Slashdot Mirror
Man Arrested After Charging iPhone On London Overground Train
An anonymous reader writes: 45-year-old Robin Lee was arrested after he used a socket on a London Overground train to charge up his iPhone. He was handcuffed and arrested for "abstracting electricity". Robin was then charged with "unacceptable behaviour" after "becoming aggressive" when objecting to his first arrest. The Guardian reports: "Speaking to the Evening Standard, Lee said he had been confronted by a police community support officer on the overground train from Hackney Wick to Camden Road on 10 July. The Overground is part of Transport For London’s wider network that also includes London Underground and the buses. 'She said I’m abstracting electricity. She kept saying it’s a crime. We were just coming into the station and there happened to be about four police officers on the platform. She called to them and said: ‘This guy’s been abstracting electricity, he needs to be arrested’.”
Well, no. It was a PCSO, a part-time cop's helper, who made all the fuss, not the train company.
The real cops decided not to arrest the guy because they realized it wasn't worth it, but he was then such an irritating piece of shit that they re-arrested him for being a dick in a public place.
Both the fake cop and the "I need to charge my iPhone, waaa" baby are clearly morons.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
They used to arrest people in the Los Angeles subways for the same thing - but the Mayor finally stopped the ridiculous practice:
"This is simply common sense. I want our law enforcement resources directed toward serious crime, not cell phone charging."
http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/...
That is the easy fix. If they stick power outlets on trains that are not meant for the public, then they should ensure it doesn't work for the public. For example by using a non-standard power outlet that does not accept standard charger plugs, and perhaps by supplying some unusable power level through it. Like 400V or so. That will teach the public really quick.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Or the guard would call the British Transport Police... especially as the bloke was clearly being a wanker about being asked not to do something that he was clearly instructed not to do by the signs on the train - hence his second arrest for the crime of essentially being a twat towards the police. These are British police, not American - whilst they can be just as jumped up and over-aggressive, in general if you are polite and reasonable they will treat you in an equally polite and reasonable way.
Remember that police in England and Wales are not routinely armed (neither is the populace for the most part - the police in Scotland are trying to be an exception although no-one except the Scottish police and some politicians are particularly happy about it, and Northern Ireland which has some slightly different policing requirements to the rest of the UK) so there's a bit more emphasis on reason in confrontation. I've seen quite a few rowdy people of an evening say some pretty unreasonable and frequently unprovoked things to police officers, and in some cases actually assault them, be asked and then told not to continue doing so, be warned they risk arrest if they continue, and finally get arrested and act all surprised that they finally pushed the officer enough to do so. To any reasonable outside observer these people are actively trying to get themselves in trouble, and then get upset that they've succeeded.
That's not to say I haven't met (once or twice) an unreasonable police officer, but despite that I've never been arrested or charged or seriously inconvenienced - probably because I don't instantly insult them. I've found they're quite useful when a gang of ne'er-do-wells is kicking your head in though...
Why does the train have operational, accessible sockets if they are not to be used by the PAYING passengers??