This article indicates the police in Liverpool are targeting Alternative youth just for gathering in one place....just as in Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds etc etc. As our previous articles on have shown alternative youth frequently gather together not only for social reasons but because of fear of attack:
Give us a place to go
Liverpool Echo, UK -29 Apr 2008 Apr 29 2008 by Janet Tansley, Liverpool Echo
PICTURE the scene: a group of girls sitting on a bench in St John’s Gardens, talking, staring at boys in skinny jeans, doing usual friends stuff ...
Now, what’s wrong with that?
Apparently some people do think there’s something wrong with it because we’re no longer allowed to do it.
Every Saturday my friends have hung around at the Pier Head. We’re from different parts of Liverpool, so town is easy for everyone. One quick bus or train and you’re there, with a day to spend with your mates.
Apparently, all the teenagers of Liverpool thought so, too.
The Pier and the Courts were the places all the emos, the goths, the metal-heads – anyone of an alternative persuasion – could just hang out and be themselves.
Then, of course, the Pier had building work (or whatever’s going on) and we were left with the question: ‘Where to now?’
The Pier and the Courts were out of everyone’s way, so it wasn’t like we were disturbing people. We could hardly set up camp outside Argos, further into town, could we? Everyone started migrating to the Courts or the Gardens, so it seemed we were okay for space.
And then somebody decided: ‘Oh no, we can’t have kids having fun in a public place where they’re allowed to be.’
And suddenly the Courts always had police telling us to move on, that we couldn’t stay there. The same went for the Gardens.
Where are we supposed to go now?
We’re not even allowed to hang out outside Burger King anymore while our mates are getting food (the Burger King staff kick you out if you aren’t eating, even if you’re with people who are).
There’s a policeman threatening to arrest us just for hanging around, telling us to go to a park near our homes (even though we’d just explained we were from all parts of Liverpool), naming a load of dodgy parks and public areas and telling us that these were the places kids our age should be hanging out.
Why? So we can all be attacked and then no-one has to worry about where we are then?
1 comment:
There's barely any Goths in Liverpool, most of them are Emos. But the thing is that police do that with EVERYONE, including chavs. Liverpool is such a rough place that police are suspicious of everyone, not just Emos/alternative people. In my opinion, they do worse to chavs.
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