OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Is it a crime to call a police officer a lesbian?

Is it a crime to call a police officer a lesbian? Now there’s a question I never thought I’d have to pose. But following the release of shocking footage, showing a 16-year-old autistic girl being arrested by seven police officers over a ‘homophobic public-order offence’, it’s one that desperately needs to be answered.

Over the past 48 hours, a TikTok video has gone viral showing a distressed girl from Leeds being manhandled and taken away by police. In the clip, the child’s mother, who filmed and released the video, is heard arguing with the officers who have entered her home, pleading with them to leave her daughter alone, who she says is both autistic and suffers with scoliosis.

The mother claims that her daughter said to one of the officers, a blonde woman with short hair, that she ‘looked like her lesbian nana’. ‘You’re going to remove her for what, she said the word lesbian? Her nana is a lesbian, she’s married to a woman. She’s not homophobic’, the mother says in the clip.

The London Telegraph is reporting that “A 16-year-old girl arrested in Leeds after being accused of making a homophobic remark to a police officer will face no further action, West Yorkshire Police said.” But why was she arrested in the first place?

Flashbacks:

West Midlands Police in England arrest 12-year-old for racist online messages sent to Black soccer player.

● “Police officers were forced to break up barbecues being held in different parts of Britain today as people flouted new draconian powers to disperse crowds of more than two to halt the spread of coronavirus. West Midlands Police officers had to step in to disperse a large group of people having a barbecue in the Foleshill area of Coventry, while another group were doing the same in West Hampstead, North West London.”

UK Teen Fined, Under House Arrest for Asking Trans Police Officer’s Gender.

British Cops, on the Lookout for Trolls, Ask Public to Report ‘Non-Crime Hate Incidents.’

In 2018, when British cops were threatening social media critics after the NHS banished 23-month-old Alfie Evans to the Spartan hillside, British ex-pat Charles Cooke tweeted, “Michael Brendan Dougherty pointed out to me that police in the U.K. spend all their time on Twitter threatening people with jail time for frivolous things, and now I can’t stop seeing it.”

As a wise woman once wrote, “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them.”

UPDATE: West Yorkshire Police issue non-apology apology:

(Updated and bumped.)