Tick tick tick tick............I hear the van pull up beside me.
"What are you up to Alan?"
It's the short fat blonde ugly one.
"I'm getting wood out of this skip"
"Not while we're here. You see while it's in that skip it's the property of the landlord. And it remains his property until it's taken away by the skip people"
She's been reading a text book.
"What you're doing is a criminal offence. It's called "Theft by finding". If we see you doing it we'll arrest and prosecute you."
I'm staring at her in disbelief.
"Now, where are you headed to?"
She sounds like a schoolteacher.
"I guess I'll just go home"
"Good!! Off you go!!"
Hostility and smugness ooze out of her. She's not moving 'till I've gone. Her partner smiles inanely, trying to look the good cop. She knows she's won. I can't stand there all night. She'll arrest me. Clearly she has a need to humiliate.
They've timed it to perfection. It's midwinter. Snow is coming. As I write this, it's arrived. For seventeen years I've raided skips for firewood. I burn no coal, or oil, or gas. I recycle waste. My carbon footprint is minimal. In all of that time the cops have never had a problem. I was even told by them I wouldn't be prosecuted for raiding skips. What's changed? Could it be that their attempt to prosecute free speech has become a farce? If they can't get me one way, they'll get me another? Maybe it's the latest form of community relations. Maybe they'll apply the same "Theft by Finding" standard to every student or mob thereof with a traffic cone or a gate or a fence or a tree. Equality under the law?; Prosecute our future "Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Taxpayers"?
It's an act of exquisite cruelty. Zimbardo's experimental subjects would recognise it instantly.
I remember sitting in court behind three cops. Two were old hands. They were red-faced, having at least the decency to feel embarrassed at what they were doing. The other, a newbie, was ice cold, smug, ambitious. She'll go far.
I don't hate cops. I don't think they're all despicable...................
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
maybe if you weren't so annoying and insanely over the top, the police wouldn't get so much pleasure and joy from getting one over on you.
try being normal.
It's an interesting argument for injustice. "If you don't complain about it you won't get more of it heaped on top of you". You should become a cop. That is unless you have any dodgy criminal connections that might disbar you:)
No everyone has "dodgy criminal connections".
firstly I agree with samizdat about the police, has our right to free speech and assistance when called for by the police been stripped from us?? From an analysis of the reactions and attitudes of the police I think it has. They are useless, they prance around at the weekend and in the hours when the students actually go to university, both times when they coincidently have less work. They seem to shrug off any attempts by residents calling them to resolve issues regarding students. It seems that the ideal of democracy in this country does not apply to the holylands.
Post a Comment