Man carrying home his gardening tools arrested by armed police in Manchester
Submitted 2 days ago by Flax_vert@feddit.uk to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
Comments
jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 days ago
MurrayL@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah, he was treated poorly but the concern is understandable IMO
You can’t walk around in public with what looks a lot like a combat knife and then act surprised when the police show up.
Zombie@feddit.uk 2 days ago
But you can be surprised when the police don’t let you go after realising the thing is mostly blunt. What looks like a knife edge on the right hand side of that picture isn’t sharpened like a knife, it’s more like how a spade has a keened edge, because it’s a fancy type of trowel. The saw edge is sharp though, but again, not as sharp as a wood saw.
Plus, the law allows for the carrying of a knife for a reasonable legitimate purpose. The accused was carrying a basket of vegetables, having just harvested them using the “knife”. It’s a legitimate purpose, and it wasn’t even a knife.
Add on that it was also sheathed, and we have a clear case of moron cops being heavy handed and abusing the law.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 days ago
It’s not illegal if you have good reason (that isn’t a weapon). In this case, it was good reason.
someguy3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Not the kind of trowel I’m used to.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Oh yeah, it’s way better! The back side is curved for digging and has measurements on it, so if you’re supposed to plant a bulb x inches deep, it’s right there on the tool.
sicjoke@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I got age checked to buy a blender in Currys yesterday.
I am 56
We are fucked.
someguy3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well what were you going to use it for???
lath@piefed.social 2 days ago
Blend genders.
01011@monero.town 2 days ago
I didn’t even know they age checked for such.
Street gangs in the UK have started using blenders?
WolfmanEightySix@piefed.social 2 days ago
Several decades ago my dad was pulled over on the way to work and questioned about my sisters toy knitting and what he intended to do with it…
ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Did he have to explain sounding?
Babalugats@lemmy.world 2 days ago
MrPoletki@feddit.uk 2 days ago
The Guardian’s photographer had an absolute whale of a time with this article.
Look at those dreamy vegetable garden scenes.
arsCynic@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Why couldn’t the cop just:
“Hey, love your music man!”
“Huh? My music?”
“Dude, you totally resemble Robert Smith from The Cure!”“Ooh hahaha, thanks.”
“So, what I actually approached you for, we’ve had a call that reported a shady looking person carrying a knife in this area. You seem fine, but just double checking because, well, we see weird shit sometimes and don’t want to be negligent.”
“Aha okay, fair enough. Well these look like knives perhaps but they are actually professional gardening tools. I can show you my masterpiece actually.”
[…] after 20 minute tour in his garden.
“So cool man, should get my ass into nature more too. Sorry for the trouble and thanks for your time and understanding. Have a good one.”
“Cheers, see you around.”Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 day ago
A lot of police officers would be like this. Although the ARV would probably be called before the police could get there.
AppleMist@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Because that’s the alternative universe where people are competent and think things through for more than 2 seconds before they do things.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
Reminds me of the cops that arrested a legally blind man for having his guide stick (I don’t know the proper terminology) folded up in his back pocket. He was able to see in daylight, but needed it at night. They called it a weapon. This was in the USA.
ACAB.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 days ago
TCIAB
That Cop is a bastard
rami@ani.social 2 days ago
ACAB. all cops aid and abet a system that encourages abuse of power and is wielded by those in power as a tool of oppression. quit it with the bullshit.
mr_strange@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
A timely reminder to never accept a caution (unless you are damn sure you would also plead guilty in court - because that’s essentially what you’re doing).
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Apparently police can send you voluntary interview invites. You refusing/ignoring them cannot be used against you. But a no comment interview can.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 days ago
UK weapon laws freak my American mind out. You can carry a folding, non-locking knife with a blade of less than 3 inches, without any justification or excuse?! Is violent knife crime a thing over there?
This stupid thing blows my mind. All I see are a bunch of harmless pocket knives.
I know, bag on the American who can carry a gun. LOL, I could carry a sword in public were I so inclined, and I often carry a machete in the woods. Believe it or not, straight to jail.
To practical matters, how do y’all transport kitchen knives, axes and other tools? Serious. And think on this, if you intend harm or self-defense, why not just carry a standard 2lb. hammer?
Also, two of my worst self-inflicted wounds were from non-locking knives, won’t touch them any longer.
rollin@piefed.social 2 days ago
Is violent knife crime a thing over there?
yes we've had spikes of knife attacks over recent years, a lot of it is gang related, with kids stabbing rival gang members in tit-for-tat spirals of violence.
Knife crime in general is nowhere near as bad as it is in America (and of course as you point out you guys have gun violence on top of that), but the UK is historically a peaceful country and our tolerance of friends and family being murdered in the street is a lot lower than yours.
rami@ani.social 2 days ago
historically peaceful
sideeyes all the colonialism
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 day ago
One note, and not one to say we don’t have a gun problem. But when you tear it down, half the gun deaths are suicides, much of the rest is gang related, remainder being family and friends killing each other. The notion that there’s random shootings all over the place is false.
Notice what we report on! Brown people killing each other barely rates a blurb in local media, if any. AR-15 involved? ALL the reporting. Guy went bugshit in Maine, killed a bunch of people, no reporting on the weapon. (It was an AR-10, basically an AR-15.) Random violence gets headlines.
Most gun violence sites rate any shooting on school grounds as a “school shooting”. I could pop one off at midnight at the local high school. School shooting! Cop shoots a kid. School shooting! While horryfying, it just doesn’t happen as much as it’s made out. We had plenty of guns when I was a kid, no school shootings until Columbine popularized the sport.
I feel this gets the point across. You might notice the MotherJones numbers, hardly a conservative site.
Maybe I’ll contradict my earlier statement; America doesn’t have a gun problem, America has a culture problem. I can illustrate using a local anecdote.
Local guy sees someone breaking into the empty trailer which is on his lot. Motherfucker thought it was A-OK to hide inside the treeline and shoot the guy the next night. He felt within his rights to hunt another human being. People on NextDoor.com were defending the shooter. Well, the cops disagreed, that’s murder one.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 days ago
You cannot carry pepper spray to defend yourself. You don’t need it because knives are illegal /s
The pocket knife thing is basically for Swiss army knives.
A hammer wouldn’t be allowed either.
You can transfer kitchen knives and tools. That’s allowed. And what the guy in this article did is legal. But what happened was the police made him admit to something he wasn’t doing.
stickly@lemmy.world 1 day ago
So what I’m hearing is if you want to commit a violent crime just wear a hard hat/hi-vis vest and say you’re going to hammer things at work? Or put on a funny chef hat and walk around freely with your knives? Seems like the regulation only exists as fig leaf for minority profiling and harassing young people.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Forgot the pepper spray thing! LOL fuck me that causes no tissue damage!
Yes, the law sounds very specifically written to allow a Victorinox full size. Was thinking on that writing my post. “Guess I could carry my Swiss?”
Worx@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
When he was arrested, Rowe said, the officer pulled the trowel out of its sheath, and said: “That’s not a garden tool.”
[Aussie accent] “That’s not a garden tool. This is a garden tool!”
Zombie@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Manchester’s brightest at work. Experts enough to know what is and isn’t a garden tool but don’t know what an allotment is 🙄 ACAB
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 days ago
These cops are bastards. Some cops are nice and genuine. This isn’t America.
Zombie@feddit.uk 2 days ago
ACAB is legitimate here. It’s not a Trumpism. Day to day community policing, yes, you can have good interactions with them. But they also have no qualms smashing a peaceful protestor over the head with a baton if they’re allowed as well. There’s been enough stories of corruption and abuse within multiple UK police forces, throughout its history and in modern times, to say ACAB.
Also, is it fuck a fair kingdom.
AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 2 days ago
ACAB applies even for the nice and genuine cops.
It’s about criticisms of policing as an institution, not individuals
LilB0kChoy@piefed.social 2 days ago
This is true pretty much everywhere, even America.
pyre@lemmy.world 1 day ago
acab was true way before mango mussolini was even born
someguy3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m pretty sure they’re quizzing him about allotment, something a gardener should know.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 days ago
He should have waited for a solicitor.