This anecdote isn’t in this book but it could have been.
Police Harassment, hair, colour and excuses.
I am an outsider.
There are many ways of being an outsider. You can be a different colour, class or creed. You can talk a different language, wear different clothing or have a different set of beliefs. The establishment likes order and uniformity. The police are employed to maintain order and as an arm of that establishment.
The police were instituted primarily to protect the assets of those that have (the wealthy establishment) from those who do not (the ignorant poor).
There were probably a number of reasons why I was an outsider. I had long hair, I was young, I wore the wrong clothes, and I obviously followed a different creed. It was obvious that I represented can antagonism towards the establishment they represented.
That meant I was fair game to receive a hard time.
It gave me a good understanding of what it is like to be black in a white culture. The Sus laws that meant that black youths were regularly stopped and harassed by police in Brixton; the police treatment of black people in American cities.
If you are an outsider you will be targeted.
The first sign of this targeting was that I was regularly pulled over on my motorbike and given a ticket to produce my documents at the police station. It was often by the same cop and it happened sometimes two or three times a week. My name was on every page of the book in the police station. I used to say – ‘Hey – just copy the details down from the one above. It’ll save you time.’ They did not like me being jaunty.
Travelling on my bike through Devon, on the way to Cornwall, I was pulled over by a speed-cop. He went over the bike with a fine comb but couldn’t find anything wrong. He checked my documents and became even more disgruntled. Eventually he got his book out and cited me for not having a loud enough audible device on the bike. It was equipped with a big bulb horn with three horns. It was very loud but it wasn’t an electric device. I told him he was talking rubbish and parped it loudly. He smiled and informed me that he could not hear it above the sound of the traffic. I told him this was bollocks and that I’d take it to court and deafen everyone. He gleefully told me that I was quite entitled to do that but he’d noted that I lived in London and I’d have to come all the way to Devon to do so and that would cost me more than the fine. I received a £15 fine.
Driving through London in my car, with Liz, I was pulled over by a police car. They informed me that I had gone through a red light. I protested that I had not. They informed that there was two of them and that the judge might believe them more than me.
I received a £20 fine.
As a student I worked for a time in the holidays. I had to. I had a record collection and gig programme to maintain (plus a girlfriend). Over Christmas I worked at this sewage farm. It was situated in the back of nowhere up a lone unlit lane.
It was dark in the mornings when I went into work. I had to turn in to the lane off a busy main road. I indicated and waited for a break in the traffic. When one came I quickly nipped over. Unfortunately a city gent – complete with dark suit, rolled up umbrella and bowler hat (how times change) was crossing the road. As my headlights came on him I slammed on the brakes and stopped a few feet short. It gave him a start. I wound down my window and apologized, telling him I hadn’t seen him in the dark.
He refused to be placated.
I shrugged, thought nothing more of it and went in to work. It was one of those things.
A few weeks later I received a visit from two uniform policemen. They were investigating an accident. I couldn’t think of any accident I had been involved in and told them they must have the wrong person.
They informed me that I had been driving madly, turned into a lane and knocked a gentleman over and into a ditch. I had failed to stop and careered on.
I went down the police station.
I was informed that the gentleman concerned had reported the incident to the police and had a witness. I was to be charged with four counts:
- Dangerous driving
- Driving without due care and attention
- Lack of consideration for other road users
- Failure to report an accident
I was furious. It was obvious that the guy had taken a dislike to my long hair, taken down my number an blown a minor incident into a major one. He had manufactured a witness out of fresh air.
I asked the inspector why the man hadn’t been to hospital if I had knocked him into a ditch. Why he wasn’t covered in mud. I told him what had happened and that he was one his own.
He said he believed me.
But, he said with a smile, he had two very respectable gentlemen who were prepared to go to court and say that I had been driving wildly, knocked him in the ditch and failed to stop. He thought that if I, with my hair, was to go to court and defend myself the judge might chose to believe them.
However, it would take police time. If I was to plead guilty to the lesser of the four charges – the driving with lack of consideration to other road users – he would drop the other charges. If I took it to court he would proceed with all four and if I was found guilty of dangerous driving I would be banned from driving and could face a custodial sentence. It would certainly be a very large fine.
I had no choice.
I was told it would be a £15 fine. It turned out to be £25.
Those sums of money were quite substantial. My student grant was £110 a term. £25 was 25 folkways albums from the second hand bins. It was a hundred gigs.
But the damage wasn’t just that. It was revealing of the whole way in which the establishment worked. If your face fitted. It set an attitude towards the police that persists. They are not there to represent the likes of me.
It is not a good policy. Those outsiders go on to become other roles. I went on to become a headteacher – but I remained an outsider. I know what the establishment is and I do not like it. I know what the police do and some of it is not right.
I could not agree with you more, I have had my own problems with a neighbours Son who caused criminal damage to my property, this started after David died, I reported the son after he came here early hours of one morning banging on my door he was not only drunk but out of his mind on drugs, I pushed him down my path and to his house and phoned the Police they came out took it all seriously went to visit him and his Father, came back to me and said there was nothing they could do, and why this bastard’s father was then Fraud Squad Scotland Yard. Some weeks later he reported us to the Police accusing David of trying to kill his grandson with a golf ball that went over two gardens to his, lying bastard. Police came out I took them out to the garden and showed them this massive Golds net David had they went with their tail between their legs. It did not stop there he made more complaints. Police, lazy bunch new station top of the road they never come out except to arrive and go home, park their cars down here in our road.
Opher, so you admitted to driving the car? A certain lack of street smart there. Wouldn’t happen where I come from. I’d have 2 words for the cops – prove it.
Too many instances like this. It spoils all the great police that are doing a good job.
Unfortunately I think they would have delighted in lying through their teeth and stitching me up. He had me over a barrel. The two guys would have ID’d me.
It’s all down to bravery. I’d have summoned some passengers in my car.
I think the motley crew of long-haired crazies I could have summoned up might have done me more harm than good. I could see that they knew they had me. The more I struggled the tighter the noose become. I think if I had fought it they would have thrown the book at me. Two city gents against a long-hair crazy. I might have been hanged.
When I was 18 I got huckled by the cops at my house. My little gang of mates were round with a few girlfriends. Seemingly my little party still going strong at 4am was pissing off some neighbours. Not that their house was particularly close but I suppose the music was very loud. The cops weren’t happy with the aroma of “an opium den” as I remember the term they used.
One of these bozos started to search through my LP’s. I don’t think he had a clue what he was doing and neither did I. I remember telling him to be very careful and he must not actually touch the records. Meanwhile the older one with mandatory ginger hair, moustache and beer gut had all the guys lined up in the dining room with trousers down and proceeded with some close range inspection.
The girls meanwhile took this opportunity to do a bit of tidying up.
After the LP and backside search they moved onto household furniture. I told the young guy he’d better not mess too much inside my mother’s sideboard or she’d kill him and also that nobody had been near it, nor allowed to anyway – we didn’t need posh crystal glass for cans of beer and cheap wine.
They found 11 grams of very nice red Leb hash sitting on top of the living room mantle piece.
They thought they’d busted Al Capone. The expression of gloating glee on the ginger fat bastard was enough to make a granny stick him with a pitch fork.
Who did it belong to? Nobody had a clue. One lad had the cheek to ask the younger cop if he could show everybody what you did with this stuff. The fat bastard objected to such “impertinence”. It was proving difficult to pin personal ownership to any one of the 15 of us. Lots of names and addresses busily noted down and really stupid questions like “what does your father do”. 4 out of the 15 fathers were known to the cops – the borough surveyor, a local solicitor,
the local GP and a publican. There was a bit of confab between the 2 and I heard the young one ask if we needed to be taken and charged at the bar. The older one said no, that wouldn’t be necessary. Strong stern warnings were given about loud music and the dangers of smoking. They left with my hash. I’d only got to use an eighth! That fat ginger cop knew better for himself that if he wanted to live in the area it wasn’t smart to bite the hand that feeds.
You were lucky.
One of my friends in a bedsit got turned over. They trashed everything. Took out all his albums and stamped on them, ground them about, cut up his sleeping bag, tore clothes and threw everything around. They justified it by finding a tiny pebble of hash. He had no recourse.
Indeed, it wasn’t always so smooth a result. I was always lucky – never have stuff on you, be prepared to chuck it if need be.
I’ve witnessed their search methods. They are bastards.
I’ve known stuff to be planted. If they take a dislike they turn it on. This is why SUS and the drug laws are so wrong. They are misused to selectively harass.