Monday 29th of April 2024
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too long in the midday sun .....

too long in the midday sun .....

In a demonstration of the kind of zero-tolerance policing of modern criminality that will no doubt impress Iran's morals police as much as Egypt's military rulers, officers outside London announced on Monday that they had arrested a man for sending text messages encouraging people to take part in a mass water fight.

According to a statement posted on the Essex police force Web site - under the headline: "Police Reassure Residents They Are Working to Keep County Safe" - a 20 year-old man, "who allegedly sent messages from a BlackBerry encouraging people to join in a water fight," was arrested and charged under a provision of "the Serious Crime Act." The man was released on bail, ahead of a court appearance on Sept. 1.

The police statement also explained that the force's officers "have vowed to take a robust approach to anyone who uses social networking sites to stimulate fictitious rumors."

After the force announced the bust on Twitter, several other users of the social network asked if the original tweet was a joke. That prompted the force to post a second message an hour later explaining that while the arrest was made to head off a water fight, "police believe there may be more involved in light of recent disorder."

Briton Arrested for Plotting Water Fight by BlackBerry

looking for root causes .....

A Toronto judge has ruled that "adrenalized" police officers acted as aggressors at a peaceful political rally that led to dozens of arrests during last year's G20 summit.

"The only organized or collective physical aggression at that location that evening was perpetrated by police each time they advanced on demonstrators," Justice Melvyn Green ruled on Thursday. He was referring to a demonstration at Queen St. and Spadina Ave. on Saturday, June 26, 2010.

Green stated police criminalized political demonstration, which is "vital" to maintain a "viable democracy."

Green's stern words echo widespread criticism of police during the G20, in which more than 1,100 people were detained in the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. A Toronto Star/Angus Reid Public Opinion poll conducted on the one-year anniversary of the G20 found a majority of Torontonians (54 per cent) now believe police response to demonstrations during the summit were unjustified.

"The zealous exercise of police arrest powers in the context of political demonstrations risks distorting the necessary if delicate balance between law enforcement concerns for public safety and order, on the one hand, and individual rights and freedoms, on the other," Green wrote in a 29-page judgment.

The ruling was in response to charges against one protester, Michael Puddy.

The London, Ont. bricklayer was on his way to a concert downtown when he joined the front line of the late-night Saturday rally. Puddy was wearing a "Police Bastard" T-shirt named after a punk band, when he was pushed to the ground and cuffed.

Puddy was shuffled from officer to officer and eventually transported to the temporary Prisoner Processing Unit on Eastern Ave. He spent two days behind bars and was forced to sleep on a concrete floor and use a toilet without a door before he was released on $25,000 bail.

Though four officers testified at his trial, none could say why he was detained - or who made the initial arrest.

Green found that Puddy was arrested "completely without justification," strip-searched and detained for two further days for "a show cause hearing."

Aggression during G20 rally 'perpetrated by police,' judge rules