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UK Police Raid Party After Seeing "All-Night" Tag On Facebook
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the police like to spend their time trawling our private information on Facebook looking for criminals. 'Riot police stormed a man's 30th birthday barbecue for 15 guests because it was advertised as an "all-night" party on Facebook. Four police cars, a riot van, and a force helicopter were dispatched to a privately-owned field in a small village near Sowton, Devon in the UK on Saturday, ordering the party shut down or everyone would be arrested. The birthday barbecue was busted up before they even had a chance to plug the music in, reports the BBC. It was about 4pm when eight officers with camouflage pants and body armor jumped out of their vehicles and ordered everyone out about an hour into the party.' The event's organizer, Andrew Poole, said, 'The police had full-on camouflage trousers on and body-armour, it was ridiculous. There were also several plain-clothes officers as well ... they kept on insisting it has been advertised it as an all-night rave on the internet. The times on it were put as "overnight" in case people wanted to sleep-over, but after being explained this they were still banging on saying it was advertised on the internet. They wouldn't accept it wasn't a rave. It was in a completely isolated field.'"
I, for one, will be tagging every Facebook event I list from now on as an all-night party in Sowton, Devon, UK. I encourage you to do the same.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
'Had it gone ahead, it is likely that far more of our resources would have been used to police the event and there would have been considerable disruption to neighbouring properties.
That's from a spokeswoman of the police there.
I mean seriously, you're gonna say that because it's easier to make people stop doing something that you have suspicion it might be illegal it's better to mess up a tax paying citizen's freedom?
To loosely quote Sam Vimes of Discworld, "It's better to say we caught the guy what done it instead of saying we caught the guy who looked like he'd do it. Especially when they say, Prove it."
Also...
'It was fortunate that the force helicopter was able to fly over the site as they were returning from another task.'
Really. In the same article the spokewoman says that it cost them 200 pounds to deploy the helicopter for 20 minutes. The birthday boy spent 800 pounds to get his party RUINED by the police. Fuck you guys, seriously. What the fuck.
So you are the naive type of the second sort. Taking the word of the person who was stopped by the police, as retold by the Daily Mail of all things. (Are you British, do you actually know that paper?)
You even got your reporting of what he claimed wrong, he didn't say he invited 17 people, he said 17 people "had confirmed", on Facebook. If you have any experience of events advertised on facebook, you'll know that the number of people who find out that way and actually bother to RSVP a confirmation is the tip of the iceberg of the people who go to the event.
Now read between the lines. He talks about "taking down a sound system". For 17 people? Ridiculous. He talks of hiring a generator and a marquee. He says he spend £800 on the event. >£50 per person for a barbeque? Ridiculous.
You are very naive.
I still remember that event quite well. It was on the news about the Police attacking the Peace Convoy and me and a friend hitched down from sheffield to show support for the peace convoy.
We got as far as the roundabout with the turn off to stonehenge, where we were told if we went in that direction we would be arrested as the area was placed under martial law.
As we pondered what to do next an ole volkswagon combi van pulled up and we ran and jumped in, where we were taken up to the forest where what remained of the peace convoy were.
The Police wanted to come in to the Forest but couldn't get permission to do so.
The actions of the Police that day and many other days was criminal, but the Police being the Police were above the law.
We saw the same sort of actions taken against the miners during the miners strike and now frameworks are in place such as the asbo to make even legal actions illegal. While asbo's can be justified, using them to clear homeless people from central London in preparation for the 2012 Olympics doesn't seem right.
Britains got to the state where if you want to do something, protest against climate change whatever, its going to be dangerous to your health and well being. The Police will do as they like when they can get away with it.
It's pretty much been like that most of my adult life, provided you keep your head down and don't do anything to get noticed you will largely be ok.
I'm so glad I got out of the UK