Man carrying home his gardening tools arrested by armed police in Manchester

Comments

• arsCynic@beehaw.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

  Why couldn’t the cop just:

  “Hey, love your music man!”
  “Huh? My music?”
  “Dude, you totally resemble Robert Smith from The Cure!”

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  “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.”

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• Zombie@feddit.uk ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  When he was arrested, Rowe said, the officer pulled the trowel out of its sheath, and said: “That’s not a garden tool.”

  “I said it is, because it was in the Niwaki-branded pouch that you get at garden centres,” Rowe said.

  Rowe said police had questioned him on whether he was “planning on doing something” with the tools, and he said he was also asked to explain what an allotment was.

  “I had to explain in very basic terms what an allotment is to this guy,” he said. “So it didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence that I was going to be let off.”

  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

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    These cops are bastards. Some cops are nice and genuine. This isn’t America.

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    • Zombie@feddit.uk ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • LilB0kChoy@piefed.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      These cops are bastards. Some cops are nice and genuine.

      This is true pretty much everywhere, even America.

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  • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m pretty sure they’re quizzing him about allotment, something a gardener should know.

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    • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      He should have waited for a solicitor.

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• sicjoke@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I got age checked to buy a blender in Currys yesterday.

  I am 56

  We are fucked.

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  • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Well what were you going to use it for???

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    • lath@piefed.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Blend genders.

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  • 01011@monero.town ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I didn’t even know they age checked for such.

    Street gangs in the UK have started using blenders?

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• jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  For those who may not know what a Hori Hori is:

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  To the cops I’m sure they saw:

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  • MurrayL@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • Zombie@feddit.uk ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s not illegal if you have good reason (that isn’t a weapon). In this case, it was good reason.

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  • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Not the kind of trowel I’m used to.

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    • jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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• WolfmanEightySix@piefed.social ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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…

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  • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Did he have to explain sounding?

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• Babalugats@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  And theNiwaki Ice Bear Japanese gardener’s sickle.

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• shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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  • rollin@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • rami@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      historically peaceful

      sideeyes all the colonialism

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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?”

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• some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    TCIAB

    That Cop is a bastard

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    • rami@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ 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.

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• MrPoletki@feddit.uk ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The Guardian’s photographer had an absolute whale of a time with this article.

  Look at those dreamy vegetable garden scenes.

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• mr_strange@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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).

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Apparently police can send you voluntary interview invites. You refusing/ignoring them cannot be used against you. But a no comment interview can.

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