we keep this civil?" or my favorite, "Are you detaining me or can I go about my business" and if they answer yes, you ask "on what grounds?". Later, this can be used in court to put the sucker behind bars or de-badge them. Some cops flambast you with a shit-hose like you wouldn't believe and they do it to intimidate; don't be intimdated. Others will cuff you, put you on the ground, and tell you to sit there, and unless you're living in an area where the judicial system is corrupt to the core, you're good to go to get that cop put into jail for assualt.
And if you're going to do something risky, be nice and make sure your ass is covered. Going to smoke pot? Have a way to cover the smell and dispose of the evidence quickly and smoke it in such a fashon nobody will know. Going to modify a gun to make it full auto? Keep the gun stashed in a spot where it'd take considerable time and effort to find them. I'v even had cops say "wow, that's illegal. You going to get rid of it for me so I don't have to report it?" because I was nice.
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.
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: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:This just in. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Other posters have made the point, start civil and know your actual rights (not your TV rights). It will make the interaction more likely go very smoothly. As for the problematic police, the sooner they are found out by their overreaction to civil and respectful citizens the better the force becomes.
Re:This just in. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Surely you mean, Graphical Violins leads to Explicit Sax?
anyone else... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:anyone else... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think complaining to the police about children playing in a tree should be considered "anti-social"...
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:anyone else... (Score:4, Informative)
and here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_beha viour_order [wikipedia.org]
Holy Cow! (Score:4, Informative)
* dictates child rearing and punishment,
* allows police to disperse groups of any TWO people at will,
* bans immitation weapons,
* allows city councils to label any publicly displayed painting or artwork as "graffiti" and order the land owner to remove it at their cost (even if they weren't the ones to create it),
* if you have 20 or more people on your property, or in your house, police can label it a rave, and incarcerate everyone at said "rave,"
* allows city councils to set a hight limit on plants so as to not block the light onto your neighbor's property, and charge a fee to perform the maintainance if the owner is not willing to cut their plants down to size,
* Strengthens ASBOs which basically criminalizes behavior that is otherwise lawful.
If the United States were to pass such a law, I would call the USA a lost cause, and move to Mexico.
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).
Re:Way too far (Score:3, Informative)
worse.... the DNA recording is no longer limited to "serious arrestable offences", you can have your DNA taken for what they define as a "recordable offence" which means they needn't even arrest you... they will take the sample out there in the street while giving you a caution or writing up your ticket for dropping litter... if you object, they'll arrest you... simple innit...
Re:Way too far (Score:5, Insightful)
Required or not...do they?
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anti-Social? (Score:3, Informative)
Since there were "restraining orders" in the US, and ASBO's in the UK.
"you were an asshat....don't do it again, or you WILL go to jail"
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anti-Social? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anti-Social? (Score:3, Informative)
In the UK being anti-social isn't itself a crime.
But if you are anti-social, they get to make up special laws, just for you.
They are called 'Anti-Social Behavior Orders' or ASBOs.
And then they can make just about anything a crime. For you.
Sooner or later someone will get one like:
"Must not raise right hand above waist height in a public place or where likely to be viewed from a public place".
in Britain, since 1998 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Anti-Social? (Score:3, Informative)
That's countered by, among other things, ASBOs - Antisocial Behaviour Orders - which enforce t
Re:Anti-Social? (Score:3, Funny)
So in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
Not flamebait, not an attack on the UK, but serious questions.
Re:So in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
One current scheme is to setup fingerprint access to schools, this is funded by the DfE (Department for Education) and comes from a special budget. The DfE are reluctant to discuss what is done with the data and how long it will be kept. However, given the present administrations desire to collect biometric data and centralise it, its not too big a step to believe that this too will be centralised. It would mean that the government would have biometrics on the population from when it enters the state education system. Initially this will be fingerprint only but once that has been proven possible to defeat other data will be stored, DNA etc.
There is an argument that all of this will help the authorities prosecute offenders. It smacks too much of a police state for me. This action by the police is merely following the trend that has been established. The police can do no wrong at the moment.
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
George orwells vision (Score:4, Insightful)
for others (elected officals and the like) it's actually quite erotic..
At least some good comes of it (Score:5, Insightful)
...as long as they learn in the right context (Score:3, Insightful)
Anti Social Behaviour? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anti-social behaviour??? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anti-social behaviour??? WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
linky [wikipedia.org]
Law and Order (Score:5, Funny)
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: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.
Good point, but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Today I was riding my bike home from work when I passed a car stopped by the side of a busy road, next to a small park with a bike path. The passenger's side door was open, and a girl about age 10 was standing by it crying. I stopped to watch, surprised. The girl was talking to someone in the car, and she would half get in the car, then step back, then repeat, crying all the time.
What do you think was going on? Doesn't look good, does it? Doesn't that make it remarkable that, as I approached on my bike, and while I was stopped, about three or four other people walked, jogged or rode on bikes past, and of course about two dozen cars drove by -- and no one else stopped? It was also in clear view of some new condos across the street that sell for upwards of $500,000 -- but no one came out of them.
I went up to the girl, and, staying well back (to help the girl feel safe), I looked more closely. In the car was a woman with another child. I asked the child her name, whether the woman was her mother, and whether she wanted to get in the car. She told me her name, said it was her mother, and that she did want to get in the car. The woman said it was her child, and that the girl wanted to get in the car, but wasn't being allowed to because she was in a "time out." I assume the woman was driving when she stopped and put the child out of the car at the side of the road as some kind of punishment. The girl would then be crying because she feared she was about to be abandoned.
After thinking it all through for a bit, I believed the woman. The girl and the woman and the other child in the car looked alike (all blonde wavy hair, similar face, and so on), and when I talked to the little girl she drew away from me and closer to the woman -- that is, she seemed instinctively to trust the woman more than me. The woman's story seemed unlikely for an abductor -- silly, unrehearsed, unlikely to soothe suspicion. So I didn't call the cops. (I did suggest to the woman that, as one parent to another, my advice would be to avoid disciplining her 10-year-old by pretending to abandon her on the side of the road. I said this rather less forcefully than I would have if her children had not been in earshot. For example, I did not call her a fscking idiot who should have been sterilized at menarche.)
I'm still bothered by whether I did the right thing, although the girl climbed in the car after I talked to her seemingly willingly enough, and the car drove off not in any obvious hurry. I hope I wasn't too trusting.
But my point is that it was very noticeable to me that no one else wanted to get involved. Dozens of other adults passed close by and saw what I did -- no one else stopped to take a closer look, make sure the girl was OK.
Perhaps we have come to delegate some of what used to be our normal social responsibility to our fellow man to the police. Small wonder that these things happen, then, although I wish they wouldn't.
Unbelievable (Score:5, Informative)
Questioned by police, the scared friends admitted they had broken some loose branches because they had wanted to build a tree house, but said they did not realise what they had done was wrong.
Officers considered charging the children with criminal damage but eventually decided a reprimand - the equivalent of a caution for juveniles - was sufficient.
I can think of many [epa.gov] other [anarac.com] people [bikertony.com] to be arresting for criminal damage.
What the heck is this world coming to? Kids playing in a tree, break a few branches and get arrested (and DNA tested!? WTF?). Meanwhile, corporations are allowed to get away with this garbage. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with world
Lucky kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lucky kids (Score:5, Informative)
They're just protecting us from the terrorists. (Score:4, Informative)
Granted, such activity should not be tolerated in school, but when I was a kid we called them pranks, not terrorist plots.
The Daily Mail is part of the yellow press (Score:5, Informative)
So, if -- and that's a VERY big if -- everything reported is true I deplore it, but I have serious doubts as to whether the story is at all objective.
If the Mail was looking for a reaction, I'm sure it got what it was after.
It's interesting that Google News and Google proper only carry two reports of this, and there is no mention on the BBC web site (as of 21.38 PDT).
This has all the hallmarks of a carefully manufactured and groomed story deisgned to garner publicty and web page impressions.
Coming up next on "Ask Slashdot": (Score:3, Funny)
-Just in general, not specifically related to the treehouse story, are cops fascist thugs sometimes?
-Bill Gates has a bazillion dollars. Isn't that too much?
-Does this dress make me look fat?
Nice place, this Halesowen (Score:4, Informative)
Playing Devil's Advocate for a sec... (Score:5, Interesting)
Police in the UK in the last few years have had pressure to crack down on young 'hooligans' roaming the streets at night causing damage. I don't think that these kids were doing anything wrong, but there were plenty of 12 year olds I saw in my time in the UK that should have definately been reprimanded for their actions, if not locked up.
Some examples.. My mother came over to visit me and on the first evening she was in London she had an (uneaten) apple thrown at her while walking from the station to my house, hitting her in the chest. This was delibrately thrown from across the street from one of a group of around 15 10-15 year olds.
When cycling home one day, a couple of kids on a scooter travelling in the opposite direction suddenly stopped. The kid on the back threw an egg, which hit me in the shoulder. I was going around 17-18mph at the time and it didn't tickle. My friend had the same thing happen a few years earlier, except it was thrown from a moving car in north london. It hit him in the eye and he has lost partial sight in one eye.
I couldn't park a car on the street for more than a couple of weeks, or it would get broken in to. I'm fairly sure it was kids, since the car was never driven away, just the window smashed or the lock broken.
When walking home through a small park, another one of my friends was struck on the back of the head by a full 2L PET drink bottle. The kid still had the bottle in his hand and when my friend turned around, there were 5-6 or so kids ready to "go at it". My friend just walked away.
One or two 12 year olds are nothing to worry about. But 10-15 little bastards, some with kitchen knives or metal pipes or whatever have the capability to kill 2-3 adults. And get away with it! because they know nothing will happen to them because they are kids. They know all their rights and none of their responsabilities.
It's situations like this that ABSO's were created, which is why I'm all for them.
It starts with cutting down one cherry tree (Score:5, Funny)
It starts off with just cutting down one cherry tree as a kid. Then - I shall not tell a lie - it can lead to organising the overthrow of the British rulers in a revloution lasting years, assisted by the (gasp) French and the establishment of another country where people even drive on the other side of the road out of spite.
My own experence (Score:4, Funny)
This being said, there will "always" be some bozo who complains. Perhaps the reason is justified, perhaps they are totally off their rocker. In this case, perhaps the kids needed a firm talking at worst, a friendly talking to at best. I lack any clear information at to the ownership of this tree.
God bless.... Armerica? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see the commercial now... (Score:5, Funny)
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:Slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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
Re:FP (Score:5, Funny)
Coulter: "I'm sure the mothers of these brats are only trying to cash in on the publicity generated when these terrorists-in-training assassinate god-fearing citizens from their lofty perch using liberal weapons of mass destruction."
FOX: "Such as?"
Coulter: "Lethal b-b guns. Poison darts."
FOX: "And what about Bin Laden?"
Coulter: "Hates American trees. Wants to crash planes into them all."
> FOX: "What would you do to protect us?"
Coulter: "Cut down all the trees. Keep the terrorists out of them. Castrate all liberals."
FOX: "God bless America."
Coulter: "It's all Clinton's fault. Oh, and buy all my books."
FOX: "Did you really have your Adam's Apple surgically removed so you could pass as female?"
Coulter: withering sneer.
Only in the UK- for now (Score:5, Insightful)
-sirket
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
Destroying a tree (Score:5, Informative)
To the 12-year-old friends planning to build themselves a den, the cherry tree seemed an inviting source of material.
Climbing doesn't get you wood.
Officers considered charging the children with criminal damage but eventually decided a reprimand - the equivalent of a caution for juveniles - was sufficient.
They got off with a warning.
As far as DNA samples, well maybe if the UK wasn't so focused on getting everyons DNA they wouldn't have done so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_National_DNA_Data