“No Response Necessary”??

September 21, 2007
5:15 AM CST

Now here’s one which interests me:

A SCHOOLBOY has been caught on CCTV brandishing what appears to be an AK47 machine gun on a railway station platform.

The youngster, aged about 15, and a friend got the gun out of a bag and then allegedly aimed the weapon at a terrified crane driver working on the opposite side of the tracks at Newton Station in Hyde, Greater Manchester.
...
Mr Wood claimed one teenager took the gun from a plastic bag, attach a magazine and pass it to the second youth, who pointed the gun at him.

His boss Frank Ridley caught the incident on the firm’s CCTV.

Mr Ridley said he could not tell if the gun was real, but could see from the CCTV a magazine being attached and the breach being pulled as if ready to fire.
...
But after officers failed to turn up promptly, the youngsters disappeared.

Now, as AK-47s are completely banned in Britain, I don’t know what the man was so scared of. That must be the cause for the police reaction:

A Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokesman said: “Based on the information we had at the time, a careful assessment was made by a senior, experienced officer as to whether an armed response vehicle should be deployed.

“As there was little information and no immediate threat to life it was decided that an ARV (armed response vehicle) was not necessary.

Errrr wait just a sec there, Mr. Plod. ”No immediate threat to life”????

Let me tell you: I’ve seen lots of AK-47s in my time, and I’ve owned one too—but from the pic, I couldn’t immediately tell whether it was real or not, and I really doubt that a British cop would have even my familiarity with them. So on what basis did the fuzz make the assessment that there was no immediate threat to life?

I know, I know—back in the day, boys were always playing with toy guns, snapping away the caps, playing cowboys and crooks and what have you. But that was then, and this is now.

The least the cops could have done was send a bobby over to snarl at the kids to stop messing around like that.

Something stinks about this story—and the belated response of the cops is just a teeny part of the stench. I’ll offer odds on any of the following scenarios:

1.) There weren’t any cops around to make the call;
2.) The ones who might have, were too busy with paperwork;
3.) No one wanted to get involved with a teenager waving an AK around.

I await correction on any of the above, gladly.