Public outrage has been expressed at a US cop who pulled a gun during a friendly Washington snowball fight. The detective, who was calmed down by uniformed police called to the scene, has been suspended pending disciplinary action.
This could not possibly happen in the UK. In Britain five or six squad cars would have pulled up and disgorged police officers in full body armour and brandishing automatic weapons. A couple of dozen of them would have quickly contained and penned in the crowd of snowballers and detained them under the Prevention of Terrorism laws. They would have been cautioned, and their DNA samples taken and kept on record. Any who objected, or tried to otherwise interfere with the police carrying out their duties would have been sectioned under the Mental Health acts. We're lucky we live in a free country rather than in gun-crazy America…
