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.

@itsgettingweird

What report have you seen to the effect that this boy was waving the BB gun around?

Or aiming it out the window?

[quote mathanxiety]@itsgettingweird

What report have you seen to the effect that this boy was waving the BB gun around?[/quote]
Please highlight where I have actually said this is what he's doing?!

The only mention of waving a gun is in a post I highlighted from another poster

'The police should not have assumed that a handgun-like item seen through a window late at night was the real thing posing a threat to life. It is not illegal to have a BB gun in your home in the UK. The law is the same whether you live in a rural or urban area.

I'm not really sure where to start to be honest. It IS illegal to have a firearm (usually) in the UK. Not many people can tell the difference between a BB gun and a firearm. The police are not going to take chances. Someone could have been being robbed or held hostage inside. The police (or anybody) aren't to know. They had to make a split second decision. Most people would prefer that the police always assumed it was a "real" gun.

'Black male has gun' does not equal 'black male intends to shoot people'. The police response was proportionate only if they believed someone was being threatened. The police should not have assumed that a handgun-like item seen through a window late at night was the real thing posing a threat to life. It is not illegal to have a BB gun in your home in the UK. The law is the same whether you live in a rural or urban area.

Of course they should presume any person reported to have an illegal gun is a threat to life. They don’t have to be waving it around, or pointing it out a window. What if the 12yr old who was sitting on the sofa alone, at midnight while his family slept, had had a real gun in his hand and was about to commit suicide or was playing with it and then accidentally shot himself?

Do you know that in the US where gun ownership is less regulated that the #1 method of suicide in young males is by shooting themselves? In fact, more men die by shooting themselves in suicide than are murdered by others shooting them.

So why shouldn’t U.K. police respond? Guns kill. And a person + gun is either a danger to themselves or others.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras
Same questions for you.

Was this boy waving the BB gun around?
Was he pointing it at someone?

It strikes me that I have a TV remote that really only works if I point it as if it's a handgun at the TV and press the buttons repeatedly. It has a barrel exactly like a handgun.

We also have a wii game that has controllers the size and shape of a handgun and some games involve a certain amount of waving the controllers about.

Would a person walking on the path outside my house at night be justified in assuming a person in my home was in possession of a gun if they caught sight of me changing stations or playing wii tennis and making a report?

Think of the outcry if it had been a real gun, and the boy had deliberately or accidentally shot himself and then the mother found out while she was asleep, a Good Samaritan passer by saw her son holding the gun, reported to the police and the police then proceeded to do nothing because he’s a black male and oh, don’t want to be accused of racism and have to go through a racial bias investigation. It would be racist to ignore the call and risk the kid hurting or killing himself.

Of course the police did the right thing.

They had a report of a firearm. They acted appropriately and I’d fully support the exact same response if the same happened again.

@mathanxiety
I have a Wii and also play tennis, my controllers look like blocky bars not guns. But even though you do use a gun shaped controller for a video game, any passer by would see you in front of your TV and the game logo or screen up. They’d see context familiar and reassuring. If they didn’t, then yes, thevpolice should absolutely respond.

A person sitting alone on a sofa doing nothing but holding what appears to be a hand gun is less context. What’s he doing? The rest of the house is dark. Is he going to murder his family and then shoot himself? Is he about to go out and do an armed robbery? I know let’s call the police and let the professionals handle this.

He was on his laptop whilst holding gun.

Then on laptop with gun on sideboard type thing.

Being on laptop with a gun to hand is a huge red flag I would think.

@mathanxiety yeah lets hope the police stop taking calls seriously and instead of following procedure and keeping everyone (including themselves) safe they just knock and ask nicely.

It IS illegal to have a firearm (usually) in the UK.

@DancingInDespair
You are wrong.

Gun ownership is highly restricted in the UK. There are conditions that must be met if one is to possess a gun, and certification of fitness for gun ownership is required. A lot of people in rural areas own guns as a result.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_the_United_Kingdom#Airguns

Handgun possession is legal in NI but not in England, Scotland or Wales, with certain exceptions.

Ownership of certain categories of BB gun is not illegal either. Possessing a BB gun in a private area is not illegal. Firing the gun on your own property is not illegal. Walking about with it in public is illegal.
This boy was in his living room.

Posters here are casting aspersions on the photos of the boy and insisting he was a strapping lad who looks much older than he does in the photos. If he does look much older there was no reason to suspect with good cause that he was illegally/ a minor under 18 holding anything but a legally obtained and owned BB gun.

And there is no indication that this boy was waving it around or pointing it at someone.

Why was it assumed by the caller and the police that a black male with a gun must have fallen into a criminal category related to gun possession? Their actions reveal that this is the assumption they were operating on.

@PlanDeRaccordement now attempts to muddy the waters by suggesting that there was concern about suicide and that concern about suicide justifies the disproportionate and aggressive response.

The response of the police - lasers to the foreheads of the family and the arrest of the boy - indicates no such concern. There was no mention whatsoever of concern for suicide in any of the reports, and there was no mention of officers trained to deal with threatened suicides at the scene - the response as reported was not the protocol for dealing with a suicide situation.

You are all trying to argue that the end justifies the means here.

If a majority of people in the UK believes that then I am truly sorry for you because you will reap what is now being sown.

[quote mathanxiety]@Hearhoovesthinkzebras
Same questions for you.

Was this boy waving the BB gun around?
Was he pointing it at someone?

It strikes me that I have a TV remote that really only works if I point it as if it's a handgun at the TV and press the buttons repeatedly. It has a barrel exactly like a handgun.

We also have a wii game that has controllers the size and shape of a handgun and some games involve a certain amount of waving the controllers about.

Would a person walking on the path outside my house at night be justified in assuming a person in my home was in possession of a gun if they caught sight of me changing stations or playing wii tennis and making a report?[/quote]
He doesn't have to have been waiving it around or pointing it out the window. Possession of a hand gun is illegal in the UK. He was seen with an object that had the appearance of a hand gun. It wasn't a Wii controller or a TV remote. The passerby wasn't mistaken or deluded. The boy had an item that looked like a gun. A BB gun is meant to be 51% bright colour to prevent this mistake from happening so why wasn't it? Maybe because that makes it look less "real"?

Ultimately, boy had gun where it could be seen by the public.
Member of public saw what they thought was a gun. Reported to police.
Police take it seriously and attend address.

Only people who did something wrong was parents for letting him have it and boy for having it where others could see it.

If a majority of people in the UK believes that then I am truly sorry for you because you will reap what is now being sown.

Dont you live in America? Pretty sure we are the ones that should be feeling sorry for you.

PlanDeRaccordement now attempts to muddy the waters by suggesting that there was concern about suicide and that concern about suicide justifies the disproportionate and aggressive response.

I am not muddying the waters in the slightest. The passer by reported a black male with a gun at an address alone on the sofa. We cannot know what the passer by thought or their motivations. You and others have assumed they’re all a bunch of racists thinking he was about to go on a shooting spree. But equally they could have been concerned for this young man’s well being. The fact is we don’t know what they thought. You don’t. And I don’t. So therefore BOTH scenarios are equally possible and plausible. Especially when you consider that a man with a gun is 3x more likely to use it to kill himself than another person.

@mathanxiety... hence why I said "usually". I am aware of the firearms laws. I would also assume that the police would run a quick check on an address to see if a licensed firearms holder lives there in this situation.

Why was it assumed by the caller and the police that a black male with a gun must have fallen into a criminal category related to gun possession?

Putting the issue of whether the bb gun looked like a "real gun" aside, if it was a legally held handgun then it would be registered to a person at that address, which is easily checkable. The police would have checked the address and found that no firearm was legally registered there.

mathanxiety

What we are saying is a witness saw a gun and reported it.

Handguns are illegal in England so there's no innocent reason for having one.

Price attended and secured the scene. Then the who, why, how, what questions can be asked. Ascertained that it was a BB gun that looks very muck like a real gun.

Good job met police.

Alternative - person sees gun, phones police, police say "ooohhh no. We know you said it's a gun but it might be a Wii controller or a remote control. We'll leave it, just in case"

yeah lets hope the police stop taking calls seriously and instead of following procedure and keeping everyone (including themselves) safe they just knock and ask nicely.

@Staplemaple
I would hope that the police will reassess their protocols and procedures and start asking more questions of callers reporting sightings of black males who are essentially minding their own business. I would hope that they will assess the extent to which their protocols and procedures rely on racial profiling of minorities.

Who ends up looking like the aggressor in this situation?

Whose reputation suffers?

What of respect for the law when such a disproportionate and heavy-handed response results from a report of a sighting through a window of something that looked like a gun?

Are you prepared to accept collateral damage such as the killing of Sharif Cousins in Birmingham - or anyone else - as long as the police do whatever you feel necessary for you to feel safe?

...Mr Cousins did not immediately comply with commands to raise his hands and appeared to be reaching behind to get something out of a pocket, which at that moment [the police officer] thought was a gun.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/birmingham-police-shooting-sharif-cousins-black-men-uk-a8849281.html

@mathanxiety
Yes, I totally understand what you’re saying. And agree with your comments about NI. It’s not a case of applauding the police. It’s a case that the police have a need to protect themselves. I don’t see how the police could have acted differently. They couldn’t have contacted the family to see. Of course I wish it were different.

There isn’t the fear of police in the U.K. that there is in the US. Probably because they don’t as a rule gun people down or suffocate them to death. The ratio of police officers to population here is at an all time low. Policing here is done by consent of the people rather than by force.

As I said, right now, at least, the family were under no threat of being shot and killed. We don’t have a surplus of fire arms being supplied to the forces by the military, which I understand is happening over your side of the pond.

the response as reported was not the protocol for dealing with a suicide situation.
Yes it was for a lone person late at night in a house with a handgun.
Because at the time the police did not know whether it was a suicide situation or if the young man were preparing to go out and shoot someone or if he was simply playing around with a gun and about to accidentally hurt himself. So their response was an appropriate generic, get in the house and secure the people and any guns response.

[quote mathanxiety]yeah lets hope the police stop taking calls seriously and instead of following procedure and keeping everyone (including themselves) safe they just knock and ask nicely.

@Staplemaple
I would hope that the police will reassess their protocols and procedures and start asking more questions of callers reporting sightings of black males who are essentially minding their own business. I would hope that they will assess the extent to which their protocols and procedures rely on racial profiling of minorities.

Who ends up looking like the aggressor in this situation?

Whose reputation suffers?

What of respect for the law when such a disproportionate and heavy-handed response results from a report of a sighting through a window of something that looked like a gun?

Are you prepared to accept collateral damage such as the killing of Sharif Cousins in Birmingham - or anyone else - as long as the police do whatever you feel necessary for you to feel safe?

...Mr Cousins did not immediately comply with commands to raise his hands and appeared to be reaching behind to get something out of a pocket, which at that moment [the police officer] thought was a gun.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/birmingham-police-shooting-sharif-cousins-black-men-uk-a8849281.html[/quote]
What more questions can they ask from callers?

"What did you see?"
"A male sitting on the sofa with a gun"
"Was it a real gun?"
"I think so. What does a real gun look like? It definitely looked like pictures I've seen of guns"

What more can they ask? Maybe they should have asked the witness to knock and double check it was a real gun?

Why was it assumed by the caller and the police that a black male with a gun must have fallen into a criminal category related to gun possession?

The illegal gun was a valid presumption based on the fact that legally 12yr old boys cannot get a license to own a handgun as they are minors and most handguns are illegal in the U.K. Gun ownership is vast majority sports rifles, shotguns, historical guns, that sort of thing. We also don’t know that any assumption about him being a criminal was made. It could just as easily have been worry about impending suicide or accidental death due to a minor holding/messing about with a gun without any adult supervision in sight.

@itsgettingweird

He was on his laptop whilst holding gun.

Then on laptop with gun on sideboard type thing.

Being on laptop with a gun to hand is a huge red flag I would think.

I agree as many young people, even 12yr olds, have been known to live stream their own suicides.

@GreekOddess Not just you.