UK police arrest man for promoting a water gun fight through Blackberry, Facebook

news.yahoo.com...

After attempting to promote some wholesome fun with water guns, a 20-year old Essex native was arrested and charged with “encouraging or assisting in the commission of an offense” under a 2007 law called the Serious Crime Act.

Essex law enforcement officers claim that the man attempted to incite a flash mob and promoted the event through BlackBerry Messenger as well as a Facebook event page. The man was allegedly encouraging Colchester residents to gather for a city-wide water gun fight. The man was released on bail and has a court date on September 1 to face the charge.

I saw in the news that the same thing happened in Iran the other week, but Im not sure if it was mentioned here on ATS

A group of Iranian teenagers in central Tehran experienced a similar situation after being arrested for participating in a water pistol fight at a park. The group had promoted the event through Facebook as well. The students were arrested by the morality police, but released on bail two days later. The group is expected to be charged with publicly committing an act against Islam as well as insulting police officers.

I guess having a large water-gun fight these days is a "Serious Crime", and a danger to society. I can only imagine the horror scene of spraying eachother with water.

I never knew Iran and the UK were so alike these days?

Looks dangerous to me!

I bet you're the first one to post this! Congrats!

Editing to add: That comment was not needed and I'm sorry for being an #. OP it was a great find but I do believe it has probably been posted. It's not my job to police the forums though, I am not a mod. Sorry for being an annoying prick. I hate it when people do what I did here.

reply to post by buni11687


Clearly there is no free speech in Britain anymore. The police are monitoring social media sites, and anything that could possibly lead to a large gathering of people, for fun or violence it doesn't matter, is charged with a crime. Fascinating to watch really .. we all thought the draconian hammer would fall on the USA, not Britain.

I'll add this to my "Banned in Britain" collection.

Thanks OP.

After everything that's been going on with the punks causing heavy problems I really can't blame them for reacting. The kid was trying to be clever and see how far he could test the government and they made an example.

Everybody in England / Wales / Northern Ireland / Scotland /Jersey / Isle of Man / Gurnsey / Isle of White change their status to "Lets start a water fight in town"



Best way to beat their use of such media, turn it into a useless sap of print. Make the data so much noise that it is worthless.

All you people crying about your rights because they are using social media for intel? What did you do when they brought those laws into the books a decade ago? You lost your rights a long time ago, not when they are using them now. Terrorism laws and so on.

When you are caught under one of these laws, you ask the judge of this is being tried under Common law. Let me know how it goes.

What it is against the law now to have fun?

Oh wait yes it is even against the law to dance you know.

Pathertic, the UK is not longer a Democracy, it is Authoritarian State.

Originally posted by AnonymousFem
What it is against the law now to have fun?

Oh wait yes it is even against the law to dance you know.

Pathertic, the UK is not longer a Democracy, it is Authoritarian State.

It hasnt been a democracy for decades.

You think Northern Ireland wasnt an Authoritarian british state?

So our mega Nerf battle we're planning on Labor day (in our own yard) can get us arrested?
It is indeed a sad day in this world...

Maybe the arrests were in response to a fear the wrong sort would show up and turn an innocent game into another riot. One bad apple can spoil the entire barrel. It's not right they arrested him. I thought they might start using the riots as an excuse to further ban pubic gatherings announced via social media. This is just the beginning

reply to post by JennaDarling


Your not telling me something I have known for a long while now.

I would imagine they arrested him to scare him, as he's clearly someone that can organize a flash mob, even if it's harmless, but they are probably imagining, he's a potential threat, as he lead the orchestration-so, what is his next move they'd wonder...well, there will be no next move for him, harmless, or harmful, something they can't take the risk of.

Originally posted by tncryptogal
So our mega Nerf battle we're planning on Labor day (in our own yard) can get us arrested?
It is indeed a sad day in this world...

Maybe the arrests were in response to a fear the wrong sort would show up and turn an innocent game into another riot. One bad apple can spoil the entire barrel. It's not right they arrested him. I thought they might start using the riots as an excuse to further ban pubic gatherings announced via social media. This is just the beginning

Welcome to Northern Ireland, 15 and more years ago.

That should have been a warning to you all what Britian would do on the mainland later. But no, it was ok then, so HAHA it is ok now

See, this thing is more about timing. The cops wouldn't likely even be involved if it were not for the rioting/looting/pillaging already going on. The axiom is that when there is rioting, all good civilians will avoid endangering themselves--which is not necesserily true, as this case proves. Really, police involvement should have been a request that he reschedule this event after everything settles down, and then have police on the scene, eating donuts and drinking friggen coffee--thus allowing something that is wholesome to be wholesome WITH POLICE APPROVAL. Which would be a reaching out to the community thing.

I was arrested when i was 18 (22 years ago now) for playing with water guns in the city center, taken to court charged with carrying an offensive weapon. The case was kicked out of court and luckily for me no further action was taken. However i still spent 14 hours locked in a cell and had all the worry of a court appearance for something so trivial and pathetic. This country needs to get a grip and a sense of humour. A complete waste of taxpayers money and everyones time imo.

Originally posted by thesaneone
After everything that's been going on with the punks causing heavy problems I really can't blame them for reacting. The kid was trying to be clever and see how far he could test the government and they made an example.

Totally agree, plus some water guns can look so realistic these days.

I'll bet the words "gun" and "fight" popped up and they reacted instantly. Which actually is a great thing, if they can move that fast to arrest someone even if it was just a water gun fight then that says good things about the prevention of gun crime doesn't it?

Or should I change to the usual ATS stance of "boo, those damn police ruining all our fun, how dare they try to make the streets a safer place to live by putting their lives on the line by catching criminals"

"There's an APP for that"

Smart people would have an application/device that scrambles their talking over their cellphones so only someone with a key/device could unscramble the communication and hear what is said.


Modernize....or get arrested....if you want Free Speech.

Well I hope this individuals case in flung out off court. Ridiculous, if you ask me, there this guy trying to maybe have fun since the kids are on Holiday and the NANNY Police come along and spoils it. That Officer needs to go on a course about having fun and stop being a snobbish git.