Our wonderful police, protecting our freedom every day…
My friend Phil and I were going through a metal detector on the way out of Highbury & Islington tube on Friday evening around 8.30pm, on our way to a gig. Phil, who has a degree in physics, said to me in a low voice that the metal detector was a “piece of shit that wouldn’t stop anyone”. Obviously, someone was listening, as all of a sudden, half a dozen policemen jumped on him and hustled him over to the corner of the tube station, where he was detained for about 20 minutes for the grave crime of swearing in public, and fined £80 for the privilege. For swearing! On the tube! If it’s such a crime, then I owe them about a million pounds, as swearing on and at the tube is the only way to deal with the pain of having to travel on the dratted thing every day.
The police were fucking rude, too, and treated Phil like he was a hardened criminal – they were really aggressive, and clearly wanted him to lose his temper so they could charge him with something worse. They said repeatedly he was very close to being arrested. For the terrible crime of swearing and calling their machine a piece of shit – which, as a physics graduate, he actually knows about. Phil co-operated fully and gave them every piece of ID you could think of, and allowed them to search his bag, but that wasn’t enough for them – they just had to keep on firing questions. I got really upset and started crying through rage, frustration and fear. I also asked them very politely if this was the UK or the People’s Republic of China. They then told me I was very close to being arrested, too.
(Source: The Londonist, via BoingBoing)
Unfuckingbelievable.
Are there any police in London actually tackling serious crime? Or are they too busy arresting loud pensioners, harassing pacifists, shooting innocent civilians and intimidating commuters?
Can you believe that the police are actually meant to be public servants? They’re meant to serve and protect us!
Nice to see those new terror laws give them the Nazi powers they’ve always longed for…