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Children Arrested, DNA Tested for Playing in a Tree?
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?
FTFA (bolded text was done by me):
... civilized my ass.
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 other people 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
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
Where I live, some kids were charged with "terroristic activities" after they used baking soda to create "bombs" out of plastic bottles. As a result, the school system is now mandating that students use clear plastic backpacks at all times next year. Sure, everybody will know when little Suzie's on the rag now, but we all know kids will treat such subjects with maturity, and it's all worth it if we can save even one plastic bottle.
Granted, such activity should not be tolerated in school, but when I was a kid we called them pranks, not terrorist plots.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Jean Charles de Menezes was not wearing a winter coat, but a normal denim jacket ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menez es ); false "eyewitness" reports are the source for the misinformation about his "suspicious" clothing. Despite his normal appearance and behavior, he was still gunned down in cold blood by men who face no consequences. War is peace.
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.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
While it was not (yet) as bad as The Sun when I left the UK in 2002, the Daily Mail was a strident, hysterical, sensationalist muckracking journal well on its way to parity. I would believe maybe 15-20% of what is reported here as "fact". The paper also carries a political/social agenda on just about everything, and I suspect very strongly that we are seeing an extremely distorted story that is being "economical with the truth".
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.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
and here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_beha viour_order
150 quid for littering, kids ordered to clean up hop scotch grid. This place is definitely one of the must see places in the UK. Unless you're from a civilised country.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
That whole law is utterly rubbish! The Law;
* 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.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
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"
It's situations like this that ABSO's were created, which is why I'm all for them.
No, it's situations like this (assault) that PRISONS were created.
All an asbo does is say "Don't do it again". ASBOs are relavent when somebody is repeatadly causing a nuisence but not actually breaking any laws -- e.g. loud music every night.
Read the article, they weren't climbing a tree, they were ripping it apart.
b ase
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