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UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

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Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#51
post #36

They also claimed these drones were "industrial specification". How did they determine that when they've never seen them? There should be some sort of penalty for blatantly lying to the public, even if it is done to save face about your incompetence.

Everything I’ve read (which is not exhaustive) put that as speculation based on the time spent aloft. Behaviour-based but not evidence-based.

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#52

> The suggestion there may not have been any drones at Gatwick Airport was a "miscommunication by police", a government source has told the BBC. > During a conference call between ministers, chaired by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, it was agreed the 67 drone sightings were legitimate. ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46670714 ) As much as "it was all a false alarm" would make a killer headline (and clear…

I think it's important we find out exactly how to quickly detect and stop these from happening next time.

However, there's been 67 legitimate sightings and no pictures, videos? Not even grainy, badly zoomed video?

Can the control tower see these using a simple set of binoculars?

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#53
"Despite going down the wrong avenue with the arrest, investigators do have more to work with after they recovered a fallen and damaged drone from the north side of the airport. It is being tested for clues on who piloted it, according to The Guardian."

“always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place.”

Don't these two contradict? The best consistency possible between them is that the damaged drone was placed there rather than flown, at a different time. In all likelihood it probably did crash, though. Given the timing of finding it, it would seem related to this incident. Perhaps there should be some skyward-facing CCTV-like cameras at airports to remove some ambiguity in situations like this.

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#54
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a real head twister: the various 'exit' and 'anti-eu' groups have tried to unite EU wide... That one still has me wondering if they realize what they are doing.

So they've formed a.... union?

If you squint a bit they formed a European Union ;)

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#55

Not before plastering the faces of an innocent couple nationwide. I think they deserve reparation for this.

One UK precedent for reparation is the treatment of retired teacher Christopher Jefferies who was arrested for the murder of his tenant Joanna Yeates. His character was totally assassinated by the UK media before he was released without charge (Vincent Tabak was later convicted of the murder) [0]. Jefferies' only crime was to be 'unconventional' in the opinion of the media. He launched legal action against six newspapers and accepted substantial damages. His story was turned in a TV drama [1] in 2014.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joanna_Yeates

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3429354/plotsummary

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Police in the UK often say the most ludicrous things in statements, and the basic public speaking skills of the people they choose to put out is often very limited. They always look like they're caught in the headlights while trying to sweatily stumble through reading some words off a page. I'm not sure what institutionally causes this, but it must be something causing it as it's always the same. Remember when re…

They don't hire the brightest - recently I heard a former senior ex met natsec policeman who presented as very very stupid individual I would not trust to investigate a missing kitten. There was also the scandal where a v senior copper on the Cyber side was found cheating.

In the USA, courts ruled it was legal for police departments to discriminate based on intellect and refuse to higher persons with high IQs.

They hire less smart people on purpose because they tend to question orders less and do what they are told more (their words, not mine).

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#57

I just still can’t wrap my head around the fact that in 2018, with a camera attached to every waking persons hand (and some sleeping people too), how is it that there is not a single public photo or video published of this specific drone. Kind of reminds me of when I found out that tipping cows wasn’t a real thing...

Human eyesight is much more acute than a phone camera, especially filming video at 1080p. The runway at Gatwick is two miles long, plus taxiways and the apron. To a passenger in the terminal building, a drone flying over the runway is likely to appear as little more than a tiny speck.

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#58
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Brexit supporters are copying French fuel protesters even though we have a different fuel duty regime that isn't set by Europe, and they want to leave Europe (and by extension, France) anyway? That makes perfect sense.

For a real head twister: the various 'exit' and 'anti-eu' groups have tried to unite EU wide... That one still has me wondering if they realize what they are doing.

This isn’t an “anarchists unite” situation though.

That people in a group would unite to leave that group once they feel it has been corrupted or no longer serves their interest isn’t hard to predict or understand.

Many of them may be in favor of a common currency and free trade, while disliking the swift ramp up of military spending, austerity policies, etc. enough to leave and build something else.

I mean, it’s likely you were just making a joke, but... There are currently protests heating up to riot point across Europe over these issues, and I’m not laughing.

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't hire the brightest - recently I heard a former senior ex met natsec policeman who presented as very very stupid individual I would not trust to investigate a missing kitten. There was also the scandal where a v senior copper on the Cyber side was found cheating.

In the USA, courts ruled it was legal for police departments to discriminate based on intellect and refuse to higher persons with high IQs. They hire less smart people on purpose because they tend to question orders less and do what they are told more (their words, not mine).

You should cite a source for that. Where I live the cops are pretty on the ball. I recall one of them casually correcting my math on work-related problem when he was taking a report from me on another topic.

Re: UK police release airport drone suspects, admit there may not have been drones

#60

Not before plastering the faces of an innocent couple nationwide. I think they deserve reparation for this.

Yep, UK and US are abhorrent when it comes to this. Where I'm from(Poland) it's literally illegal to print the full name and show the face of the accused until after the trial. Once someone is arrested all the newspapers can do is say "Arthur G. was arrested on suspicion of X" with a blurred out photo of their face. The penalties for breaking that law are substantial and newspapers have paid extremely heavy fines for breaking it so it's generally adhered to.
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