Man carrying home his gardening tools arrested by armed police in Manchester
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Flax_vert@feddit.uk to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
Comments
jordanlund@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
MurrayL@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, he was treated poorly but the concern is understandable IMO
You can’t walk around in public with what looks a lot like a combat knife and then act surprised when the police show up.
Zombie@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
But you can be surprised when the police don’t let you go after realising the thing is mostly blunt. What looks like a knife edge on the right hand side of that picture isn’t sharpened like a knife, it’s more like how a spade has a keened edge, because it’s a fancy type of trowel. The saw edge is sharp though, but again, not as sharp as a wood saw.
Plus, the law allows for the carrying of a knife for a reasonable legitimate purpose. The accused was carrying a basket of vegetables, having just harvested them using the “knife”. It’s a legitimate purpose, and it wasn’t even a knife.
Add on that it was also sheathed, and we have a clear case of moron cops being heavy handed and abusing the law.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
It’s not illegal if you have good reason (that isn’t a weapon). In this case, it was good reason.
Goten@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
he said the blade wasnt shown and he had a fucking basket with vegetables in his hand lol. the police can of course investigate and but then they took him and didnt even listen, that was retarded. they could have searched for a damn pictures online first.
im no english, so idk much about your butterknife license stuff but now i think its very more widespread than in my euroland, we never get bothered by police. (no im not from a shithole)
someguy3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not the kind of trowel I’m used to.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Oh yeah, it’s way better! The back side is curved for digging and has measurements on it, so if you’re supposed to plant a bulb x inches deep, it’s right there on the tool.
Goten@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
some real stupid cops if they think that that is a knife, but then again im not a weird criminal who has funny looking knifes, online are are few pics of very stupid designs.
im not even smart but who makes a supposedly knife handle round, 4 marks for depth, a saw??? clearly not a knife xD
what a stupid stupid newsstory, to bad it happended to the poor guy
Goten@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
i searched that name when i saw it in the article and on ecosia where all images of this tool even with cute pink colour lol.
i was indifferent to pilice and the state but im more and more thinking, dont let them get involved because they dont want to listen
jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I have the one in the pictures here and it’s pretty slick. Can’t say I’ve needed the bottle opener in the garden, but everything else is solid!
sicjoke@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I got age checked to buy a blender in Currys yesterday.
I am 56
We are fucked.
someguy3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well what were you going to use it for???
lath@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Blend genders.
01011@monero.town 2 weeks ago
I didn’t even know they age checked for such.
Street gangs in the UK have started using blenders?
WolfmanEightySix@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Several decades ago my dad was pulled over on the way to work and questioned about my sisters toy knitting and what he intended to do with it…
ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Did he have to explain sounding?
Babalugats@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
MrPoletki@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
The Guardian’s photographer had an absolute whale of a time with this article.
Look at those dreamy vegetable garden scenes.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Reminds me of the cops that arrested a legally blind man for having his guide stick (I don’t know the proper terminology) folded up in his back pocket. He was able to see in daylight, but needed it at night. They called it a weapon. This was in the USA.
ACAB.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
TCIAB
That Cop is a bastard
rami@ani.social 2 weeks ago
ACAB. all cops aid and abet a system that encourages abuse of power and is wielded by those in power as a tool of oppression. quit it with the bullshit.
arsCynic@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
Why couldn’t the cop just:
“Hey, love your music man!”
“Huh? My music?”
“Dude, you totally resemble Robert Smith from The Cure!”“Ooh hahaha, thanks.”
“So, what I actually approached you for, we’ve had a call that reported a shady looking person carrying a knife in this area. You seem fine, but just double checking because, well, we see weird shit sometimes and don’t want to be negligent.”
“Aha okay, fair enough. Well these look like knives perhaps but they are actually professional gardening tools. I can show you my masterpiece actually.”
[…] after 20 minute tour in his garden.
“So cool man, should get my ass into nature more too. Sorry for the trouble and thanks for your time and understanding. Have a good one.”
“Cheers, see you around.”Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
A lot of police officers would be like this. Although the ARV would probably be called before the police could get there.
AppleMist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Because that’s the alternative universe where people are competent and think things through for more than 2 seconds before they do things.
mr_strange@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
A timely reminder to never accept a caution (unless you are damn sure you would also plead guilty in court - because that’s essentially what you’re doing).
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Apparently police can send you voluntary interview invites. You refusing/ignoring them cannot be used against you. But a no comment interview can.
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
UK weapon laws freak my American mind out. You can carry a folding, non-locking knife with a blade of less than 3 inches, without any justification or excuse?! Is violent knife crime a thing over there?
This stupid thing blows my mind. All I see are a bunch of harmless pocket knives.
I know, bag on the American who can carry a gun. LOL, I could carry a sword in public were I so inclined, and I often carry a machete in the woods. Believe it or not, straight to jail.
To practical matters, how do y’all transport kitchen knives, axes and other tools? Serious. And think on this, if you intend harm or self-defense, why not just carry a standard 2lb. hammer?
Also, two of my worst self-inflicted wounds were from non-locking knives, won’t touch them any longer.
rollin@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Is violent knife crime a thing over there?
yes we've had spikes of knife attacks over recent years, a lot of it is gang related, with kids stabbing rival gang members in tit-for-tat spirals of violence.
Knife crime in general is nowhere near as bad as it is in America (and of course as you point out you guys have gun violence on top of that), but the UK is historically a peaceful country and our tolerance of friends and family being murdered in the street is a lot lower than yours.
rami@ani.social 2 weeks ago
historically peaceful
sideeyes all the colonialism
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
One note, and not one to say we don’t have a gun problem. But when you tear it down, half the gun deaths are suicides, much of the rest is gang related, remainder being family and friends killing each other. The notion that there’s random shootings all over the place is false.
Notice what we report on! Brown people killing each other barely rates a blurb in local media, if any. AR-15 involved? ALL the reporting. Guy went bugshit in Maine, killed a bunch of people, no reporting on the weapon. (It was an AR-10, basically an AR-15.) Random violence gets headlines.
Most gun violence sites rate any shooting on school grounds as a “school shooting”. I could pop one off at midnight at the local high school. School shooting! Cop shoots a kid. School shooting! While horryfying, it just doesn’t happen as much as it’s made out. We had plenty of guns when I was a kid, no school shootings until Columbine popularized the sport.
I feel this gets the point across. You might notice the MotherJones numbers, hardly a conservative site.
Maybe I’ll contradict my earlier statement; America doesn’t have a gun problem, America has a culture problem. I can illustrate using a local anecdote.
Local guy sees someone breaking into the empty trailer which is on his lot. Motherfucker thought it was A-OK to hide inside the treeline and shoot the guy the next night. He felt within his rights to hunt another human being. People on NextDoor.com were defending the shooter. Well, the cops disagreed, that’s murder one.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
You cannot carry pepper spray to defend yourself. You don’t need it because knives are illegal /s
The pocket knife thing is basically for Swiss army knives.
A hammer wouldn’t be allowed either.
You can transfer kitchen knives and tools. That’s allowed. And what the guy in this article did is legal. But what happened was the police made him admit to something he wasn’t doing.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Forgot the pepper spray thing! LOL fuck me that causes no tissue damage!
Yes, the law sounds very specifically written to allow a Victorinox full size. Was thinking on that writing my post. “Guess I could carry my Swiss?”
stickly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So what I’m hearing is if you want to commit a violent crime just wear a hard hat/hi-vis vest and say you’re going to hammer things at work? Or put on a funny chef hat and walk around freely with your knives? Seems like the regulation only exists as fig leaf for minority profiling and harassing young people.
Goten@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
here it goes, easily offended close your eyes:
the guy wasnt even a black or a mohammed, but a normal englisher and they still took him to the police?? wtf is going on in the uk?? im honestly confused.
is there so little racial profiling left and that real english get questions and can explain themselves before they get such stupid ordeal??
sorry, im from a alpine valley xD
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
He could have waited for a solicitor but didn’t
Worx@lemmynsfw.com 2 weeks ago
When he was arrested, Rowe said, the officer pulled the trowel out of its sheath, and said: “That’s not a garden tool.”
[Aussie accent] “That’s not a garden tool. This is a garden tool!”
Zombie@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Manchester’s brightest at work. Experts enough to know what is and isn’t a garden tool but don’t know what an allotment is 🙄 ACAB
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
These cops are bastards. Some cops are nice and genuine. This isn’t America.
Zombie@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
ACAB is legitimate here. It’s not a Trumpism. Day to day community policing, yes, you can have good interactions with them. But they also have no qualms smashing a peaceful protestor over the head with a baton if they’re allowed as well. There’s been enough stories of corruption and abuse within multiple UK police forces, throughout its history and in modern times, to say ACAB.
Also, is it fuck a fair kingdom.
AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
ACAB applies even for the nice and genuine cops.
It’s about criticisms of policing as an institution, not individuals
LilB0kChoy@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
This is true pretty much everywhere, even America.
pyre@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
acab was true way before mango mussolini was even born
someguy3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m pretty sure they’re quizzing him about allotment, something a gardener should know.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
He should have waited for a solicitor.