Story Time - Police Raid

I've been in a court of law once, for about 11 minutes, it wasn't intimidating to me, because I knew I'd done nothing and there was confusion going on, but it's a story to tell.

It was, I think, a Tuesday morning and there was a sudden shock wave through the whole one room apartment I lived in as the door swung in and move police officers than the room could handle piled in.

This was a West Midlands Police morning wake up call.

They were searching for a Michael something or other... My name is not Michael, and I produced my drivers license.  But at that time license had no picture, so they didn't believe it was mine, I needed my passport... Which my girlfriend had...

The trouble therefore was she was at work in Gloucester, and I was under effective arrest in Warwickshire.

Anyway, I was allowed to hastily dress and taken to I think Georges Street police office in Birmingham, so I'm now even further from my passport proof and release.

The girlfriend is on placement as a teacher, so she can't just leave school to bring me the passport.  I'm stuck.  I've used my call to get hole of the girlfriend and now I'm stuck in a cell.

I get questioned, and they detective seems to think "he might be the bloke".

The deal seemed to be that the previous occupier of my flat, also a white twenty something with a beard, was a drug dealer and they thought I was this person.

It was some national operation to clamp down on the distribution level before drugs could get onto the street, an admiral task, but had nothing at all to do with me.

I don't even want to call my parents, they'd just flap and worry and be no use, my Nan would vouch for me until the worlds end, but none of that is going to prove who I am.

I have no police record, I'm a good boy, so they don't have me on record, and without my being booked in or charged with anything they can't officially take my finger prints or process me.  They want Michael something, and they have a guy saying he's "Jonathan".

They're stuck, I'm stuck....

Anyway, around 3 o'clock the girlfriend leaves work, she gets my passport, drives not to Birmingham, but to my flat with it... where she hands it to the police officer who's guarding the broken down door.

He then radio's his control... But he's in Warwickshire remember... I'm now in Worcestershire... Wires get crossed and after 4pm the police decide to let a magistrate see me, as this magistrate knows the person they're looking for; he's apparently very well known to this magistrate...

So, we leave on foot from this building in Brum and walk across past the Palisades shopping centre and into another concrete building, where there's a door, we go straight through and the magistrate is in session, so we sit waiting... eleven minutes, that's how long he took to deliberate on something, he then turned his attention to me, lowered his glasses to see me properly and said... "That's not him".

I've never been apologised to more in my life.

In the rush for them to put it all right I get driven home and they fix the door and I get assured I'll get a letter from the chief apologising in about a week.

I think my turmoil is over, and I go to work the next day.  I immediately take my boss aside and start to explain what went off, and he just glazes over, he takes no interest and decides I'm full of shit.

I'd had enough of this chap anyway, I'd had enough of the role to be honest, and so I asked to speak to the directors.... When I walked into the room to speak briefly with the two directors, I didn't find them, I found my boss, his brother-in-law and a neutral secretary.

I just look from one to the other, decide I've been stitched up, and quit...

I was young, carefree and reckless, as the role had been a good two years programming in web interfaces and involved customers like Tesco, Coop and Woolworths.  But still, I could not be bothered.

Sure enough a week later I had the letter I wanted, and thought about sending it to the boss... The trouble was... 

My name is "Jon Bond"... and the name of the Chief Superintendent on the letter was... "Jon Bond"...

Sketches of Unidentified Bodies

Reading the news there is a call for a European wide website, or database for all unidentified bodies to be searched for, a great idea and one I can't believe has not been implemented before in our information age.

However, as part of this reading I ended up looking on the UK Missing Persons Bureau website, and looking at their case search pages... 

There was no-one there I knew, but I did see lots of the sketches made of some of these poor people, their last images on Earth in many cases... Some where photo's of reconstructions as clearly nature had taken its tole and they were only skeletal remains.  But some here quite life like sketches doing honour and making the person look real.

However, some of the sketches on there... looked like they were done by blind brick layers, some sketch artist who was only telling people they could draw, the pictures were terrible, childlike, lacking any skill, or depth or flair for art at all.  And worst of all, apart from looking awful these terrible sketches, if anything, detract from the chance of anyone recognising the body.

Terrible, there should be some level of competance in such situations, surely, even just getting a budding amateur whom has the nack with a pencil, rather then whomever was got in on some of those pictures.

Dangerous Dogs

I have to say this ladies experience is similar to the problems I dealt with last year, having to tackle staffies attacking a neighbours dog and also the persistent straying of a dog from a rented property on our street.

The police in our area were totally in effective in the second case, but in the first the woman bitten in the scuffle with the dogs refused to press charges, they let that dog get away with attacking theirs unprovoked, now you can see the struggle these people had with that large dog in that report.

I was riding the back of such a dog, and at the time I'd punched, pulled and tried to control that animal, and I have a black belt in karate, my punches get attention.

My only options were to stick a screw driver into the things brain, or throttle it... I was reduced to strangling the thing to death.

As the owner of four dogs, one an older lab, and three young, small, dogs... if any of them were now attacked I'd simply have to kill the attacking dog, because these pitbulls and staffies are trophy dogs they're not under control, many times - like that one reported - they have no lead, no collar, or collars which can be slipped, and never any muzzle.  Because people, mostly - but not exclusively - young men are using them as weapons.

Because if two dogs are fighting and you intervene, and the dogs bite you, the law says its your fault, its not a dog attack, it was animal on animal... But that is such a shaded area, for a large dog attacking my little dog, my little dog is 3 kilos... a large dog would kill him... I'd have to kill that dog.  And I'm afraid to say what else I'd do to its owner with the grief.

But, I should not have to have that worry, people should self control their dogs, they should not be a burden on me for their life choices.  And if their life choice is stupid, like having these huge uncontrollable dogs, then the law and society should protect me, not reinforce their right to stupidity... The laws current stance smacks of being too softly softly touchy feely, and it leaves me for one feeling very exposed.