This guy got de-arrested
Hopefully everyone will buy these t-shirts just to take the piss
About five minutes later, the arresting officer approached him again. “He said: ‘I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.’ I said: ‘What’s the good news?’ He said: ‘I’m de-arresting you.’
“And I said: ‘What’s the bad news?’ He said: ‘It’s going to be really embarrassing for me.’ And then I walked free, while all the real heroes are the people that are actually getting arrested.”
The officer seems to understand his mistake at least
The poor copper lost all that time arresting a guy with Plasticine Action on his t-shirt only to have to de-arrest him when he could’ve been arresting an old lady with the words “Palestine Action” written down on a piece of paper for her to be prosecuted and maybe even get a jail sentence.
That mistake was making it hard for him to make his quota of arrests for that week, the poor bloke.
This is why I always imagine it’d be funny to ask a cop “so how many murders got solved this week?” whenever they’re wasting time on mundane shit.
I’ve never had an interaction with a cop where they didn’t make it unnecessarily intense.
Their job is not to solve crimes, their job is to get people convicted, the subtle difference being that they’ll turn non-crimes into crimes (for example, they’ll chose to legally interpret things which can go both ways as crimes which require prosecution, which is why one often sees kids criminalized for childish bullshit) and it doesn’t matter if the person convicted is innocent, all that matters is that somebody got convicted (so, for example, they won’t try and find exonerating evidence).
This partly explains their tendency to take an adversarial posture towards people who aren’t from their group, also partly explained because that posture itself indirectly feeds back on them (people are weary of them because of how act towards the general public, which in turn makes them feel apart and suspicious hence they behave even more so) and partly because they do tend to get exposed far more than most people to the seedy side of humanity all with a judgemental mindset and an aim to see crimes, so even a lot of the stuff they see which most people think is just silly fun (say, most drunkenness), they’ll see as crimes.
Police solve something like less than 2% of reported crimes.
Even a libertarian can see this is fucking stupid, imagine a restaurant that gets 2% of its orders correct and served in a timely manner.
Police do not primarily exist to solve crimes.
They primarily exist as a goon/thug class to protect property and capital, all other behaviors and effects are ancillary.
If Police wanted to actually lessen crime, they’d either attack its root causes and use significant parts of their budgets to fund affordable housing and public schools, or massively reorient toward pursuing white collar crime, which is often of such a huge financial scale that it basically directly impoverishes society at a large scale.
That figure is a little misleading, but I understand how you picked it up because it’s everywhere.
Police “clear” crimes to be progressed for prosecution.
Prosecutors “prosecute” crimes. It’s this that the 2% figure is aimed at. The clearance rates (the job done by the police) is higher.
According to this article[1], 22% of reported serious crimes led to arrests. 4% (of reported serious crimes) led to convictions. They then halve both of those numbers to account for unreported crimes. The article still uses the 2% figure in the headline despite the nuance in the article.
That might sound academic given the overall point you make still stands. I just thought it was worth mentioning.
1: https://theconversation.com/police-solve-just-2-of-all-major-crimes-143878
Ok then, so more technically, and more generously to police from a purely reactionary perspective of ‘they can only respond to reports’… they do an adequate job of clearing 4% of what actually gets reported to them.
I know that cops dont actually prosecute, I made that post before falling asleep, I was a bit loose with language.
Their role in the prosecution process is basically to be witnesses, to gather evidence for the trial.
And, unless I am misunderstanding this… ~82% of the arrests they do actually make … don’t result in convictions, and are thus ‘overarrests’ in some sense… as … you went to all the effort to make an arrest, and it turns out that no actual crime was committed?
Cops have an ~18% chance of making an arrest for a serious crime that actually sticks?
They have an ~82% likelihood that they are overpolicing, like by definition, when it comes to serious crimes?
Apologies if I sounded like I was lecturing there. I got very into the numbers.
I see the 82% figure you mention too. But I feel out of my depth now. An arrest requires probable cause (a low threshold), whereas courts require reasonable doubt (a high threshold). The gap between these two seems to be what should let police work function. Eg: attorneys examine or challenge the charges, plea deals, case dismissal / acquittal etc. But I’m skimming articles I don’t understand at this point.
82% does seem high to me too. But I also see too many cut-and-dry cases on TV. I don’t know what to think.
22% of reported serious crimes led to arrests. 4% (of reported serious crimes) led to convictions
So what I’m reading is that police are wrong or bad at what they do
82%most of the time.78%, but yes
Pickering has made copies of the T-shirt, which he is selling through his own website to raise money for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. It has sold in 28 countries already.
Start a glassware company called Pal-3 Steins, sell merch for your new sale: Free Pal-3 Steins!
I reckon the T-Shirts need some artwork as well to reduce confusion. Maybe some 1980s Plasticine Claymation TV show characters like Gumby and Pokey.
Pardon my ignorance, but is wearing a shirt with the word Palestine on it and arrestable offense in England?
Pretty sure that’s Scotland, not England (Glasgow to be specific). But yeah, the British government decided carrying a Palestine Action sign was basically terrorism.
It is now!
But it doesn’t even say that.
I’m aware. He was being harassed for something similar which was why I asked
I’ve got a friend trying to move from the United States to England to escape our current shit show, and I’ve been telling him that England tends to do what America does, just with a posh accent to give it an air of legitimacy.
If you think they do it with a posh accent you’ve not been to England lol
I’m mainly thinking of Tony Blair making the same case for invading Iraq that George W. Bush was, just with the accent.
I’m mainly thinking of marshmallows.
Nowhere is truly safe at this point. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
I’m currently working out moving to Jamaica. Got a friend there to help, but he says it ain’t all sunshine and cheap pot like the movies.
I’m not LGBT but I usually use that as a guideline of “is this a good place to be?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Jamaica
And its not looking great.
Pick somewhere else.
Super simple and smart way to sort places that care about human rights. Thanks for sharing.
Didn’t /u/flyingsquid move to England? He hasn’t posted in 6 months :o
Yeah, he moved into the badlands near Manchester. Ever seen the movie “The hills have eyes”? Its like that up there.
Oooh, like Hollywood?
At this point, leaving England for America is the saner choice…
I mean unless you’re brown, then ICE will just lock you away if you try
I don’t know, we locked up an extremely white new Zealander for 3 weeks at the border recently…
And several white Canadians. There are likely dozens more locked in captivity that the media hasn’t reported on.
And don’t forget when the US coast card kidnapped a Canadian fisherman from Canadian waters and then jailed him in the US.
They drove across the border to arrest a Quebec fisherman and then sunk his boat and kidnapped him and detained him. Americans are terrorists.
You have the right to free speech…as long as… you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.
Not fans of claymation, I guess.
Not fans of AI, actually. Under the Plasticine Action, it says “WE OPPOSE AI GENERATED ANIMATION”
We need the Pingu version of V for Vendetta.
Noot noot!
In what other profession are you allowed to just stand there in public with a constant hand on someone?
Who is Donald Trump on Jeffrey Epstein’s island, Alex.
I mean… The act of not allowing you to leave is the problem here not the fact he is maintaining contact with his forearm.
I take offense at the unwanted contact.
If I were to do this to someone, they would have me arrested for it in addition to restraining them. Therefore fuck these pigs. Why are they above that?
For the US it is Supreme court precedent. If they suspect you’re committing a crime they can detain you while they investigate. If you give resistance to the detainment they can use force as long as it fits within their use of force policy and is reasonable with respect to the totality of circumstances. That’s the simple version. The UK likely has its own version of this.
Fuck their policy and fuck their vision of ‘reasonable.’ All cops oughta drop fucking dead at this point considering everything we’ve seen.
All Cats Are Beautiful
Yep and that’s where society is wrong today. You being offended is not an offence.
To be fair, the (good) British cops are by far not as likely to assault an innocent person as many others. But they do love to stop you and have a chat if even the tiniest thing stands out. I once walked around London, 15 years old, with toy handcuffs on one wrist. Cop came up to me and wanted to know the whole story, like one of those super-chatty people. Where are you from, how old, name, where are the cuffs from, why am I wearing them right now at this moment, …
He seemed happy with the answers, and we both moved on.
Well, it’s still a bother, especially when you are not free to walk away at any moment.
If the toy looked like the real thing, You are 15, an underage with handcuffs, for all he know someone was trying to keep you captive and you manage to get out or you plan to cause damage and handdcuff someone. Good for him to make sure no one actually was hurting you…
Yeah before anybody spoke I was fairly clued in that this was not America by the fact that the cops were just standing there acting chill instead of holding him on the ground and screaming at him to stop resisting arrest.
Pal,It’sTime for Action
Oh sorry didn’t see you there officer, I was just saying its time for my #sick dance 🕺 moves, is dancing a crime, officer? 😏
Palestinian Faction is still allowed, no?
Would have also taken Pleistocene reaction.
British authorities: you not only have to decide that approximations of a representation of an outlawed group are illegal, which is shaky ground at best, but you would also have to decide that open support of a group that is guilty only of vandalism of military assets is also illegal. To do so, without encroaching on the fucking Magna Carta, which y’all invented, would require an assertion that direct action on behalf of a subset of members of the group disallows the freedom of expression to support the group writ large.
UPDATE: apparently the Magna Carta had to deal with power dynamics between the crown and various lords but was symbolic in that it reduced the power of the crown in its formerly dictatorial approach.
Apparently censorship is a complex ass topic in English history and has undergone continuous stepwise changes over the centuries, in areas as diverse as theatrical plays, print media, and speakers corners in Hyde park.
Y’all still be a bunch of bitches when it comes to freedom of expression though. The country of Orwell my hairy ass.
Are you sure it’s the T Shirt and not those socks they’re arresting him for…?
Someone should make a TMHT shirt with “Plastron Action” on it.
I won’t, 'cause I don’t live in the UK.
Haha, I’d almost forgotten the government made them rename it Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, including the theme song.
Oh God, tell me that’s not real. That can’t be a real thing.
Yep, and also Enter The Dragon on VHS had the nunchucks bit edited out because they thought kids would make their own out of sticks and a rope. Of course, we absolutely did that anyway.
Picture yourself in a train in a station
With Palestine porters with looking glass ties
…Palestine flags with Red Black White and Green Towering over your head
Look for the girl in Israeli custody And she’s gone…
Great Getting Beaten in Prison
It’s not just the two we see - they are apparently in radio contact with additional tax fraudsters / wasters, probably of higher rank or even with a law degree.
Never let them tell they need more funds. Could defund plenty without affecting any actual service one bit.
I mean at least they are actually discussing if this is arrestable, in the USA, cops would just shoot you.
Why do these deep-fried rectums need to be in quasi-military garb and high-visibility vests?
I’m all for saying fuck the police, but what are you talking about with quasi-military garb and why are you bashing them for wearing high-vis vests?
These look like the worst equipped cops I’ve ever seen. I’m from the USA and I’ve seen Italian Police look harder than these guys, they at least had cars and sub-machine guns. These guys have boots, handcuffs, pepper spray, a fucking belt mounted medkit, a collapsible billy club, a baseball cap, cheap-ass-commercial-laundry-uniform-contract cargo pants, a black t-shirt, and a stab vest. The pigs don’t even have guns and they are wearing “please-don’t-run-me-over” safety vests.
The guys on the street have the right reaction, there’s obviously no threat here.
Dude, the Carabinieri are fucking SCARY. I’d rather face a US state trooper and a Canadian Mountie at the same time.
I’d definitely rather deal with Carabinieri, they’re usually just twenty-something year olds from anywhere in the country doing a little military service and that give varying degrees of a shit. Maybe not at airports and landmarks. American cops are jumpy and hyper aggressive always. You can get that from the Carabinieri but it’s half-hearted, not baked in to their identity.
That’s a British police uniform, standard issue.
All black with a high visibility vest, arresting people for words. Nice country.
Looks a bit like Brighton?
