> I wondered why the police bothered to pursue someone like Mark Meechan, the one arrested for teaching a pug to do a nazi salute as a joke, when there must be

> I wondered why the police bothered to pursue someone like Mark Meechan, the one arrested for teaching a pug to do a nazi salute as a joke, when there must be more serious crimes they could devote resources to. About that case particularly: 1. The media somehow turned up on the doorstep of the arrest of a previously private person. They directly doxxed him and prevented a fair trial. 2. The police were not allowed to complain about the incident directly, so they pulled in a person to complain on their behalf that they have worked with on many cases. 3. The judge assumed his malicious intent for the joke made, despite the evidence suggesting otherwise. The irony is, he made a joke a the expense of Nazis, and now the UK government actively funds groups within the Ukrainian army who are self-confessed Nazis. (That's not an argument for or against Ukraine, simply to add perspective.) > I think there obviously are more serious crimes but would require a lot more effort and trouble to make any arrests. Going after people for frivolous things is much easier for them achieve. They can kind of give off the appearance of doing something useful this way. The police will sometimes pursue cases that excite them - ones that are active or high profile. Small or unexciting cases are dropped. A local cash machine got stolen, cut open, robbed and dumped in our garden - and they didn't even want to swab it for prints or collect it. And it's far worse. The police get pressure from above to make X group less represented in their criminal statistics irrespective of any reality-based bias, so the only option left is simply not to pursue them. This will just continue to get worse. They are fuelled by ideology and hindered by ongoing cuts (relative to inflation). They will soon stop responding to all mental health incidents (i.e. suicide attempts), and there is no other funding or service to pick up the slack.