Journalists: Dumb Or Dangerous?

Henry Porter begins what could be a quite good article on police overreaction quite well:

After the arrest and detention last year by armed police of the rock band the Thirst, whose members were spotted by a CCTV operator trying to start a vehicle with jump leads, which he thought was a gun, I began to wonder if there should be some sort of national award for dumb and dangerous cops. Four or five stories of unbelievable stupidity come my way every month. If the police aren't maliciously arresting people under terror laws and paying out very large sums in compensation, they are putting the faces of innocent shoppers on wanted posters for burglary, arresting farmers for pigeon-shooting or throwing pensioners into cells for their public-spirited actions. Those are just a few of the stories from last year that would certainly have been considered for any national awards.

Now, on a lot of those, he does indeed have a point. God knows, I’ve often blogged on these sorts of things myself.

You will not be surprised to know that it hasn't taken long to find the inaugural nomination for the Dumb and Dangerous Cop awards of 2010. It comes from an incident in Weymouth and concerns Dorset police, who sent armed officers to surround young men preparing to go to a fancy dress party. It is entered in the section devoted to preposterous overreaction.

It sounds bad, but looking at the actual incident, I think Henry is guilty of overreacting here.

Aaron Hendy of the Dorset Echo takes up the story. "The police helicopter was scrambled and the armed response unit mobilised during the incident. After surrounding the house armed officers marched a group of young men outside at gunpoint. However, it turned out that the man was one of a number of friends preparing for a fancy dress party and had a BB gun as part of his costume."

But they didn’t know it was a BB gun, did they?

And thanks to the hysteria generated by the hoplophobes, the police have no choice but to respond to each report in this way.

There will be some who think the police were right to threaten the young men with being shot if they did not take their hands out of their pockets; I happen to think it is the sort of oppressive, panicky behaviour that we are seeing far too much of and is indicative of something amiss in Britain's police.

Well, let’s see, Henry, why might the police have been concerned about people whose hands you couldn’t see when responding to a report of armed men! It’s a puzzle, isn’t it..?

The final word in Hendy's story goes to the neighbour Jo Hutchins, who said "The lads there are good lads and the police just jumped out with their guns. It's not right. Ask someone first. No one's that dangerous in Weymouth." Quite.

I’m sorry..? Is there something special about the air or water in Weymouth? Does it make the citizens docile, or something?

Because it doesn't much look like it to me...