Comment by Eisenstein
7 months ago
Reading that article, it seems that the mom was arrested because the cops wanted to. Someone called the cops for a child walking down the highway by themselves, and then the cops showed up and arrested her. Cops can arrest people for any reason practically, a lot of times because they just don't like you. I was thrown up against the back of a patrol car and searched when ordering chinese food late at night once. I don't see that she was charged by the prosecutor, or that the child was taken away.
The other link you have is neighbors that obviously dislike each other, and they told the cops the kid was in danger.
It is a very interesting counterpoint to the line throughout this discussion that the UK is some kind of oppressive state, yet you state here that in the US a cop can arrest people just because they want to. That would be an extreme edge case in the UK. Constitutional freedom of speech, and a paramilitary police force that can ignore the law.
Yeah it sucks. The police are pretty unaccountable due to their local nature and their unions. When people try to do something about it they go on 'soft strike' and refuse to enforce basic laws in retaliation.