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.

They have to act in the worst case scenario.

If they pop around, knock on the door, and simply have a little chat, then lives could be lost.

They went in heavy handed and a family had a bit of a fright, but nobody was hurt or killed.

Looking at the consequences of both possible reactions to a report of a gun, they did the correct thing.

The mother was stupid for letting her child have a bb gun in the first place. Children have no need for a gun at all. They are literally designed to hurt, no good can come of having one.

At 12 my son looked more like 17 so would easily have passed for an adult, so I can see why a passer by may have suspected this lad was an adult.

Okay let's victim blame the mum for allowing her son play with a toy gun IN HER OWN HOME - something millions of kids do every day. It doesn't matter if you think that was a poor parenting decision - it's not illegal. Yes the police turned up, yes they needed to investigate it, but no they didn't need to point lasers and guns at kids. The toy was a TOY BB gun. Ie it shoots pellets at low speed. The kid wasn't killing your pet cats ffs.

This reminds me of this case in the US amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/26/central-park-new-york-white-woman-black-birdwatcher where anyone can make an allegation against a black person and extreme force is used.

I'm so tired of the "why make everything a race conversation" brigade. I think it's fair to say that if this 12 year old kid wasn't black and the family wasn't black, such an extreme response wouldn't have been used.

Picture used in paper Vs actual boy

And people say there's no bias at all.

The police didn't respond to a cute innocent looking 12yo. It's not unlikely the passer by thought it was a man.

And if anyone gets the chance to watch the channel 4 news report I can assure you like many other 12yo boys he has attitude. His whole body language is awful.

Totally agree @EnoughAlready2020

@Cadent

As it was so late at night, why was the child described as a black male? Surely if you’re that concerned for a child you just say ‘there’s a child with a gun in his living room’, not there is a ‘black male with a gun’.

This is what happens on the US, anything involving black people and children is wildly exaggerated and the RACE is the key instigator.

It’s very scare that the same culture is creeping into the UK, especially so soon after a black father and his 13 yo son were thrown off their bikes by the police during a charity bike ride. It’s insidious.

Because one of the first things the police will ask on the call is ‘can you describe them’

@itsgettingweird your using a pic where’s he’s sitting, not showing he is short.

@Cadent

I was watching Jimmy Kimmel the other day and his presenter was asking white people out and about if they had black friends (most said no) and then asked black people if they had any white friends (most said no) and when asked why they didn’t have any white friends, one teenager about 18 or so answered ‘because white folk are scary’.

Threads like these make me realise why many black people are scared of white people.

Tbf everyone is scary in the US regardless of ethnicity. Crazy things are happening there. However that wouldn't stop me from getting to know people as individuals rather than treating them as a homogenous group.

A black person saying that is just as ignorant (if not racist) as a white person saying "black people are scary and that's why I don't have any black friends".

Everyone should be taught/learn to treat others the way they'd want to be treated.

Kaiserin ""what was the person who made the call to the police doing, spying on a child through their living room's window?"*

Perhaps you have a nice house with a drive, but where I grew up if the light was on then a passerby could be just 6ft away and see you perfectly clearly.

"the armed police just stormed in and started threatening everyone (apparently mostly kids?) in the house, on pure hearsay"

Yes that is their job and they must do it every time.

EVERY report of a crime is hearsay. Every 999 call is hearsay. Do you really want to close down the 999 system for that in favour of some kind of "write in if you have a problem with photos and witness reports"?

There is no bias or racial element when a gun is reported. This is not the same as stop and searches ect

Ok - so there’s no difference in the way black people are treated in the course of a raid?

• Police are five times more likely to use force against Black people than White people.

• In particular, police were 11 times more likely to use firearms (including cases where they were not fired), eight times more likely to use batons and six times more likely to use handcuffs on Black people.

Now - as I have said again and again - I do not know if those stats are relevant in this case.

They are, however, stats that lead me to believe we need to always ask the question “would this have been different if the suspect was white”. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no. But I think it’s critical that we ask.

@CodexDevinchi yes I do know police ask that but when you’re called to a house in a quiet residential street at night it’s not exactly going to be hard to identify the person with ‘a gun’ is it?

Funny how the police described him as a ‘black male’ not ‘young child’.

@itsgettingweird

Picture used in paper Vs actual boy

And people say there's no bias at all.

The police didn't respond to a cute innocent looking 12yo. It's not unlikely the passer by thought it was a man.

And if anyone gets the chance to watch the channel 4 news report I can assure you like many other 12yo boys he has attitude. His whole body language is awful.

Haven't seen the video but the photo you posted looks about the same. I would think he's a boy.

And what has his attitude got to do with the report and arrest? Did he have an attitude that night? Did the witness/"passerby" notice his attitude and think "potential criminal"?

Does his general attitude mean he's supposed to be treated unfairly (if he was)?

@Cadent - but "black male" is known. "Young child" is guesswork - people are notoriously poor at guessing ages. It may not have been apparent that the boy was twelve to the person calling the police.

Perhaps he has an "attitude" because he's still sulky from what happened to him (I'm sure he didn't think it's fair so of course he'd be put out), regardless of what we think about it.

@EnoughAlready2020

Okay let's victim blame the mum for allowing her son play with a toy gun IN HER OWN HOME - something millions of kids do every day. It doesn't matter if you think that was a poor parenting decision - it's not illegal. Yes the police turned up, yes they needed to investigate it, but no they didn't need to point lasers and guns at kids. The toy was a TOY BB gun. Ie it shoots pellets at low speed. The kid wasn't killing your pet cats ffs.

This reminds me of this case in the US amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/26/central-park-new-york-white-woman-black-birdwatcher where anyone can make an allegation against a black person and extreme force is used.

I'm so tired of the "why make everything a race conversation" brigade. I think it's fair to say that if this 12 year old kid wasn't black and the family wasn't black, such an extreme response wouldn't have been used.

Every fucker gets an extreme response on a gun sighting! No white person gets a polite knock on the door! I’ve seen white peoples doors get kicked off for drugs and my mils house got raided as some In it was suspected of having a gun.

I’m sorry but the ‘just because he was black he got an extreme response’ is idiotic and uneducated. The police would not have known it was a 12 year old lad by the way, there would have just had a visual description of some one sitting on a couch with a gun.

@SmileEachDay it's been referred to the IOPC, the Met don't even have a PCC. In London the Mayor performs the role of the PCC which isn't to do with investigating complaints anyway.
This is part of the issue. Too many arm chair critics casually chucking around acronyms when they don't even know what they mean.

He looked considerably older in the tv interview than he does in the school uniform photo ( given that most people take a new uniform photo when our kids start a new school I would guess that picture is from Sept last year)

If you look into the details of this story it's absolutely appalling conduct by the police and racial profiling at its finest. Firstly, sounds like the police carried out an armed raid on the house in the middle of the night, not immediately after this had first been reported. Perhaps they, assumed (based on race) that there may have been rich pickings for them at the house. Secondly, can you imagine how terrifying it would have been for a family and children to have armed police entering into your home with guns pointed at you. They obviously thought that given this was a black family, they jumped to their own conclusions! Appalling!

@YouStupidBoy

Look at the cases linked upthread of white boys questioned by police got for having BB guns in public - no mention of race at all. And no 10 armed police.

The ‘black male’ is key here because race was the main instigator for this disproportionate response.

This is part of the issue. Too many arm chair critics casually chucking around acronyms when they don't even know what they mean

I haven’t criticised yet police.

But yes, I didn’t know that about the Met. Why is it a different system? What does IOPC stand for?

*the police

www.airsoftstation.com/airsoft-gun-vs-bb-gun-whats-the-difference/

For anyone not sure of the difference between BB and airsoft guns... the realism of the airsoft is, according to enthusiasts, the point of them. They are less physically dangerous but look more realistic.

This is not a toy without it's own issues.

Ahhh the Independent Office for Police Complaints.

Looks like that’s not just the Met - it’s everywhere.

[quote Cadent]@itsgettingweird your using a pic where’s he’s sitting, not showing he is short.[/quote]
What's height got to do with it?

I'm trying to highlight that bias is everywhere within the story. The media will have us believe it was a sweet innocent looking 12yo child who was raised in the night for a toy gun.

When the truth is it's a 12yo who looks older than many 12yo, who has mannerisms which could be seen as cocky who had a real looking gun that also happened to be a BB gun.

The race here is irrelevant. The reporting is bias against the police based on age and then backed up with old - not reflective of what the reporter saw - photos

The Police did the right thing. They can't fuck around when there's a report of a firearm, they have to go in hard to make sure they're not caught on the back foot and shot. Even kids are capable of shooting people so they can't assume that they're safe or that the gun is a toy. In the picture it looks real so I can see why the passer by reported it, and I blame the parents for letting the boy have something like that.

[quote Cadent]@CodexDevinchi yes I do know police ask that but when you’re called to a house in a quiet residential street at night it’s not exactly going to be hard to identify the person with ‘a gun’ is it?

Funny how the police described him as a ‘black male’ not ‘young child’.[/quote]
But they use Caucasian when they are describing white people.

How would the police know who was in the house? Could have been anyone visiting

My mil lives on a cul-ds-sac, it’s residential and they didn’t give two shits.