Georgia cops cuff terrorist elf Georgia cops earlier this week cuffed a man in an elf suit on the not unreasonable grounds that he told a shopping mall Santa he was packing dynamite. William Caldwell. Pic: Clayton County Sheriff's Office William C Caldwell III, 45, reportedly "got in line Wednesday evening to get his picture taken with Santa Claus" at the …
Because I keep hearing of these cases where person X has been locked up as a "terrorist" because person Y claims that person X made a "threat", but person X claims they didn't make the threat and there are no other witnesses.
If person Y is a police officer then person X tends to be out of luck as its impossible to disprove the accusation.
If someone told me in private they had a bomb I'd tell them to go and tell security. I wouldn't repeat the claim to anyone else because I wouldn't want to share responsibility for yet another unnecessary evacuation or for getting someone else (or myself) into trouble because of a misunderstanding. If anyone blamed me afterwards for not passing on the message I'd claim I misheard it: I thought they said they'd found someone's wallet, or something.
So you're working in a public area, filled with kids. Some nutter in an oversize suit says to you, "I've got Semtex under here, and I'm going to murder you all". Is your response:
(a) "I double-dare you!"
(b) "Thank you for feeling you can trust me, sir. Whilst I don't intend to violate your freedom of self-expression, please may I contact my colleagues who'll put you in touch with an anger-management consultant to work through your issues?"
(c) "BOMB!!!" Tackle to ground, and have your mates help hold him down (with both arms locked) until the cops can take over.
If your worst fear is that someone would blame you for it afterwards, think again. If you had the option of stopping the guy before he murdered a hundred kids, but you didn't because you were too worried about getting yourself into trouble, your worst fear should be that *you* would blame *yourself* for it. Assuming you have an ounce of decency, that is.
I took a blind child to see Santa (at an event where they'd invited a class from an RNIB school), and when we unwrapped the present he'd got... Colouring books!
Had I been in possession of a stick of dynamite at the time, it would have gone very hard for Santa.
Obviously carrying dynamite on school trips is a breach of elf and safety rules.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
