A UK police force boasted the arrest of a 12-year-old boy for offensive comments on social media.
The child sent racist messages to black England football players following Italy’s win in a soccer tournament. In a Tweet, the police wrote, “#ARRESTED| We were alerted to a series of racist messages sent to a footballer today and after looking into them and conducting checks, we have arrested a boy,” stated the tweet. “The 12-year-old from #Solihull has been taken to custody. Thanks to everyone who raised it. Racism won’t be tolerated.”
Critics ridiculed the police force on Twitter, with one user writing, “Imagine bragging about arresting a prepubescent child over a tweet,” and another noting, “You’ve arrested 12 year old for an offensive tweet. Impressive. Good to know resources are being directed appropriately.” According to reports, the majority of hateful messages following the game were sent from bot accounts in India and the Middle East.
FBA previously reported, “In comments directed at Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, Bukayo Saka said he didn’t want anyone else to be targeted by the kind of messages he and teammates Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho received after the three Black players missed penalty kicks during the shootout that ended Sunday’s game. ‘I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive and that (it) is a sad reality that your powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages,’ the 19-year-old Saka wrote on Instagram.”
