Man arrested in UK for having gun

[dukalmighty]

[quote][/Police in Stratfordshire, UK, arrested mechanic Darren Nixon this week... for the crime of listening to his MP3 player in public. No, it's not a crime to listen to music in Britain. The fuzz mistook his music player for a gun.

I guess I can sort-of vaguely see how a black, palm-sized MP3 player with wires snaking out of it could be construed as a handgun, but I fail to understand how the police could let the situation escalate to the point where Nixon was thrown in jail, interviewed, fingerprinted, mugshotted, and forced to give a DNA sample

According to the Daily Mail, the trouble began when a nosy citizen said they saw a man remove a handgun from his jacket, "grip it with both hands and aim it towards something."A curiosity from the tale: Because he was listening to music, Dixon couldn't hear the cops approaching behind him.
quote]I am so grateful i don't live in a country that is so ignorant that a guy gets arrested for listening to an MP3 player,I am almost at a loss for words,the sad thing is the guy has no recourse due to the fact they don't have the same laws there to protect from false arrest etc.

[phddan]

Their ignorance knows no bounds.

Doesn't surprise me in the least.

Dan

[OverEasy]

Maybe he was listening to 'Guns and Roses' or "Sex Pistols'.
You never know, OE

[fm2]

Probably everyone here realizes gun control and knife control in Britain is absurd. A lot of us look with a wary and tired eye at the concept of a "total surveillance society" of cities like London. It is starting here as well in the U.S. In Baltimore, Chicago, and to a degree in Houston.

"You don't have anything to fear if you're doing nothing wrong", right, propaganda is all that is. They drew down, cuffed, fingerprinted, mugshot were taken, forced a DNA sample, and jailed him. Then they drop him off at his house with a 'sorry for any inconvenience' quip? Talk about riding roughshod over your rights, then turn it into a fishing expedition for something to make it look like they were'nt.

Wasn't there a Brazilian guy a couple years ago that was shot by the police there in the UK?.

Here's a report of the story:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/13/man- ... p3-player/