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This particular branch of the Kentucky Fried Chicken (or Unlucky Fried Kitten, as we tend to call it round these parts) is weirdly L-shaped, and we took our seats in the short leg of the ‘L’ to chomp down our meals.
As we were idly chatting, we heard some commotion by the counter. When we’d come in, we had spotted a security guard, so I figured he’d take care of things. But no such luck: things escalated rapidly.
‘I gave you 40 pounds, you fat bitch.’ A voice broke through to our table of three, ending our genteel luncheon abruptly. Sasha and Pete looked at each other, then at me.
‘Hey, you are the cops,’ I said, grinning, as I took the last bite of my Zinger Tower meal. With a full mouth, I continued, ‘Go deal with it.’
The dashing duo rounded the corner, with me following a few steps behind.
Leaning forward with one hand on the counter was a very large man in a bright patterned shirt. When I say large, I mean very, very large indeed. Positively obese, in fact – larger than any man I had ever seen before in my life. For every movement he made with his arm, another part of his body seemed to be moving, as if it were echoing it – or perhaps protesting under its own weight.
Behind him was a shorter but no less formidable woman, who turned out to be his wife. The couple were on their honeymoon from Texas and had decided to come to London ‘because we love musicals’, they told me at some point later in the proceedings.
I recognised the man’s accent as American, but I wasn’t really sure who he had shouted at. In addition to the couple, the security guard was standing very close to them, making sounds designed – but failing – to calm them down.
‘What’s going on here?’ Sasha interrupted.
‘Ah, thank fuck for that,’ the man exclaimed. ‘This fat bitch stole my money,’ he repeated. I half expected him to point to his wife, but he nodded to the serving counter. I looked. At first glance, the counter was empty, but then I spotted a girl – not older than 20 – cowering behind one of the fryers.
‘Excuse me, could you come out,’ Pete said, waving to the girl for her to come closer, and smiling that broad, winning smile of his. ‘We just want to find out what’s been going on here.’
Pete was in front of me, so I have no idea what he was doing, but based on how the girl reacted, I can’t help but think that he must at least have winked at her. For the briefest of moments, I entertained myself with the idea that he might conceivably have blown her a kiss.
The girl – her nametag revealed her name to be Cecilie – was five feet tall at the most. She could probably do with going jogging every now and again, perhaps, but calling her ‘fat’ hardly seemed fair, especially considering the girth of both the man and his wife. As soon as Cecilie stepped out, the man went off on one again.
‘I paid you forty pounds! You gave me change for thirty! Where is my change, you dim-witted bitch?’ the man hissed.
‘Hey,’ said the security guard, wearily, ‘There’s no need for that kind of language. We have CCTV covering all the cash registers, and can easily check whether you got short-changed. If that’s the case, we’ll of course make sure you get the right change.’
The way the security guard had taken control of the situation was admirable, a perfect example of conflict resolution: admit there may have been a mistake, offer to look into it, and propose a resolution. Surely, nobody could have a problem with that?
Very, very slowly, with all the eager acceleration of an iceberg, the man turned around, and took a couple of tiny, shuffling steps towards the security guard. The only reason they weren’t nose-to-nose was that the guest’s remarkably sized stomach prevented him from getting any closer.
‘Fuck you, you fucking nigger,’ the customer sneered, followed by what seemed an eternity of silence. The security guard just stared at him. I expected him to be angry, but instead he was completely shocked. Even working as a security guard in a fast-food restaurant in a relatively gritty part of town, he didn’t experience ‘the N word’ all that often.
‘Right, that’s it,’ Sasha said. ‘I’m arresting you for offences under sections 4a and 18 of the public order act. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if, when questioned, you fail to mention something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’
‘What did he do?’ the man’s wife squealed, but her query was interrupted by her husband’s caged-animal roar.
‘What the fuck? No, you can’t arrest me. I haven’t done anything.’
He turned to me.
‘You can fuck off,’ he said.
He turned to Pete. ‘You can fuck off.’
Finally, he turned to Sasha. ‘And you, especially, can fuck off. Come on, Maggie, let’s get the fuck out of here.’
He extended a hand towards his wife, meaning for her to take it, but Sasha was quick. She whipped her handcuffs out of her holder, and slapped one side of the cuffs on his wrist.
‘You didn’t seem to hear me, sir, but I am arresting you for intending to cause alarm and distress, and for using a racial slur against this gentleman here,’ Sasha said.
It’s admirable that Sasha was able to get a cuff on him so quickly. I’ve seen her deal with prisoners very elegantly before – but there was no way she was going to be able to hold this ample-sized, gelatinous mess of misplaced anger by herself.
‘Pete, get some backup and a caged van,’ I said. He took half a step back to get outside of the angry man’s range, and reached for his radio immediately. The man pointed at me.
‘Are you in charge here? What happened to my rights, eh? I know my fucking rights. You can’t arrest me. You don’t have a fucking warrant. This is fucking kidnapping.’
As he was jabbing his finger half-heartedly in the direction of my eyes, I saw my chance. Keeping eye contact, I snuck my right hand to my handcuffs, took them out of the holster, and attached them to the hand that was pointing into my face.
We use Hiatt Speedcuffs, which are handcuffs with bars between the two cuffs, instead of a chain. They’re bulkier than the cuffs you tend to see police officers in cop shows carry around, but they do have a huge advantage: once you have one cuff attached to your prisoner, you can use the cuffs for leverage. Dubbed ‘pain compliance’ by the training team at Hendon, with these cuffs if it looks as though you’re liable to lose control of a prisoner, you can use the stiff bar to manipulate them to do what you want.
‘Place your hands behind your back, sir, and I will explain everything to you.’
‘Fuck you,’ he said once again, without showing any inclination to pay heed to my suggestion.
‘Sir, you do understand that swearing at me isn’t going to do you any good, right?’ I said.
‘What the fuck are you going to do? Isn’t this a fucking free country? I know my rights, and you’ve got no fucking reason for fucking kidnapping me! Now let me get the fuck out of these hand-fucking-cuffs, before I fuck you up.’ Clearly my strategy to get him to swear less was less than efficient.
‘Sir, are you threatening me?’ I asked, as light-heartedly as I could.
‘Fucking right I am. I’ll fuck you up, you little bastard. What are you gonna do? Shout at me a little? You’re not the police. You haven’t even got a fucking gun, you gutless pussy.’
‘My friend, you see this little badge here?’ I said, and pointed at the name badge on my Metvest. ‘You see where it says Police Constable? And here’s my identification.’ I whipped out my warrant card with one hand, as I was still holding on to the cuff that was holding his right hand. ‘Can you see the bit where it says “Warrant”? That’s all the warrant I need to arrest you. I assure you all three of us are police officers. You’re going to get arrested now, and we’ll have a chat about all of this at the station.’
Unappeased, the man suddenly moved both his hands up at high speed. I only just managed to hold on to the cuff on my side, but Sasha’s slipped out of her hand. The spare metal cuff glanced her across her face, and sent her glasses flying. She yelped in pain, but recomposed herself quickly. She took one step on to one of the chairs behind the man, then another to get on to the table. Through her swift climbing-on-the-table action, she was suddenly tall enough to reach the cuff. She jumped, grabbed the cuff, and came crashing back to the ground, taking the man’s arm with her.
‘Place your arms behind your back now,’ I said. As the word ‘now’ passed my lips, I twisted the cuffs towards his back. In training, this is a move we practise on each other all the time – you’ll have to take my word for this; a sharply twisted set of handcuffs is powerful tool for persuasion.
During this, Pete had finished his radio call, and approached the man’s wife. Flashing her a charm-buster of a smile, he had firmly guided her away from the struggle in progress.
Sasha and I somehow managed to get the man’s hands behind his back at the same time, and we connected the two empty cuffs together behind his back. With Sasha’s cuff holding his left hand, my cuff holding his right, and both sets of cuffs attached to each other, we finally had the man under control.
A small crowd had gathered around us, which Pete was in the middle of placating.
‘Let’s just step over this way,’ Sasha said, and pointed towards the awkwardly-shaped short leg of the L in an attempt to at least get this guy a little bit out of the way, away from the other guests in the restaurant.
To my surprise, the American went along with the command, but of course not without making a protest.
‘I have my First Amendment rights,’ the man shouted. ‘You can’t tell me what I can say and what I can’t say! You’ll hear from my embassy, you fucking Nazis! This is the last time I’ll visit your stinking little island! Fuck you, get off me,’ he screamed, as he struggled against the two sets of handcuffs.
It wasn’t a pretty sight.
‘I have the right to free speech! I didn’t punch anybody; I didn’t steal anything. Why the fuck am I wearing these handcuffs?’ he said, before reiterating, like a tediously skipping record, that he knew his rights.
‘Right, let me explain this to you,’ I started. ‘Your First Amendment doesn’t apply here—’
‘Fuck you. Like hell my First Amendment doesn’t apply,’ he shouted at the top of his considerable lung capacity and vocal volume. ‘Have you ever heard of the fucking Constitution? I want my lawyer. Why didn’t you offer me a lawyer? That’s one of my fucking rights, you know!’
‘Mate, I don’t care what you think your rights are,’ I exploded. I had had it with this guy; nothing pisses me off more than people who ‘know their rights’ after having watched one too many American cop shows. ‘You have the right to a solicitor, but not until we make it back to the police station. In the meantime, do you remember the bit Sasha here told you about “you do not have to say anything”? That’s basically the same as “your right to remain silent”, and I suggest you use it.’
He half-grunted, half-snorted, which I choose to interpret as: ‘My good sir, I do apologise for causing you such an inconvenience, and I would relish in silently listening to you for the foreseeable future.’
‘So, your First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights. I appreciate that piece of legislation, but you are in the UK, and the First Amendment – along with the rest of the US Constitution – is part of US law. It does not apply here.’
‘But I’m an American citizen—’
‘When I am in the US, I have to adhere to US law,’ I interjected. ‘When I’m here, I have to stick to local laws. The same goes for you, when you’re in England you’re bound by English law. I don’t know how you normally speak to people in the US, but in the UK, we’ve got a piece of legislation known as the Public Order Act.
‘The POA is a set of laws that was designed to make England a nicer place. At its most serious, in section 1, it covers riots. At its least serious, it covers people wandering around in the streets yelling obscenities.
‘Do you recall what you said to the security guard earlier? A word starting with an N?’ I enquired.
‘Yeah. When someone is being a fucking nigger, I’ll call them a nigger,’ the man grunted.
‘Well, there’s a problem with that: your freedom of speech does not extend to swearing at random strangers, especially if you use racial slurs,’ I explained. ‘That’s a pretty serious matter, and I won’t stand for it. It’s bad enough that you were swearing at me and my colleagues, but swearing at the cashier and calling the security guy, who was only trying to help sort things out, what you did is not appropriate.’
I was about to explain in further depth exactly how much trouble he was in, when I spotted Pete waving at me to come over. I looked over at Sasha. She shrugged. ‘I got this,’ she said, and took a firmer grip of the man’s handcuff.
I believed her, and walked over to Pete.
‘Just got off the radio,’ he started. ‘Something’s kicked off in the next borough, and they’ve sent a load of support from our shift over there.’
‘Keep an eye on our American friend over here,’ I told Pete, and I walked over to the security guard.
‘Hey, have you had a chance to look at the security tape?’ I asked him.
‘Yeah, he clearly handed over a tenner and a twenty. I guess he’s just not used to the money over here,’ he said, with a shrug. He didn’t seem particularly upset.
‘We’ve got a bit of a problem. I don’t feel comfortable transporting this fellow on foot, and all the support is tied up on another incident in the next borough at the moment.’ The security guard nodded; he understood where this was going. ‘If I encourage him to calm down and apologise, would that be okay?’
‘I’m not happy, man,’ he said, and handed me Sasha’s glasses; they came off during the struggle, and he must have picked them up.
‘Thanks,’ I said, inspecting the glasses. They seemed to be more or less in one piece.
‘But yeah, if he apologises and gets the hell out of my shop, I’m happy. I’m not here to be abused, but I haven’t got time for shit like this neither.’
‘Yeah, I completely understand. I’m sorry about the lack of support, but our prisoner transport vans are deployed elsewhere. I’d much rather have taken him in, but apparently something serious is taking place, and I don’t really know what it is.’ I shrugged apologetically.
‘No worries, I understand,’ he said.
I went back to the American.
‘Right, buddy, there’s two ways we can do this. We can either sit here and wait for a van to arrive, check you into custody, interview you, and deal with you properly, or we can send you on your way. What would you prefer?’ I asked.
‘I get to choose?’ he asked, clearly thinking I was trying to catch him out with some sort of practical joke.
‘Well, yes. But if you just want to walk away, you’re going to need to do some serious apologising, starting with my colleagues here, then with me and then the staff here,’ I said.
‘Could you please take these handcuffs off me,’ he said. ‘I would like to shake everyone’s hands, and apologise properly.’
I wasn’t too sure what to do about that particular request. If I am being honest, I knew it was more luck than skill that enabled us to get him in cuffs in the first place, and I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to pull off the same stunt twice.
I conferred with Pete and Sasha. They were both sitting just behind the American. First I spotted Sasha; her face was completely red. Glancing over at Pete, I realised they were both shaking with laughter. Both of them were trying their best to keep the giggles under control, and I was getting pissed off. What the hell was going on?
‘Are you okay to take the cuffs off?’ I asked them. Pete opened his mouth, but didn’t trust his voice not to break into all-out laughter, and so simply nodded, produced his handcuff keys and let the giant free from his captivity.
‘So, about those apologies …’ I said.
‘Erm, yes. Of course, sir,’ he said. As if struck with a magic wand, his behaviour had completely changed. He was as polite as they come.
Turning to Sasha first: ‘I let anger get the better of me, ma’am. I am so very sorry. Please forgive me.’
Next to Pete, then to me with slight variations on the same apologetic theme.
With that out of the way, he bounded out to the main part of the restaurant, much faster than I would have expected from a man his size. I ran after him, but needn’t have panicked; he was the very picture of grace and politeness. He tried to tip both of the restaurant staff £20 for their trouble and the offence caused. They refused to take his money, although they were happy to accept a spectacularly well-performed grovel of an apology.
Finally, he turned to me again, apologised once more, and whisked himself and his wife out of the restaurant.
I immediately rang in to cancel the van, and was asked by the operator to return to Mike Delta (the station identifier for our home police station).
‘Yes, yes, received. We’ll take the bus!’ I radioed back.
‘What the hell happened back there?’ I asked, as I turned back into the area beside the counter to find Pete and Sasha collapsed on the floor, howling with laughter.
‘He …’ Sasha began, but had to abort her explanation attempt in favour of gasping for breath
‘She …’ Pete said, before being similarly overcome with giggles.
‘Jesus,’ I said, getting annoyed.
I decided to leave them to their fits of debilitating laughter, and I joined the restaurant staff to get confirmation in writing that they were happy that the case was resolved by the American apologising.
When we finally left the restaurant, my two colleagues had gathered their wits a little. A little, at least.
‘What the …?’ I asked.
‘Well, when you went to speak to the security guard,’ Pete said, ‘the wife walked up to her husband, and said that if they had to stay here for another five minutes he wouldn’t get any blow-jobs for the rest of the year.’ The last part of his sentence was barely audible, as both he and Sasha were in fits of laughter again.
‘Jeez,’ I said, fighting to stop my inner eye from envisioning any sort of sexual encounter between the two of them. ‘You are buying the beers at the end of this shift, Pete. I’m definitely going to need some mental bleach to get that picture out of my mind.’
Hell hath no fury like an 11-year-old without BBM
‘We’ve just had report of criminal damage in progress, outside 12 Church Walk. An IC27 youth, around 11 years of age, smashing up a car. On an I-grade.’
On this shift, I was an Incident Response Vehicle (IRV) driver – meaning I was responding to emergency calls about incidences that had recently happened or were still taking place.
When we are on duty, we’re assigned call signs comprised of two different radio-calling identifiers. One of them is our shoulder number (in my case, Mike Delta 592), which only changes if you are promoted to a different rank or you transfer to another borough. The other is the call sign of the vehicle or unit we are assigned to. This changes from day to day, although most call signs have particular duties; for example, one will be the Missing Persons car, another will be an ‘odd jobs’ car, and others will be assigned only to super-urgent calls.
My call sign for the radio that day was Mike Delta 20. Thus far, it had been a dreadfully slow day, so the call coming in over the radio engaged me enough to stir myself me into some semblance of excitement. I don’t mind chasing after a group of troublemaking kids for a few minutes if it wakes me up.
I reached for the PTT8 lever in my car, and pushed it down.
‘Show two-zero,’ I spoke into the microphone mounted next to my sun visor, and heard a distorted version of my own voice, feeding back through the radio I had clipped to my Metvest.
‘Received,’ replied the operator above the echo.
I pressed the ‘999’ button on my dash, and the car’s mobile disco facilities sprang into life. As the siren wailed, I spun the car around. Church Walk was just around the corner. I careened around the last bend, the slightest hint of a squeal coming from my tyres against the asphalt, and saw a young chap climbing over a low fence.
He’s not running away, I thought. In fact, he’s coming towards me.
‘Show TOA9 for Mike Delta two-zero,’ I said, as I engaged the ‘run lock’ and climbed out of the Vauxhall Astra.
Run lock is one of the fun features built into a police car. It enables us to press a button, take the keys and lock the car with the engine running. If anyone tries to put the car in gear or open a door, the engine stops again. Run lock is useful when you have to leave your car parked somewhere with the radio and the flashing lights still operating: by leaving the engine running, it doesn’t run the battery flat, but nobody can steal the car either!
‘Hi there. You okay?’ I asked the kid, as he came towards me.
He nodded.
‘You haven’t seen anyone trying to smash up a car, have you?’
He nodded again.
‘That was me,’ he said, and shrugged with a lack of commitment that made me stop in my tracks. How do you make a motion showing a lack of caring without caring? Mentally, I was shaking my head at this kid’s utter lack of … well … anything.
I blinked a couple of times.
‘Uhm … okay. Why did you smash up a car? Where is it?’ He pointed at a dark red Volvo that was parked outside number ten.
We walked over to the car together, just as another police car showed up.
‘TOA two-six,’ my radio crackled, as the two officers climbed out of the car and started wandering towards us. I was about to send them on their way again, when a man emerged from one of the houses. An extremely agitated man.
‘He smash the car! He smash the car!’ the man shouted in a Turkish accent. He was walking briskly, gesticulating wildly. I took another look at the Volvo. It could have done with a wash, for sure, but all the windows seemed to be intact, and I couldn’t see any obvious damage.
‘What did he do?’ I asked the man, as I gave him a once-over. He was wearing a pair of tracksuit bottoms, a food-stained T-shirt and the air of someone who had just rolled out of bed.
‘He smash the car!’ he said again.
I glanced back and forth at my colleagues. We deal with traffic collisions on a daily basis. We have seen a lot of smashed cars in our time.
This, I concluded, was not a smashed car.
‘In June! He smash the car!’
‘What exactly did you tell the people when you called 999?’ I asked him, as it dawned on me what was going on.
‘I say he smash the car!’
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘You can’t dial 999 about an incident that happened several months ago. If someone is smashing up your car, breaking into your house, or attacking you, call 999. With this—’ I sighed. Realising my approach was futile, I changed tack. ‘Do you know this young man?’ I asked him, as I pointed at the kid.
‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘He is my son.’
‘He stole my Blackberry!’ the kid piped up.
I’ll save you the confounding banality of reporting a running dialogue. It took us the best part of 40 minutes to complete the puzzle of what had happened – the kind of puzzle that sits on the shelf until the cat has taken off with half a dozen pieces, and nobody really cares whether it’s ever completed or not anyway.
I would be lying if I said that my job didn’t involve dealing with a lot of this type of puzzle.
It turned out that back in June the father had taken the son’s Blackberry as punishment for something or other – as parents are wont to do. In my day, we were sent to our room right after dinner, or deprived of watching Columbo for an evening. These days, the kids have to give up their Blackberry privileges.
Fair enough.
The boy retaliated for this grave miscarriage of justice by taking a cricket bat to the family car, smashing up the bonnet, the windshield and a couple of the side windows. The police were called, and the kid was taken in for criminal damage.