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.

@Coronabegone are the police incapable of asking Sm questions? I reported a drunk driver recently and the police asked me a ton of questions.

That's not right. That's not how we used to do things.

No, it's not, but times have changed. We didn't used to have gun crime as a daily occurrence. We didn't used to have guns being as easy to acquire illegally as cannabis. We didn't used to have young kids carrying and using firearms.

Who exactly was in the wrong here? The passer by? They thought it was a real gun so they reported it. Nothing wrong with that.
Were the police wrong? Should they not have responded to the report? Why not? Should they have sent round a PCSO or an unarmed officer to investigate a report of a firearm in 2020 London? No, sadly not. Should they not have arrested anyone until they'd determined there was a real gun? Again, no. Arrest allows them to conduct an investigation without worrying about potential suspects fleeing or interfering in their investigation. Arrest also ensures the suspect is afforded the rights they are entitled to under law that happen to be pretty important. Arrest in a situation like this is absolutely routine and people who object to it should educate themselves on what arrest is and the role it plays in the criminal justice system.

In some respects this was just a sad and unfortunate series of events. If I was to blame anyone, I would be blaming a parent who allowed their child to have a realistic looking toy gun in a city where gun crime is an everyday occurence and often, sadly, does involve children.

TooTrueToBeGood@ well said.

Who exactly was in the wrong here? The passer by? They thought it was a real gun so they reported it. Nothing wrong with that.

But the passer by looking into the living room window should have told police that the boy was sitting on the sofa with a laptop as well.

And isn’t it funny how the person reported seeing “a black male with a gun” but failed to mention the male was very obviously a child?

Coronabegone, does their protocol involve responding with disproportionate force to a report concerning a 'black male'?

And this incident has happened very soon after a black man and his 13 yo son were tackled to the ground from their bikes by police whilst they were taking part in a charity bike ride and threatened with tasers. How completely terrifying.

The 13yo has to sleep in his parents bedroom for a new nights afterward because of the fear and has had to teach himself how to handle himself as a ‘black male’ when confronted by police. At 13.

There seems to be a subtext to this thread that black people should inure themselves to these ‘misunderstandings’ because, well, ‘hindsight’. It shows why #BLM is so important.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/black-father-and-son-threatened-with-tasers-by-police-over-false-stabbing-suspicion-12017127

He may have been a child but I don’t think it was necessarily obvious and children kill, there is evidence of both black and white child killers let’s be honest.

If this turned up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, I'd be terrified.

It's a good job the boy didn't open the door with the toy in his hand, or we'd likely be reading very different headlines right now.

While I don't disagree that the police should have investigated, of course they should, I do think their response was disproportionate and racially biased.

Given the police themselves have already apologised, I'm going with 'no'.

Expect the investigation will be fairly meaningless. As ever.

@Pixxie7
Have you seen the pictures of the child? He is very obviously a child, not tall or bulky at all.

He may have been a child but I don’t think it was necessarily obvious and children kill, there is evidence of both black and white child killers let’s be honest.

Yes because there have been so many child killers sat on a sofa with a laptop open and a toy gun in their hand. With mum and sibling in the house too.

The child involved has just finished Year 7; this is a picture of him in his secondary school uniform as which I screen grabbed from then BBC website, linked below.

Someone upthread referred to him as a "big, strapping lad".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53532799

Cross posted with you Cadent!

Someone upthread referred to him as a "big, strapping lad". hmm

It’s laughable isn’t it. Not sure you can even call this unconscious bias but straight up prejudice.

11 yr old

islington

Other incidents were children have been arrested for having a BB gun which was mistaken as the real thing.

@hadenoughbleach the big strapping lad!

This is the street the family live on, as mentioned in a previous post. Can't think why the police appeared with numerous officers to reports of a Black male inside a house with a gun...

You can learn a lot in hindsight.

The police have reacted to the information received ‘a male with a gun’ just because the male was a 12 year old doesn’t mean that he is any less likely to cause an offence. The police have attended in riot gear because they don’t know the gun isn’t real, they’ve arrested the ‘suspect’ whilst they check the house, they’ve then realised and let him go. Even if he had said oh it’s just a toy or it’s a BB gun, they still have to check another gun isnt in the house. Had they seen the gun themselves they would (I assume) realised it was fake and left the house, but they have to be thorough. For all the police know the family could have been holding the gun for an older relative.

Someone raised the point would this have happened in Devon? The call to the police of ‘someone holding a gun’ maybe not because people probably aren’t as scared of gun crime, would the police have reacted in the same way to reports of a male playing with a gun? 100%.

This family clearly had a scary experience and I understand the mother is outraged and all the rest of it. However, had the police turned up 3 days later and ‘had a chat’ with the family. Someone could have been dead. Also why let your kid play with a BB gun in a city which is rife with gun crime?, he could have taken it outside to mess about with, pointed it at the wrong people and been shot. (Granted the article doesn’t make it clear if the gun was real or fake)

@Standrewsschool both the cases you linked happened in public places with other kids involved, so not comparable to a kid on his own sofa in his own living room.

The police should act using intelligence, not rushing in all guns blazing (no pun intended) because a 999 call refers to a Black male.

@hadenoughbleach

Of course they didn't.

Someone reports from outside a house that they saw a Black male waving a gun around inside house, did police intelligence stop to think:

• who lives in that house
• are there any children in that house
• how likely is this story to be true
• should we call out to ask who is home
• this person we are arresting is a child

No. Instead they took one look at the lovely house in a nice neighbourhood, decided there must be a Black man about to kill the people inside said house, then at least 5 firearms officers in full riot gear including rifles and visors turn up and bash this innocent lady's door in.

They handcuff her 12 YEAR OLD son, put him in the back of a police car and drive him to another street for questioning. The innocent boy and his family will be traumatised for life from that experience.

I doubt this would have happened had the family been white, the police are disgusting, and it was a completely disproportionate response, if the facts are as reported. I look forward to hearing the outcome of the investigation which the police themselves have commissioned.

Maybe the police already knew that a family with children lived there, and saw that there was a possibility that someone had broken in to the house and was holding them at gunpoint?

I know that racism is a massive issue particularly at the moment. However turning everything into a racist is surely counterproductive, if we really want equality in this country we need to to forget the colour of someone’s skin. Black people continually referring to all white people in a derogative manner is as bad as white people doing it.
We can all make changes, acknowledging any feelings of racism we feel and be kinder to each other.
There is no evidence that the police would have responded any differently whoever the person was.

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?

I think they need to arrest before they can search.

We don't know what exactly the report said or why the police took the action they did. I hope we find out but I doubt it.

But the passer by looking into the living room window should have told police that the boy was sitting on the sofa with a laptop as well.

I haven't seen the transcript detailing exactly what the passer by reported or what he actually saw. I suspect you haven't either and are making stuff up to suit your own narrative. How exactly do you deduce that the passer by saw the boy sitting on a sofa with a laptop? Do you think the passerby was walking right up to windows and peering in? Or is it more likely that he saw the boy and the gun because the boy was either at the window or standing up in front of it with the gun on display (i.e, not sitting on a sofa with a laptop). even if he did see the boy sitting on a sofa with a laptop, so what? How does a sofa or a laptop enable either the passer by or the police to determine that the gun is not real? It doesn't.

I fully believe black people suffer prejudice in this country. I fully believe the police and the criminal justice system is institutionally racist. I fully believe that young black males especially are targeted by the police. I fully believe that statistics support claims that racial profiling is a thing. I do not however believe there is any evidence in this specific case that race was an issue or made any difference to how the police responded.

There is huge, overwhelming evidence that the police treat different people differently.

@cadent - I was using them more as an example of where BB guns has been mistaken as real guns, although I appreciate the situations are different.