Stop and Search, etc -- C/D

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4732465.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4736969.stm

Quite embarrassing and made me late for work, so dud.

no wai!! where did you get done? were you looking shifty?

last weekend at truck i was wandering around backstage (ha, backstage is a track between some barns) after my shift and no one bothered me at all, then i pulled my hoodie up and IMMEDIATELY a securitydude appeared and asked me to show my wristband.

It was at Piccadilly Circus tube station - just a random stop. Luckily none of my workmates happened to be walking by while it was happening!

Why are UK authorities so terrified of hoodies? I would be watching out for people w/Bluetooth headsets, based on what I've learned about London from nu-Dr. Who.

ZACKLY

i was amused by the hoodie thing, i asked the securitydude if that was why (not in an aggressive way, just like "wtf do i look like an crim cos i have my hoodie up now? it is COLD!") and he said something about someone having let a load of green wristbands through

i hope i never get s&sd, i always have the fear they will stop me and someone will have planted a kilo of heroin or something on me :/

I was just reading the form the cops gave me - they can strip search you if it's an "anti-terrorism" search - and the only grounds they need for that is "you're in a tube station". So I guess I got off lucky.

I'm going to listen to all my anti-police punk songs tonight. Charlie Harper was right! We're living in a police state! etc

The fuckers were at it again at Walthamstow tube station last night. How many terrorists do they actually catch doing this?

They're probably looking for drugs and knives rather than terrorists - when we were living in Waltamstow they'd regularly be waiting at the top of the escalators. Apparently they were at it at Gipsy Hill overground station the past two nights.

This country.

my flatmate got off the silverlink in homerton on friday afternoon and thought she'd stepped onto the set of children of men - there were a shitload of police, they'd put up metal detector doorways like in airports that everyone had to walk through, and they had a bunch of long tables set up where they were looking through everyone's bags. Apparently they said they were looking for knives.

lol i was going to start a 'stop and search -- classic or dud?' thread but i already did that.

now with added topicality, though iirc this one was to do with bombers rather than what radio 4 comedians refer to as 'da yoot' and their so-called knife 'culture'.