Originally published at: Video: Father's unlicensed ear piercing on son triggers bizarre police showdown in Arkansas | Boing Boing
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“Bizarre” was the correct word here.
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I’m really waiting to see how right-wing persecution fetishists try to find a way to accuse a PD in rural Oklahoma of being “woke” for getting involved with this at all.
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Gosh, I gotta wonder if it might have been a little bit different if this was a daughter having her ears pierced by a parent with no license???
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I’m not sure “drunk chokes kid before impaling his ear” is the feel good story you seem to be presenting it as.
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I mean, there are lot of dads with a DIY attitude, including body piercing. But not sure drunk and using choke holds is the way to go through life, son. But also, the kid was like, “I wanted my ears pierced.” so maybe the story told at school was also embellished some?
At any rate - the charge of “Body art without a license” for your own kid who wanted it doesn’t sound like a good use of public funds and a hell of thing to bust into a house for. 
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I have pierced a total of 8 earlobes of various family members (including myself). Guess I need to avoid…yeah, I wasn’t going to go anywhere near there anyway.
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Or maybe he wasn’t embellishing and he doesn’t want to suffer the possible consequences when his dad comes home.
Could be harmless or could be the kid is in danger.
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I wonder if this was the first house that the police barged in to, searching for the unlicensed body-artist? They seem to have left their transport a fair way off.
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man, times certainly have changed. back when i lived in Missouri and went to school not far from the Arkansas state line, grown men would’ve been ripping my earring OUT of my ear, not putting them IN.
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If Henna tattoos ever come to their attention, I wonder if they’ll over-react in a racist way?
https://www.stu.ca/lnap/henna-its-history-and-cultural-significance/
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cause only the queers get their ears with extra holes in them if they’re boys?
If only he’d followed the LAW.
I dunno. They’ll find something.
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That’s sort of tangential to the real issue here. Normally this would be investigated by a visit from a social worker. Instead here we have police conducting a violent raid on nothing more than the basis of a rumour and the uncooperative response of the gentleman in question when they initially questioned him.
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So this wasn’t in Arkansas as the OP states?
@anon67050589: I pierced my own earlobe 4 times and damned near managed to get through the cartilage to pierce my nose. I suppose I should be arrested for expressing myself as I saw fit? 
Nah, states with unconstitutional laws should be forced to remove said unconstitutional laws from the books instead.
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Nothing in this story makes any sense, which usually means the version we have is wrong. Probably a lot of context missing here. Shockingly, the best source of jurisprudential nuance may not be fucking TikTok.
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Yeah…Or even just scared of the consequences of having your dad locked up which aren’t necessarily good even if he’s not great either.
Poor kid no matter what.
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Yes but it is America
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Another demonstration, if it were needed, of the contradictions of US society and law.
It is a country where the rapist of a 10 year old girl can sue his victim’s grandmother for sending a packet of prescription medication through the post, and get $10,000 plus costs.
Meanwhile anyone who looks old enough and has cash can buy a gun without any checks or licensing at all, and carry it concealed to the supermarket.
But of course we all know this.
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He should have used a piercing GUN? I mean, it’s the barbaric way of doing it.
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In what way? Are you saying they would they have reacted worse or better?
