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Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

Nothing about either of those is reasonable.

In the US both of those would have been handled with an Investigatory detention - same as being pulled over for a traffic stop. Not even remotely an arrest.

> They did however arrest me so that they could do a formal search and had right to as they had reasonable suspicion I was carrying it as a weapon.

What "reasonable suspicion"? They could see the "weapon" that had been reported and at that point it should have been "have a nice day" and then them trundling themselves over to whoever called it in and charged them with making a false report.

I swear, UK police seem generally nicer than US cops but infinitely dumber and the shit you brittons put up with in terms of having your rights violated is astounding.

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> In the US both of those would have been handled with an Investigatory detention - same as being pulled over for a traffic stop. Not even remotely an arrest.

I'm not from the UK, but it seems likely that this is just a question of semantics. Many US traffic stops are far more stressful—and handled in a way that is far less conciliatory—than the "arrest" that OP describes. It doesn't sound like they were taken to a police station or even necessarily handcuffed, more just formally detained.

As for US detentions: It doesn't especially matter if they're not technically "arrests" in US parlance, you're still being stopped by the police and you still can't go anywhere until they let you because there's a too-high probability that they'll find an excuse to make your life miserable if you don't cooperate.

"Reasonable suspicion" is the UK equivalent of what Americans call "probable cause" i.e. jargon for when the police are allowed to search you.

The police have to conduct stops in a certain manner, because of the law that gives them the power to stop people: They are legally required to tell the person they're being detained for the purposes of a search, the purpose of the search, the grounds for the search, and the legal power used.

Getting a load of jargon thrown at you about "detained" and "offensive weapon" and "Police and Criminal Evidence Act" sound a bit officious, but once they've stopped you they've got to give you the officious jargon, it's required by law.

Also, while it's rare that the police will have occasion to stop and search a middle class, middle age white guy like myself, when the situation does come up, it's reasonable for them to do it thoroughly and by the book. They should treat a report of me carrying a knife the same as they'd treat a report of a black teenager in a bad neighbourhood carrying a knife.

Because of the increase in knife crimes in the last couple of years the UK police have become incredible aggressive towards anybody in possesion of even small purpose knifes in public. I'm honestly surprised OP got away with it.

> I'm honestly surprised OP got away with it.

Buying a knife and carrying it home is 100% legal, so there's nothing to "get away with" here.

Carrying a Santoku knife in public is only illegal if it's being carried without a "good reason" and carrying a newly purchased knife home is certainly a good reason.

The police have the power to stop and search people when they have "reasonable grounds" to suspect they're carrying a weapon; if the knife is clearly visible that's certainly reasonable grounds. So the search was not illegal.

A stop-and-search means being "detained" in the sense that you are not free to leave until the search is completed, but it's not an "arrest" that would appear on your arrest record. Perhaps there was a miscommunication about the distinction between being 'detained' and being 'arrested' ?

UK police are nothing more than legal mobster. If they don't like your face they can just decide the good reason is not good enough.

https://professional-troublemaker.com/2018/04/10/u-k-knife-c...

> If they don't like your face they can just decide the good reason is not good enough

The article you linked does not support the claim that the UK police not liking someone's face is sufficient for them to be allowed to stop and search someone.

In fact, this goes directly against the PACE guidelines as described at https://www.college.police.uk/app/stop-and-search/fair

> A person’s physical appearance [...] cannot be used as the reason for stopping and searching them [...] unless there is information or intelligence giving a specific description of a person suspected of carrying an item for which there is a power to search.

>goes directly against the PACE guidelines

Guidelines have never stopped authoritarian hell holes. They can just make shit up.

> In the US both of those would have been handled with

Shooting. They would probably have shot him.

At the same time they don’t tend to blow holes in the victim here.

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