12 year old arrested

[Pixxie7]

Do you think the police acted appropriately given that they had a tip off that a boy was waving a gun around.

My DC had air rifles and completed at national level. There is a rifle range at the bottom of the garden and they were always very aware that they were not to use them anywhere else. As if they were "seen/reported" an armed response unit would be sent.

We live rurally, if we lived in a city there is no way they would have air rifles.

What sort of an idiot let's their children have a replica gun anyway.‘

Amazon

I think you'll find that Amazon doesn't send out BB guns willy nilly. An adult bought the BB gun and let the child have it, and anyone from the Government, to the police and Amazon, according so some posters are to blame, just not the irresponsible parent who then also had a lovely sad face opportunity.

@xolotltezcatlopoca

SimonJT, why do you need to keep saying as a brown person? And also "being dragged into a park toilet by the police" why do they need to drag him/her into the toilet? That sounds like something to make a complaint in the first place. It's inappropriate.

Because my race is relevant, am I not allowed to write about my own experiences? Should I lie and pretend I wasn’t dragged into a public toilet by police officers when I was a child?

None of my white friends with water guns were dragged in there and illegally searched. Yet apparently mentioning my race is a problem

"I do think we need to ensure we consider whether racism was part of any case involving black people"

But how can you do that if you say everything involved black people has racial element to it like you did on this thread. It may, or may not. The fact is someone reported someone had a gun. It could have been malicious, or pure fear. We don't know. But the response from the police was appropriate to the seriousness of the report.
You are changing the subject by deflecting it by saying it has a racial element.

There is a protocol to be followed when a report like this is received, what do you expect the police to do? Should they have asked an unarmed pc to knock on the door? It would be different if the member of the public had reported seeing a child with a toy gun and then the police had reacted with an armed response!

It can’t be racial profiling by the police because they were specifically told “black male” and the exact address in the passer bys report. If the police had done racial profiling it would have to have been a report that a person on a street had a gun in their home and then the police targets the one black family on that street. That’s not what happened.

And I don’t think the passer by had a racial bias either because the illegal BB gun looked like a real gun. If it had been a obvious neon pink water toy gun, then i would suspect malicious racial bias on the part of the passer by. But the evidence all points to an honest credible report, then an appropriate police response.

SimonJT, Are you serious? I am a foreigner, and my child is a mixed race who isn't white.
What I said was what police did to you was inappropriate, and you should have reported it.
Do you want to paint me as racist? Good luck with it. Am not British, nor white. And I have plenty of experience as a target of racism.

SimonJT, why do you need to keep saying as a brown person? And also
"being dragged into a park toilet by the police" why do they need to drag him/her into the toilet? That sounds like something to make a complaint in the first place. It's inappropriate.

What an ignorant, nasty post. @SimonJT ‘keeps saying’ as a brown person because it’s relevant when describing incidents of racial discrimination. The second part of your statement doesn’t even make sense - it sounds as though you’re doubting the legitimacy of what the poster has described happening to them, which is outrageous.

But how can you do that if you say everything involved black people has racial element to it like you did on this thread

I haven’t said that.

I said this:
I don’t know if it changed the police response in this case - but those of you saying it’s definitely not a race issue... The only way to tackle racism is to look it fully in the face and accept how much the colour of someone’s skin affects every interaction they have

Surely, by virtue of the fact that it is a gun, "playing with it" presumably means acting out shooting it? So, "waving it around" is not such a leap of the imagination, is it? You're hardly likely to have it lying in your lap, untouched.

whattimeisitrightnow, meh, sorry it made you upset, my English isn't perfect so sometimes it makes people upset. But nothing I said was intended to be nasty.

Can someone please explain why you think this boy was treated differently because he's black?

Are you saying that police wouldn't have responded in the same way to a report of a white male holding a gun? I don't believe the police, particularly in London would have reacted any differently if this had been a white person.

Can you explain what you want to happen going forward - police to not respond to reports involving a black person? Reports of firearms to be responded to by unarmed police?

It is very, very important that the family gets a huge settlement out of this, one so big that the police will have to rethink all aspects of their response to calls featuring 'a black male'.

Don't be ridiculous, and someone living in the US trying to preach about guns, lol

CallmeAngelina

From the bbc:
Her son Kai had roused suspicions of a passer-by who said they saw a "black male holding a firearm on the sofa", in Medburn Street, Camden

I’m not sure it sounds like “waving it around” 🤷🏻‍♀️

PlanDeRaccordement

That's not how profiling works.

As a poster pointed out above, if this has been a white child in a village in Devon this would never have happened, this is every day racism

What absolute rubbish.

@CallmeAngelina

Surely, by virtue of the fact that it is a gun, "playing with it" presumably means acting out shooting it? So, "waving it around" is not such a leap of the imagination, is it? You're hardly likely to have it lying in your lap, untouched.

That's what I think. What was he doing with a replica gun at midnight? Was he just cuddling it as he went to sleep?

Are you saying that police wouldn't have responded in the same way to a report of a white male holding a gun? I don't believe the police, particularly in London would have reacted any differently if this had been a white person.

I think a lot of people living in their leafy suburbs with low levels of crime don't understand why the police need to react as they do to reports such as this; and if it was their neighbourhood they would be pleased it was taken seriously.

"I said this:
I don’t know if it changed the police response in this case - but those of you saying it’s definitely not a race issue... The only way to tackle racism is to look it fully in the face and accept how much the colour of someone’s skin affects every interaction they have"

I already responded to that comment.

By reports such as this, I mean to anyone with a 'gun' in an area with high levels of robbery etc (info on crime stats).

I think a lot of people living in their leafy suburbs with low levels of crime don't understand why the police need to react as they do to reports such as this; and if it was their neighbourhood they would be pleased it was taken seriously.

I agree.

Of course they had to respond. Some children carry weapons.

Are you saying that police wouldn't have responded in the same way to a report of a white male holding a gun? I don't believe the police, particularly in London would have reacted any differently if this had been a white person

I don’t know whether the police would have acted differently in this case.

But [https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.inyourarea.co.uk/news/black-people-are-being-disproportionately-targeted-by-police/amp/ this]] is why it’s really important to ask the question .

...she should have taken a long look at herself and apologised to her ds for fucking up. Oh and lastly and most importantly giving photos, allowing him to be interviewed and so forth.

@Mummyoflittledragon
But why should a black mother have to think twice about deadly consequences to her and her family of giving her DS a BB gun, while a white mother wouldn't need to take into account any consideration apart from the safety of local squirrels?

She is absolutely correct to go to the press with this, and is doing so presumably on the advice of a solicitor.

@mathanxiety

PlanDeRaccordement

That's not how profiling works.

Yes it is. It’s when the police have instructions to say, stop and search anyone suspicious and they then through racial bias think that suspicious = black.

If the police are acting on a report that already specifies ethnicity, sex AND the exact address they are, then no racial profiling could have occurred.

Refer to
legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Racial+Profiling