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.

A fifteen yr old boy was arrested two days ago for stabbing a man to death in leafy Thame Oxon.

Didn't hear much about that.

As his mum said, if playing with a toy gun is an offence then make it law.

If it was an actual BB gun it is against the law. Saying that, its the adult letting their kid get hold of the gun that has broken the law not the child. From wiki:

Since February 2011, TheCrime & Security Act 2010(S.46) made it an offence"...for a person in possession of an air weapon to fail to take reasonable precautions to prevent any person under the age of eighteen from having the weapon with him...".[31]This legislation essentially relates to the storage of air guns and the requirement of owners to prevent unauthorised access by children.

The report says toy BB gun which isn't very clear. BB guns aren't toys.

So going in armed against a child isn't the right response imo, however the report seems to say that the police were told that it was an adult 🤷‍♀️

Her son Kai had roused suspicions of a passer-by who said they saw a "black male holding a firearm on the sofa

I do believe if it was a white kid they wouldn't have been so heavy handed though.

I think given he was in his own house, not pointing out of a window etc, it was very heavy handed, and I'm sure a spot of racial profiling was going on here. Growing up in NI we knew never to play with a toy gun in public as there was a real chance of the soldiers/police (who were armed) thinking it was real.

Ohh that's worrying that they reacted like that. I've (35 year old white woman) got a toy gun a bit like that. Used to get drunk and shoot BBs at cans in the garden when I was at uni. Better get rid before my kids grow up and find it 😬

What kind of an idiot sees a child with a plastic gun in their own home and rings police saying a 'black man is waving a gun around'?!

And why would the police need to aim guns at the female children and mother?

It wasn’t a toy gun, but a BB gun. And if you look at it, it looks very much like a 9mm handgun.

I hate the expression “if it were a white boy this wouldn’t have happened..” because there is absolutely no way to know any such thing.

Attaching a picture of the BB gun he had

And why would the police need to aim guns at the female children and mother?

Because in gun owning households, females usually also own guns and are statistically better shots than males.

What do people think the police should have done?

That gun doesn't look like a toy. I can understand a passerby mistaking it for the real thing. Do posters think the police should ignore reports of people having guns?

‘This is London, not America’ said his mother.
London, where kids are getting killed by kids on a far too regular basis.
Police had reports of a firearm, they are not going to go in unarmed, ask for a cup of tea & a quick look round.

Better get rid before my kids grow up and find it

Sounds like a good idea.

I don’t think it says how old the daughters are, but surely in these circumstances that had to make the premises safe including protecting themselves.

I can see that they had to investigate. However, I don't really see why they had to arrest the child. Surely as soon as they looked at the gun they should have realised it wasn't real?

@Meatshake

Ohh that's worrying that they reacted like that. I've (35 year old white woman) got a toy gun a bit like that. Used to get drunk and shoot BBs at cans in the garden when I was at uni. Better get rid before my kids grow up and find it 😬

Are you a Hillbilly?😂

Replica gun that also doesn't comply with the requirements of the VCR Act, probably wouldn't have happened if it did at least 51% be in a bright colour specified as either red, purple, orange, pink or yellow, That blue is not 51% nor is it bright or one of the specified colours.

@EnoughAlready2020

Absolutely not. It's disgusting behaviour from the police and it absolutely wouldn't have happened if he was a 12 year old white boy. They used guns with lasers.

I can't believe how frightened he and his mum must have been. The only thing that kid has learned is to be afraid of the police. As his mum said, if playing with a toy gun is an offence then make it law. But what really is the law of the land is that it's only BLACK kids that can't play with toy guns.

Absolutely!

If it was a BB gun, what was a 12 year old doing with it at all?

And why, instead of thinking "hey, maybe this wasn't a good idea ..." is the mum seeking to blame others for not making it illegal, when actually it's already illegal for a child of his age to have it?

Reports of someone waving a gun about

Of course the police acted correctly.

Should they have gone round, unarmed and asked the mother to put the kettle on

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

What we see is filtered through our bias, implicit or otherwise. The witness perceived him as a threat and reported it. If the boy had been white would they have been more likely to think he was was just a kid messing around with a game controller gun or something similar? It’s possible. When the police received the report, which they obviously had to respond to, did the race of the ‘suspect’ make them regard the situation as more likely to be real/dangerous? It’s possible.

I’m just really glad this ended without anyone being hurt.

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

Amazon.

I can see that they had to investigate. However, I don't really see why they had to arrest the child

TBF we weren't there so can't possibly know what the reaction of the family was to the police's arrival ...

@PlanDeRaccordement '|Gun owning households'?!!!

How many of those do you know? Because I know literally zero and am sure that's the case for pretty much everyone!!

Have people saying he was just a child forgotten a child is just as capable of pulling a trigger as an adult? and had the gun been a different type, I wanted to say ‘real’ but it was a real gun, just not he type they feared. A parent should not allow a child to have a BB gun, a BB gun is not a toy and looks like a regular gun. Tamir Rice was another child failed by his parents, unsupervised causing terror at a play ground waving what appeared to be a real firearm and refused to co cooperate with police. If you threaten to shoot someone with what appears to be a real gun expect people to take you seriously. No police officer in the world wants to get shot.

AuntyPasta Amazon's T&Cs say that under 18s can only use an account "with the involvement of a parent or guardian", so I'm afraid it's still the adults' responsibility

13yr old white boy arrested last year in Boxbourne for playing with this actual toy gun in the park.

Other irresponsible retailers are available

www.amazon.co.uk/Special-Agent-P99-James-Accessory/dp/B07STDJDPS/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=Replica+gun&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1595630118&sr=8-10

www.amazon.co.uk/Kid-Toy-Gun-Pistols%EF%BC%8CRubber-Childrens/dp/B082NSGSQQ/ref=sr_1_15_sspa?dchild=1&psc=1&keywords=Replica+gun&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyNllJRzVEVzA2M1VUJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNTIxODA5MzhCMDZQWDMxM1VEVyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMzQzMjMzMkQ0QjdDOUZFRjhXRSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX210ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1595630118&sr=8-15-spons
Even this

www.amazon.co.uk/Sancto-2775P-PISTOL-grey-black/dp/B00294SX2W/ref=sr_1_28?dchild=1&keywords=Replica+gun&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1595630118&sr=8-28
which looks like something from a cowboy film but is similar to
news.met.police.uk/news/man-who-took-loaded-gun-to-new-years-eve-party-in-camden-jailed-401577 this