Kids Say The Funniest Things

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JasonLester

Jason Lester outside the Department of Justice on Thursday night

Bewildered Student writes:

I was really impressed by the boy [Jason Lester] who spoke last week after the irish Water  arrests. So I made a transcript…

‘On Tuesday morning I was awoken to a loud banging on my mam and dad’s front door. My mam and dad went down to discover 10 gardaí – nine detectives and one uniformed garda. The next thing I knew they were standing in my bedroom, arresting me under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.

It went on very quick from there. I remember being taken out to a detective car and my mam being followed behind in another detective car. It was then, I was then taken to Tallaght Garda Station and put into police custody.

I was made sign various forms and then I was put into a prison cell. That experience alone for me was distressing. I felt sick in the cell. I’d never been through an experience like that in my life before.

While I should have been in school I was sitting in a prison cell down in Tallaght Garda Station and Joan Burton, if you think that’s going to shut me up, it’s not.’m going to be protesting stronger than ever before now.

The guards put me through over two hours of questioning from various videos from the day in Jobstown and they said to me, ‘we have to put it to you, Jason Lester, that you were the ringleader or the organiser of that protest’.

My reply was simply, ‘no comment’ to anything they asked.

People keep on asking me, ‘you’re only a lad of 16. Why – sorry now for cursing – why do you give a shit about water charges? Your mam and dad have to pay them?’

Well I’m 16 now and, in two years, I’ll be 18, in college, I’ll be taking on my own life. If a water tax gets introduced I’ll have to pay that, your kids will have to pay that, so I’m the representative for all your kids out on these protests.

…Throughout the interview as well, I saw things and I asked the guards, ‘where did this footage come from?’ and they told me, CCTV cameras at An Cosán [college] and RTE supplied footage as well of some of the protesters.”

So, basically, what I took from this experience is that I felt downgraded in my area – what are my neighbours going to think of me, seeing me being brought out of my house by ten guards, marched out of my house, what are they going to think of me?

And if they want to do me on false arrest of Joan Burton, well I tell you something. They came and took me, a 16-year-old out of my bed and put me in a prison cell. Who got falsely arrested? you tell me.”

Jason Lester’s speech following his arrest last Tuesday

 Journalism And The State

Thanks Bewildered Student

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78 thoughts on “Kids Say The Funniest Things

  1. RealCorkLanger

    Well,I’d imagine they had some kind of warrant for you, so your arrest is probably grand, otherwise you could sue like.

    1. Mr. T.

      Of course you know that the point is that the arrest is politically motivated and entirely inappropriate. But you choose to ignore that part.

      Back to your little Young Labour/Young Fine Gael tea party.

      1. RealCorkLanger

        Hahahahahahahaha, class! So, I have a different opinion and you try to insult me?

        I dont want water charges, but I definitely dont agree with the form of protest that went on(that the arrests relate to).

        Is arresting someone for throwing a brick at a Garda car a ‘political arrest’ too ya?

        1. scottser

          Is arresting someone for throwing a brick at a Garda car a ‘political arrest’ too ya?

          no, but this lad wasn’t charged with throwing a brick at a garda. what’s your point, strawman?

          1. RealCorkLanger

            My point was all the arrests are being branded as ‘political arrests’, but clearly the brick incident was not part of anything remotely like a peaceful protest, so people should single that out an applaud the authorities for making an arrest in relation to it….but its easier just to say kids were arrested and its all political.

            Nobody has been charged with any crimes yet, so we dont know specifically what alleged crime(by which I mean, what specific offence) they were arrested in relation to and may be charged with. They should be delighted anyway, sure its the easiest publicity Murphy and the gang have had since all this started.

          2. Dandy

            if you look at the photoshoppped photo of the guy throwing the brick you can see a stab vest on under his jacket where it rises up . Also it was photoshopped ….and pretty poorly photoshopped at that

          3. Charles Charlie Charles

            Had a look at the photo (closely) and I can’t see how a stab vest would be tucked into a pair of jeans.
            Also your argument suggests that a plain clothes Garda chose to still wear a stab vest and then throw a brick at a Garda car in the hope it would be captured by the media.
            You should check out the 911 videos on you tube, you would love them.

      2. Tonycl

        If your old enough to take par tin violent protests then you are old enough to be taken into custody and questioned.

        1. MickeyBubbles

          So you are saying he was given advanced warning that the protest he was attending was going to be violent and still chose to attend.

          Or are you saying he such have consulted a clairvoyant before choosing to attend the protest to decide whether to attend.

          Or are you saying he should have left the protest after elements of it became violent. E.g. The brick throwing and super soaking incident

  2. Mr. T.

    I’ve never known my country to be so divided, politically fearful and so hated by it’s own government.

    Fine Gael and Labour are behaving more and more like a foreign occupying force.

    1. MickeyBubbles

      Our country is great , the people are great. The system is not working and our people are calling the powers at be on their decisions.

      Its always had some division at local or national level either politically or socially , its just come to a head now with more thunder than before. And about time too !

  3. Manolo

    I thought that at 16 one is legally liable for their actions. They can even procreate legally, so what’s the big deal about being 16 and repeating it over and over? Stick to the political point, unless you feel it isn’t strong enough.

    1. Banotti

      He’s a coward bringing up his age as some excuse. THe gardai have good reason to believe a crime was committed and that he was one of the persons responsible. He can have his day in court hopefully.

      1. MickeyBubbles

        Careful there keyboard warrior. You are making many assumptions and your tone infers you made your judgement already.

        Your description of his character. You know him personally ??
        Your hope that the DPP brings a charge (he was released without one and a file sent to DPP)

        Dont be drawing lines . Back in 22-23 we did that….didnt work out well did it now.

        Back in your box

          1. Rob_G

            Your equation of someone disagreeing with you on the Internet with the civil war is idiotic.

            Idiotic rather than nonsensical – sorry, I misspoke.

          2. Joe the Lion

            An equation in itself is not nonsensical – he just used the wrong factor in the equation

            e.g. Civil War – Idiot on Internet > 0

    2. Stevie

      Poor chap is old enough to be arrested but not even old enough to vote them out. Fair play to him, at 16 I only had an interest in girls and booze, certainly nothing worth protesting about.

    1. MickeyBubbles

      Rep : if evidence of a crime has been committed they have to follow a line of inquiry.

      Calling the policing powers names does not help anyone in all of this*. I understand the frustration.

      Can we be skeptical with the how , the why and the when with all of this. Course. And calling them up on this without resorting to mud slinging is the way to do it.

      *I am not in policing , never have , never will.

  4. f-mong

    Good speech, fair play to him

    also 10 gardai? For one lad in his mams house? Complete waste of resources aimed at intimidating the locals, crappy move from The Gardai/FG/Labour et al.

    1. Banotti

      Have you studied operational policing tactics before or do you have much experience in the area? No? What a surprise.

      1. ahjayzis

        If you are more au fait with the tactical handbook, why not explain the operational necessity of sending 10 policemen to arrest one teenager? And if it’s backed up by the guidelines, what cognisance of the impact on community-based policing do such tactics have or is that a consideration at all?

        I’m genuinely curious to know.

        1. GG

          With the way the protests have gone over this issue, I do not blame the Gards for sending 10 men. They expected a resistance, they didn’t get it. Now AAA and co have something to talk about to make themselves look like the victims.

          1. ahjayzis

            At 7am unannounced? Get real.

            Some perspective here, the protests may ‘have gone’ up a notch, but we’re not talking Waco here.

          2. GG

            Better to be prepared for the worst. If the gards showed up with two lads and were unable to make the arrest, then they would have been the laughing stock of the media. They got their man, the number of units is irrelevant.

          3. Banotti

            Ok lets play a game of what if. What if you’re the sergeant in charge. You don’t want to annoy the young man and have to wake him up so we’ll try and get him after dinner time at 6,30. Two gardai should do it.
            6,30 and his mother answers. Why are you looking for him? He;s out. He’ll be back later. What are you going to do?
            Gardai leave and she’s straight on about 20 different facebook groups. By 9pm there are 200 dodgies outside the house roaring at an approaching garda car yelling “policitcal policing, you’re not taking this kid”. Rocks start flying and the gardai have to retreat.

            Well done. You made a balls of it.

      2. Banotti

        Read the link below which gives a decent explanation. The gardai are apolitical so they would be in breach of the law if they were to police based on some political concerns of the “community”. You are also describing a politically homogeneous community when that is not the reality.

      3. f-mong

        Can you really explain to me, with references to operational procedure and tactical what-ever-you-called-it, why 10 full grown men were sent to pull a teenager out of bed in his mothers house at dawn? Why other then to humiliate both of them and send a message to the community to no bother protesting because no is listening.

        Because if you can justify that show of force, with respect to normal Gardai actions, and site similar examples of this sort of use of resources, i.e. 10 Gardai (10 more then you’ll find outside an Abrakebabra on any towns main street at 3am on a saturday when the lads are kicking seven shades of sh*t out of each other) then I’m really really looking forward to your answer.

        Take it away Banotti!

          1. scottser

            Ye can argue the toss all ye want, but it still doesn’t alter the facts:

            1. If these ‘crimes’ were so serious then why no arrests at the time? They weren’t, hence these arrests on spurious evidence. 22 people arrested and no chardes yet. Wtf?
            2. Completely unnecessary show of force by the gardai, when no arrestees have a history of volence or aggressive behaviours.

            yeah, the gardai can act like this, and they can justify it on a number of grounds. That’s not to say they should have.

          2. Banotti

            You’re knowledge of policing seems to be based on Road Wars.

            Do you think that all arrests have to be made on the spot? Can you not see why that would be inadvisable, unnecessary and impractical in a lot of cases?

  5. Just sayin'

    I admire the hypocrisy of stating on the one hand “Stop arresting children” and on the other hand, being happy to exploit children at their protests. You can’t have it both ways. When I was 16, I was naïve, impressionable and often made poor decisions. I don’t think kids should be dragged into this for the same reason they shouldn’t be given the vote – they are hormone-ravaged immature kids, for the most part.

    1. Nigel

      God knows we need a new generation of disengaged citizens who will moan about social and political problems without ever taking action.

    2. Don Pidgeoni

      Kids these days can’t win can they? They are either some kind of hormone-laden deviants robbing everything or, when they do stand for any type of change, they are being exploited and are just silly kids. Just as much hypocrisy in your statement. You may have been naïve, impressionable and made poor decisions but he sounds pretty clear about his choice to protest.

  6. Manolo

    Leaving aside the pathetic poor little me the kid cr@p, I wonder what is the legal argument in place here. If it is about freedom of movement, one could argue that only the car was held, just as state sponsored clamping in Dublin’s streets. There was nobody stopping her from walking, was there?

    Note: I don’t condone what happened that they, it was wrong in my view, but I think there is a flaw in the line of approach.

    1. Banotti

      The baying mob might not be the most inviting thing to leave a car for.

      Anyway it’s a moot point.

      Wilful obstruction.

      9.—Any person who, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, wilfully prevents or interrupts the free passage of any person or vehicle in any public place shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £200.

      1. Original Cynic

        Like F(G)armers blockading meat factories preventing workers from going to work – is that what you mean? How many arrests took place?

  7. Frilly Keane

    I think it’s worth persuing an answer to his final púc out there

    “Who got falsely arrested?”

    ( OK we all get his wording is not proper like; so Down Yrls!)

    Joan or Jason Lester?

    Time to stop fooling yerselves. This Government have made a right mickey of managing their plan for the anti water charges protests

    Not only that. There isn’t a day goes by without them making it worse.

  8. jackdaw

    You are all making the massive assumption that there were actually 10 Guards at the house. Fair whiff of bullpoo coming from that figure. Murphy said there were six at his house. This was denied by Gardai and all Murphy could produce was photos taken by his partner showing 2 Gardai in his house.

  9. Anomanoman

    This is hands down the best government we have had in 30years. And no I don’t agree with a lot they do, especially water. But I genuinely thought this country would be still completely in the poo at this time.

    1. ollie

      in case you haven’t noticed this country IS in the poo. increasing national debt, daily evictions, increasing taxes, no hope of paying the illegal bank debt back in less than 100 years, sick people dying, no state pensions for anyone who’s currently under 30, etc etc.

  10. Boba Fettucine

    Having personally been awoken at 4am by 7 Gardai banging on my front door I can only empathise with this guy’s plight. Of course, in my case, they had the right street name but wrong postcode…

    Gardai are just civil servants – the same ‘computer says no’ Dubliner-hating reactionary mucksavages you encounter any time you have the misfortune to have to interact with the culchie landlord occupation state we live in.

    First people to put a ‘Dublin First, f@pp the rest’ party together gets my vote. We pay the vast majority of taxes yet are policed and governed by knuckle-dragging inbred country teachers.

      1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

        Mr Andy is a public servant and I still couldn’t explain the difference. I know public servants get screwed over moneywise more than civil servants, according to his whinging. Maybe that’s why I don’t know. I don’t really listen.

    1. Mikeyfex

      Ooh lawdy.

      That’s funny, I was down in Dingle a few weeks ago and in a well known pub there was a fella talking openly to anyone who’d listen about setting up a 25 county state.

      “nobody wants that basket case up the North, and they can feckin have Dublin n’all, sure they’re practically assimilated anyway. I say we start a 25 country separatist group”. He was a very funny man. Perhaps ye could come to some agreement.

    1. MickeyBubbles

      I agree with your from the point of view

      1) The responses from key political figures. Wont name em you know who they are
      2) Sections of the media have had their impartiality called into questions several times on this

      Biggest issue apart from the current day to day , but looking forward is with the parties in existence and where do we go from here?

      Who do you elect ? Who can we elect ? Who should we elect ? Party Mandates ahead of elections are worth nothing. As soon as the party enters the system , the system fractures some or all of the electorate promises. With modern tech we just have more visibility now when that is happening.

      Dark days it may be but think of these issues as opportunities to change.

  11. YourNan

    perhaps next time don’t act like a thug if you don’t want to be treated like one. Enjoy the record.

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