Police State for Kids: Cops Called to Resolve Dispute at Toddler's Birthday Bash

As an employee, what kind of scenario would you have to witness before intervening and enforcing your authority? What about calling the police?

UK kids like to have birthday parties at Rumble Tumble play center much like American kids at Chuck E. Cheese and other play stations.

However, as Natasha Bent tried lighting her son Oscar’s candles in celebration of his third birthday, staff intervened.

The Bent family were told to move to a segregated area due to health and safety regulations. Some liability and safety precautions might be understandable; however, the staff insisted on then supervising the festivities. After an argument, the family was banished to celebrate in the parking lot. The situation only escalated from there.

After the party was interrupted twice, candles yet unlit, the police arrived on the scene of the parking party having been called by a Rumble Tumble staff member who felt threatened. Once stormed by police, the little ones started to cry and the party was effectively over.

Would almost be darkly funny if it weren’t an actual story about police responding with seriousness to an alleged threatening situation surrounding candles on a birthday cake for a three year old.

This isn’t just a random isolated UK incident; scenes like this have been happening enough in America to raise concerns about why police are being called in to resolve the smallest of disputes involving children.

Michael Snyder of endoftheamericandream.com has chronicled the growing absurdities of heavy crackdowns on children in the Land of the Free:

18 Signs comparing schools to prison depicts police raids, tickets given to children, handcuff arrests over tantrums and doodling, and yearlong suspensions over lunch bag items.
10 Disgusting Examples of young children hauled off by cops features five and six year olds handcuffed for “battery on an officer” and a tantrum, and other children arrested for perfume, burping, a plastic knife, and a harmless milk fight.
28 Signs that public schools are indoctrination camps shows other ridiculous arrests and suspensions like a student privately discussing his faith. There even has been the implementation of software to predict thought-crime.

And just when you think kids can be kids at home and use creative endeavors to raise money for charity, such as running lemonade and cookie stands, their spirits are quickly extinguished by unmoved bureaucratic, authoritative facings with “No” ready on their lips.

It’s sad that we have to constantly exercise the word “No” on every front, like the father who founded Lemonade Freedom Day — his version of “No” to the squelching of … children’s lemonade stands.

Do stories like the candle catastrophe at Rumble Tumble occur because the employees feel powerless and are perhaps addicted to using their own threats to call referees with handcuffs?

Is that mentality about trying to burn and “stick it” to anyone who challenges their authority?

Oscar’s parents most likely paid a fee to use the facility and had every right to disagree to arbitrary terms of supervision, even if they did need to remain in the confines of the play center’s rules for lighting candles in a designated area. But it is a birthday cake at a place known for hosting birthday parties — lighting candles would seem to be a reasonable expectation. And do the cops actually enjoy settling unnecessary tiffs and smashing toddlers’ parties?

What is motivating an increasing number of employees and school staff to cry “bully” and call the police over every little sniffle from parents and children alike? Whatever it is, it appears that Reason and Common Sense are truly dead.

Are we ready to encourage the criminalization of children for behaving like children? Are we ready to resolve every dispute with the maximum show of force? Or is this something to be expected as the police state is fully embraced and permitted to trickle down to such ridiculous conclusions.

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