There was a so calledRave near me the other month. Cops were loudly provlaiing how good they were at closing it down, but I never jeard a thing from the kids. The damn helicopter howevering directly over my house from about 5am on the other hand was a major public nuisance.

Or was he silly enough to have his profile 'Open'?

Yes, overdone, heavy handed, bad PR, and all the rest of it for sure. But- If you advertise a party as all night in a way that's open to the public... you're in danger of being gatecrashed by all kinds of undesirables, not necessarily just the boys in blue.

Should be thankful for small mercies, someone could have had the audacity to be over 5'11" tall and in posession of an offensive camera, they'd have called in the ARV and shot them all.

Over here in Germany, in my Big City By The River, you are — effective today — no longer allowed to carry glass-containers (like a glass or a bottle) in a certain popular amusement district during the night hours. That is supposed to be a precaution to stop people getting wounded, which is a major issue at nights. All fine and dandy, but if you happen to LIVE in this district, you are not supposed to have glass on you either, unless it is "closed and unreachable", ergo in a closed backpack or locked suitcase (like a gun), and shopping bags don't qualify. You are also not supposed to reach for a glass-container while passing through that district IN YOUR CAR. "You are advised to use plastic if you want to take a nip by the red light" is what the paper said. You might be stopped by the police at any time and if you fail to discard your glass-container at that point there will be a hefty fine.

Why am I telling this? Because I found parts of this to be pretty ridiculous, namely the car and resident related bits. Now according to your article, what they are telling us effectively is that in the UK there are police officers watching FACEBOOK for parties, stopping violent party outrage before it even gets started. That is just... awesome. We still have so much to learn over here in terms of applied fascism, I don't know whether we will ever be able to catch up!

I'm just glad I live in America, where the repetitive sounds of copier machine parties can blare without concern for whether they will be mistaken for a rave ... where birthday celebrations involving under 20 people on private property are still regarded as non-threatening events ... and where it costs way more than 200 bucks to dispatch a police helicopter. Enjoy your warm beer and boiled beef, dudes. That's as good as it gets.

Going to look at the 'rave' and talk to the organiser is one thing. Storming it with a waste of resources is another - ridiculous.

If the ranking officer who gave the order for this charade (assuming it was someone higher than rank and file plod, who probably get a lot of flack for decisions that weren't there's to disobey) lacks the common sense that is clear to see when you know the whole story then

a) the wrong people are in charge (look at the DeMenzes shooting - commanders made the screwups)

b) no flipping wonder organised parties go underground, and when good stuff is driven underground then dirtier stuff gets even deeper. And that probably involves gangs, violence, drunks and all sorts of things the police SHOULD be dealing with (and not always by force at that).

Fail cos with happenings like this the police force deserve a lot of the flack they get - and all sorts of other bad stuff you can legitemately say about the police as an organisation.

So, had they not stormed it with riot police and a helicopter, it would have taken them even MORE resources than that to "police" a BBQ with 15 people attending? Forget the suicide bombings, all Al Qaeda needs is a big bag of charcoal and some beefburgers and they'll overwhelm our "law enforcement" buffoons!

Now, if they're going Gestapo on anything listed on Facebook as an all-nighter, everyone is hereby invited to my all-nighter at Gordon Brown's place. All welcome, particularly jackbooted stormtroopers who think massive overreactions somehow "save" resources...

See, over here in the States, we have a right "peaceably to assemble."

Maybe you should try a written constitution.

were those burgers made of?

that facebook is a bloody menace. He would have ended up with 14 ex-schoolfriends who never talked to him in school....

they also need to ensure that no pictures were taken of the bust for section 44 reasons (or 43 or whateverthefuck they feel like).

I hope they were doing a hog roast.... i love the smell of a burning pig.....

Pretty much sums up the police and bureaucracy in general these days, though I would have loved to see the birthday guy take a stand and refuse to pack up - Would be interesting to see how long an arrest for "quiet orderly conduct in a private place" stands up with the IPCC involved.

Yet another strike for the plod public relations, although if the bloke had a private profile the plod couldn't have known what was happening. Hope none of the guests had a camera or they would really be in the shit.

Nope, it's the 17th of July, not April the 1st. Holy crap. This is real.

What's freaking me out is how the rozzers got wind of this menace to society. Either they were trawling Facebook or someone dobbed them in - in which case perhaps there's more to this than meets the eye. Who are Mr. Poole's enemies, I wonder?

You see! You see! How can you expect the PM to deploy more helicopters in Afganistan, when they are obviously required for the prevention of such henious crimes back home?

Did someone in blue not get an invite?

"far more resources would have been used" - jesus on a stick, how many dumb-ass devon cops would they have actually sent to prevent 15 people eating bugers? It's good to know that our taxes aren't wasted by idiots with nothing better to do. They must be gagging for crime down there. One idiot devon cop here's about a birthday b-b-q and figures it must be a terrorist bash.

actually, that's quite scary. if thats what dumb cops do in Devon then i should be worries as i live in London and i just ate a burger - should i be expecting the riot squad (eep, I better go and hide under the bed as my friend has just opened a jar of mustard!)

The police are gung-ho and thick as pig shit.

On second thoughts, that's not news at all. Everyone carry on with your business.

6 cars were stolen, 1 person was raped, there were 3 burgleries and 4 other violent crimes were commited.

Oh and someone somewhere smoked a joint, or 3.

I'm missing the bit of the story where the plod miscreants were all sacked and the chief constable apologised and promised such a balls up would never happen again.

You might like to check your copy for the missing paragraph.

is this how my taxes r being spent?!!! FFS

Watch what's happening around you, fellas. England may not yet have the full-blown characteristics of an oppressive, no-way-out, total surveillance police state, but there's a new brush stroke every day.

If your coppers like doughnuts as much as those in the USofA, there'd a-been 15 trampled guests with jackboot prints on their backs. Maybe even a killin' or two.

And of course stoopid is a stoopid does. He must have left facebook with all the defaults in place. If you're going to be dumb; you'd better be tough.

I assumed this was in the US until I got to the second paragraph. I know things are getting here but jesus.

In a democratic country the police would be powerless to act until a crime was comitted. We will long for those days

Excellent rant, even spelling 'program' incorrectly (if referring to the British Broadcasting Corporation, anyway).

Most of the article was lifted wholesale from the BBC website, and an attributing link within Austin's article shows this.

Reading the article, one vital paragraph was not plagiarised, which would help explain the questions by others about why the police were cruising Facebook looking for raves to close down. They were not, probably.

"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."

None of this detracts from the fact that once again the police have made tits of themselves, compounded by being institutionally incapable of admitting they've made a mistake and blustering on about "far more resources would have been used to police the event" .

Penguin, 'cos they're nice when barbecued.

Evenin' all!

Following the link from the article to the BBC site, and following a further link, one finds this. Suddenly things aren't quite so clear cut.

<snip>

Police believe they prevented a rave in Devon on Saturday night.

About 30 people had turned up at Sowton near Exeter by mid-day on Saturday afternoon to what organisers said was a 30th birthday party.

But local people, fearing a rave was going to take place after previous events with loud music at the same premises, alerted the police.

Organisers have been told to get licences from the local authority before they organise further events.

The event was closed down under section 63 of the Criminal justice and Public Order Act 1994.

</snip>

But how of its age that legislation sounds, though: "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". One can imagine all these Tory MPs sitting around, still mildly surprised that they'd won the 1992 election, trying to define something they dislike or fear in such a way that Glyndebourne or Proms In The Park doesn't get closed down under the same legislation.

"Poole said it was about 4pm when eight officers with camouflage pants and body armor jumped out of their vehicles and ordered everyone out about an hour into the party."

Good think it wasn't Gordon Freeman's 30th birthday party then. Apparently Civil Protection does not need to properly wear blue either? Nearer to you, Sierra Leone.

What colour the Officers' pants were?

Helicopter deployed, because I posted something on the internet.

I feel almost sick reading this; when are we truly going to unite as a democracy and slap the silly bstards that condone this sort of act? The really scary part is, when I told someone about it; they weren't surprised at all...

Paris because, she'd have found a way to get that Barbecue roasting and the helicopter would have got a great angle.

P.S - I R no terrorist

Don't trust your life and acquaintances to Zuckerberger's all-seeing eye.

a) an appropriate response was to bring in a riot squad? How about a quick phone call to the host or the village constable "passing by"

b) The 15 guests were ordered to leave in the middle of the afternoon because they *might* at some later time play rave music or be disorderly? On what grounds?

_Advertised_ on the Internet? Was the birthday boy promoting the event to people he didn't know? 15 people!? Really? 15? Why would the event have needed policing at all? Were they trespassing? What laws were broken?

Oh crap... now I look, I see that this story is so ridiculous that I'm actually agreeing with comments posted on the Daily Fail's readers' comments section. Ouch.

Andrew Poole, you have my sympathy - I'm sorry your birthday party was ruined by plod wanting an excuse to try on their riot gear (not much call for that in Devon, one imagines?) On the other hand, look on the bright side: you'll be dining out on this story for years to come.

Once they got there, anyone with a brain could figure out it wasn't a rave. Obviously, the police didn't bring the necessary equipment when they came.

I had 300 people at my wife's birthday party and you could hear the music 2 miles away (so I have been told), but law enforcement did nothing until the reports of gunfire..

Well, actually, unknown to us, they did set up a road block about a mile down the road and started turning people away at some point, but they didn't storm the place.....

Of course this was before facebook, so we just posted fliers everywhere..

That's just sooooo, wrong.

You shall not be happy.

You shall not be glad.

You shall not stay up beyond bedtime.

You shall not listen to dance music.

Anyone would think these were adults on private land...

And does this also mean that "they" are monitoring facebook?