Yesterday, the Daily Mail carried this story about a hapless – and innocent – chap who was arrested by gunpoint after a member of the public mistook the MP3 player in his pocket for a gun.
The story unfolds like an episode of 24, with this poor chap being followed on CCTV cameras, which seem to litter the streets of Britain in greater numbers than cigarette butts, before armed police swooped and carted him to have his fingerprints mugshot and DNA sample taken.
The frightening thing about this story isn’t that the guy was arrested at gunpoint – a member of the public called it in, and the police have a duty to act, and where weapons are suspected, of course, they require an armed response. No, the frightening thing is this quote from the Staffordshire Police (my emphasis):
…the man was released and taken home, as no further action was required.
Wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’ll tell you what action is required: By the police’s own admission, the guy is innocent. That means his fingerprints, mugshot and DNA information has no place in a criminal database, and it should be removed.