Arrest that scarecrow
A story from the Daily Express (sorry) about how a scarecrow was 'arrested'. It caught my eye for several reasons, check the story and see if you can guess why.
I'll retell the story in chronological order. A town is having a scarecrow festival and in order to promote it the organiser received permission to put up a scarecrow dressed in a police uniform by the roadside. A passing policewomen from another area sees it and takes it away back to the station. The organiser reports is stolen and three hours later the police admit they were the ones who took it and return it saying that as a 'speed gun' had been added it was "inappropriate". Okay everyone got that.
Point 1: By what right did the officer remove the scarecrow in the first place? It wasn't causing an obstruction and couldn't be deemed offensive. The best I can think of is littering, but I think that would be difficult to stick; perhaps 'impersonating a police officer'?
Point 2: The officer wasn't even in her jurisdiction. Now sure if an officer saw a criminal offence taking place I wouldn't expect them to shrug and say "Not my area", but what offence took place here? At the most all she should have done was contact the local constabulary and told them what was there.
Point 3: Apparently it must have taken her three hours to get the scarecrow to the station, because that's how long it took for anyone to call the organiser back after she reported it stolen. Now call me odd but I'd have thought that the news that a scarecrow had been brought in would make it round the station rather quickly.
Point 4: This is the one that makes by blood boil. Instead of just holding up their hands and saying "Oops our bad" the police try to justify their actions. Oh of course they do because as we know the police never ever make a mistake. How pathetic to give permission for a police scarecrow then claim that as it had a 'speed gun' it was inappropriate. Just feel the sanctimony oozing out of this quote
"Speed radars are used to prevent casualties on our roads and address the irresponsible actions of motorists. They should not be recreated by the roadside in jest."Yep that's right a scarecrow with a pretend speed gun was presenting an "inappropriate message to passing motorists" and as such was removed for um... being inappropriate? Dear gods, dear little gods, if I were Devil's Kitchen I'd be spitting obscenities at the sheer arse-covering twaddle going on here. Oh and of course the newspaper doesn't bother asking exactly what crime had been committed that warranted such action just taking it as read that the police can do whatever they bloody well feel like.
2 comments:
It's interesting how the papers have settled on "'arrested'" as a description, which makes it sound like the Police are doing something similar to the normal, everyday thing they do. If the headline had been, "Police confiscate scarecrow," or, "Police remove scarecrow," then it would more immediately suggest the question, "On what authority?"
I think they just picked it to make the story laughable which is why it appears in scare quotes; but you're right it's a choice of phrasing that does make the action seem mundane.
Having become more sensitised to it, it's interesting to see how many stories don't include exactly by what authority the police have acted under. Sure it may get repetitive saying that 'some kids were arrested for possession of drugs under the Whatever Act'; but for what might be deemed not obviously criminal offences we really should be told.
I'm actually taking another look at that ~£200 charge that the police levied someone when their car was removed with their permission for forensic analysis because it's just occurred to me that I'm sure I saw an exemption for that somewhere i.e. if the police take your car for examination they can't charge you for doing so.
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