“I was thhhherrrrofied!”

Three anglers claim they were arrested under anti-terror laws in Woodley after using laser pens to frighten ducks away from their bait hooks.

[…]Former Lib Dem councillor Tom McCann said: “When I was in the Thatchers at the weekend and they came in and told me what had happened to them, I couldn’t believe it.

“These were all local men who knew some of the police officers involved. They were fishing on a Friday night. It doesn’t seem possible to me that the police really thought they were terrorists.”

Reading East prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Lib Dems Cllr Gareth Epps said: “Liberal Democrats repeatedly warned that the thousands of new criminal offences created under this Labour Government were dangerous and mostly useless.

“Now we have the surreal spectacle of local fishermen being thrown into the cells using anti-terrorism legislation. Local people are owed an explanation and those arrested an apology, as I understand some of them want to take this further, understandably.”

In a vaguely unrelated issue, UK wants to monitor all social network conversations.

“We have no way of knowing whether Osama bin Laden is chatting to Abu Hamza on Facebook. Or terrorists could be having a four-way chat on Skype,” he said.

And then there are the posters designed to induce fear.

An afternoon shootout at a busy Burger King restaurant in Miami left a potential robber dead and the customer who shot him seriously wounded. The bloody event unfolded about 4 p.m. Tuesday at the restaurant at Northeast 54th Street and Biscayne Boulevard. It was a time, employees said, when it is usually crowded with schoolchildren and people getting out of work early. The robber entered wearing a ski mask. He approached a clerk, showed his gun and demanded money, said Miami police spokesman Jeff Giordano.

A customer eyed him and the two started arguing. The customer had a concealed-weapons permit and his gun — and the two exchanged gunfire. The robber crumpled to the floor and was pronounced dead at the scene. The customer, with several gunshot wounds, was in serious but stable condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.

Officers divided witnesses into several groups outside the restaurant to gather information about the incident. Employees waiting to start their shift called friends and family members on their cellphones to pass the time because they were not allowed through the police tape. ”I just hope all my people are OK inside,” said Cynthia Thomas, who has worked at the Burger King for five years. “It is scary.”

Around them, drivers on busy Biscayne Boulevard gawked at the scene.

There are times when it would be unwise to get involved. This would probably be one of them.