Monday, July 20, 2009

Police helicopter sent to 'rave'

BBC News: Police helicopter sent to 'rave'

Action to prevent an "illegal rave" in Devon last week has been defended by police, despite claims the event was merely an organised birthday barbecue.

Locals feared a rave was to take place at Sowton, near Exeter, on Saturday and called the police, who closed the event down. A force helicopter was deployed.

Andrew Poole, who was celebrating his 30th birthday, claimed police riot vans turned up before any music was played.

This news article doesn't specify, mentioning merely the internet, but others note that Poole had put up a Facebook page advertising the party, just like thousands of other Facebook users make pages for their own birthday parties.

"We were nowhere near anyone, we weren't even playing any music," he said.

"What effectively the police did was come in and stop 15 people eating burgers."

Good show! Even when they discovered it was a perfectly legal barbeque, they still broke it up at the late hour of 4 PM in the afternoon. And still, the police defend their actions and the expense of the operation.

"Had it gone ahead, it is likely that far more of our resources would have been used to police the event and there would have been considerable disruption to neighbouring properties."

Yes, we know how crazy those 15-member barbque parties get. If it had gone on, they might have shot at the police helicopter.


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