Scottish Metal Fans Mistaken for Suicide Pact Members, Have Camping Trip Ruined by Police
A group of Scottish campers had their trip ruined recently when police responding to a misguided tip turned out in full force to thwart what they mistakenly believed to be a suicide pact in progress.
The Guardian reports that the group, which had gone out to the island of Loch Leven for the weekend, included adults as well as "two 10-year-olds, a seven-year-old and a dog called Jazz." Three of the male campers were drinking beer around their campfire when police arrived, understandably startling the people they believed they were rescuing.
"For some reason the police had received a tip that we might be in grave danger and they came to rescue us," one of the campers told the paper. "They really did a great job of rescuing us. The only issue is that we didn’t need rescuing."
That wasn't actually the only issue. The group ended up being ferried back to the mainland, where they were greeted by a brigade of emergency personnel and onlookers — among them a police officer who, as one camper recalled, "had cuts all over his hand from breaking both the windows on my car." Adding insult to (someone else's) injury, because they were over the legal drinking limit for driving, they ended up being forced to sleep in their cars.
Unfortunately, it sounds like this wasn't the first time the group has had to deal with some sort of harassment from authority figures. "Because we were all dressed in black and look like heavy metal fans, people sometimes assume we are dangerous," admitted one camper. "They kind of made us feel as if we did something wrong, but we just like to go wild camping, drink beer and listen to heavy metal music."