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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.'"
No, don't mod him up -- the guys a troll through and through. Just substitute whatever music you listen to (heavy metal, jazz, etc) and see if you'd like what he's saying about you. Think about it -- you're one step away from becoming Digg, if you give him a +1.
Sorry, didn't realize you were just trolling. Carry on, then.
I doubt we're getting the truth from either side.
You don't hire a marquee and a generator for a gathering of 15 people.
Stupid tories.
Just to clarify for readers outside the UK, this is insightful
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
Facebook is far better than using the internet generally. You control the visibility of your stuff. You choose whether to let your friends/friends of friends/the whole world see/search your posts, profile and events.
The only oppressive regimes that get overthrown are the ones that allow themselves to be overthrown, because the time has come.
Seriously, look at all the oppressive regimes today. They're nowhere near in danger of being overthrown -- you try anything, you'll get crushed and massacred and executed by firing squad.
Without firearms, you are completely powerless against oppressive regimes.
No. But meeting up outside the bank and pulling shotguns out of bags will get you arrested or worse.
Setting up a rave in a field is illegal. And the police were there and could see whether or not the gear implied it was a rave or not. You weren't.
I'm not saying it was a rave, just pointing out that anyone claiming from that report that it wasn't and the police therefore acted wrongly, is naive.
No one was arrested. And more to the point I'm not the criminal justice system and don't have any requirement to assume innocence of parties. Yet more to the point I'm not saying there was a rave. Just that the there isn't enough information in the articles to start claiming that the police were in the wrong.
Occam's law says they probably were setting up a rave. The only theing pointing the other way is the word of some unknown person that was stopped by police. You are presuming such a person tells the truth. Which is naive.
Actually, more probably you just object to the rave being stopped at all, and are willing to argue the toss on that basis. And there I would agree. Damn stupid law. But blame the law, not the police.
World, no. Country, yes. The story, the person you are responding to, and I are all from Britain. You live in America. You can't categorise the police in every country as the same.
Sure, if you read back up the thread, you'll see that I say there is not enough information to know. But to assume that the event organiser is the one telling the truth rather then the police is definitely naive. Even more so than assuming that the police are definitely telling the truth.
Look thickie, I don't know how many more times I have to spell it out. None of us here can judge one way or the other based on the news reports. However the police WERE there, and were in a position to judge whether the kit that was being set up was for a 17 person BBQ or a >100 person rave. And the law, written by the scummy Tories, gives them the right to close the event down based on nothing more than that.
The event organiser says there were 15 people actually there. The police say there were 30.
While £800 for a 17 person party isn't impossible, it's slightly unbelievable, especially for someone on a coach driver's income just celebrating a birthday. The more people that are really going to the party, the more believable it becomes. Therefore it gives credence to the police's story rather than his.
What you would consider a rave isn't really the point. The expectation of 100 people along with music with "a repetitive beat" would be enough to make it a rave under the law.