He said the officers were shouting at him to “drop the knife”.
“I said I didn’t have a knife and they told me to drop the knife again,” he said.
"So I dropped my Japanese hand gardening sickle and a handful of privet that I just cut off the hedge.
“They turned me around, pushed me up against my house, handcuffed me, then put me in the back of a van.”
Mr Rowe was carrying a Japanese-made trowel in its sheath, a small Japanese gardener’s sickle and a peeling knife, along with a trug of vegetables.
He said the peeling knife was his late grandmother’s, the sickle had been purchased a decade ago and the trowel, which has a short blade and wooden handle, was a present.
He added that he had not been aware of any warnings about carrying the tools in public.
However, since his arrest, a warning has appeared on the trowel manufacturer’s website.
It said customers needed “to familiarise themselves with offensive weapons law before carrying the tool in public”.
Draconian laws make me happy to be an American… We are getting bad, but have a ways to go before we catch up with Britain and Europe.
Oh, honey.
…Bruh
Which law of “Europe” is draconian?
Europe includes lots of countries, so there is no one “law” just various ones sprinkled throughout. In Britain people are arrested “for sending messages that cause “annoyance”, “inconvenience” or “anxiety” to others via the internet, telephone or mail.” using section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. That has a pretty chilling effect on speech. Convictions are more rare than arrests, but the constant threat of arrest is almost as bad as a conviction…
What he did wasn’t against the law. You can carry a knife in public if you have good reason to. The man was carrying a gardening trowel and was caught with a sickle cutting a hedge and holding a basket of vegetables. He was literally caught gardening. It was crystal clear that he had good reason.
I can see people being freaked out by our gun laws, but at least I can operate gardening tools in my own fucking yard.