Depending on how much has been mediahyped vs the reality of what happened...
Police say "destroy"... media says "a few lose branches"...
Police says "ornamental".. media says "a tree in a public area"
I think the only mistake the police mad was to actually put them in a cell. They should of definitely detained them and kept them for holding while their parents came to collect and discuss the problem. Did the police have a suitable facility (ie not a cell) to hold children in while waiting for the parents? In my opinion they should of been DNA sampled (if that is the standard procedure) and given the reprimands which they were.
What if their DNA samples linked them to a series of known other criminal and anti-social acts? Then we would all be touting how wonderful the new technology is working, not that their persons have been invaded by DNA samples being recorded.
What they did was a criminal act, destruction of public property. It was not an intentional breaking of the law. They should not of been charged for it as they are just children and the Police did not charge them.
There is no mention by the media how the children behaved... this may of purposely left out by the media to pain the picture they wanted? If they were being openly offensive to the officers (anti-social behaviour) they may of got exactly what they deserved. For all we know the children could be known trouble makers who were spitting and abusing the officers, inversely they could be the sweet little angels which todays society produces (yes thats sarcasm).
How fast do Cherry tree grows? I would assume a 20ft Cherry tree takes decades to grow? How badly did they damage something which may take 10?20?30 years to fix?
The short of it... yes I think they went too far... but only for putting them in an actual jail cell.
Slashdot Mirror
Depending on how much has been mediahyped vs the reality of what happened... Police say "destroy"... media says "a few lose branches"... Police says "ornamental".. media says "a tree in a public area" I think the only mistake the police mad was to actually put them in a cell. They should of definitely detained them and kept them for holding while their parents came to collect and discuss the problem. Did the police have a suitable facility (ie not a cell) to hold children in while waiting for the parents? In my opinion they should of been DNA sampled (if that is the standard procedure) and given the reprimands which they were. What if their DNA samples linked them to a series of known other criminal and anti-social acts? Then we would all be touting how wonderful the new technology is working, not that their persons have been invaded by DNA samples being recorded. What they did was a criminal act, destruction of public property. It was not an intentional breaking of the law. They should not of been charged for it as they are just children and the Police did not charge them. There is no mention by the media how the children behaved... this may of purposely left out by the media to pain the picture they wanted? If they were being openly offensive to the officers (anti-social behaviour) they may of got exactly what they deserved. For all we know the children could be known trouble makers who were spitting and abusing the officers, inversely they could be the sweet little angels which todays society produces (yes thats sarcasm). How fast do Cherry tree grows? I would assume a 20ft Cherry tree takes decades to grow? How badly did they damage something which may take 10?20?30 years to fix? The short of it... yes I think they went too far... but only for putting them in an actual jail cell.