by Glenn Wood
It is very unusual for me to respond to someone in this way, as I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not a good trait for a police officer. Phil’s room-mate obviously lacked a few essential police officerly traits too, as the following story will attest.
He was based somewhere in the South Island (the exact location won’t be revealed to protect the innocent and because I can’t remember where it was). All was quiet this fine night in the town in which he worked. Probably because he was off duty. The Ministry of Transport weren’t though, and just after midnight one of their officers noticed a car swerving all over the road. Calling on all his years of experience, the officer deduced that the driver was probably under the influence of something a little headier than just the joys of life.
He was right; the driver of the other car was as pissed as a newt. Actually he was as pissed as a newt that’s gone on a bender because his girlfriend had left him for one of those flashy Mexican walking fish.
Anyway, he refused to pull over and stop when the MOT officer flashed his lights, speeding off into the night instead. A minor, but apparently very exciting car chase ensued whereupon the drunkard’s car collided with the Ministry of Transport car and they both careened off the road. Justifiably peeved at this turn of events, the MOT officer leapt out of his pranged vehicle and set about apprehending the offender. The pissed guy had other ideas and a full scale punch up ensued. So serious was the altercation that the police were called. Imagine their surprise when they arrived at the scene to find that the violent drunken criminal slugging it out with the MOT officer was none other than their colleague, Constable Phil’s room-mate. Not only had he been drunk in charge of a vehicle and tried to evade capture he had also committed a serious assault on a fellow officer. Plus he lost the fight.
The breadth and magnitude of his misdemeanours were magnificent. If Phil and I had got together and plotted his deserved demise we couldn’t have done better. He was bundled unceremoniously out of the job with charges to follow. I couldn’t work out what the charges were as it was hard to hear what Phil was saying, due to his hysterical laughter.
Phil had a number of (lesser) stories of rookie stupidity. My favourite was the tale of one of the more naive cadets who, after several months on the job, released a suspicious person after duly recording the suspect’s full name and address. The details he recorded were ‘John Johan Johnson of 69 Johns Road, Johnsonville’.
Even I wouldn’t have fallen for that one. Or at least I wouldn’t have at thirty seven, I can’t be certain about what I would have done at nineteen.
I felt much better after speaking with Phil and went home that evening a much happier little policeman.
Things were going well at the flat too. Sheep had forgiven me for gassing him, although he did make me promise to confine my more appalling acts of stupidity to other people’s houses. Fortunately there were a number of places around for me to make a fool of myself in, the most likely candidates being my girlfriend Carey and my best friend Quentin.
I’d known Quentin from an extremely young age. Our first meeting was as toddlers, when our mothers met up by chance at a local supermarket. Quentin and I were confined to our respective trolleys, he resplendent in his lovely pink baby suit, me in my masculine blue one. As soon as I saw him I immediately recognised a friend for life and climbed upright in my trolley to say hi. He whacked me in the face with a packet of frozen peas and then cried, claiming I’d been the cause of the ruckus. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Carey was flatting with three other teacher’s college students. One of them was Quentin’s girlfriend Lynette, a tall, friendly girl with a wicked sense of humour. This arrangement was extremely convenient for us; although I had the feeling their housemates didn’t think so. Sometimes our reception was chilly to say the least.
Most of the time we all got on well and Quentin and I tried to cause as few problems as possible. We even volunteered to help out occasionally. Thinking back I can see that the girls would have been better off without our special kind of help. One specific time springs to mind.
Lynette had a pet rabbit. I’m not sure where she got it, but it was a very nice rabbit in a rabbity sort of way and she and Quentin were very fond of it. He called it Gatsby - God knows why as it was a girl. Lynette had long since given up trying to make sense of Quentin’s actions. On this particular occasion the girls were out for the day and Quentin was put in charge of feeding the rabbit. I was off duty and thought I’d pop round and give him a hand. It was a simple task and one that shouldn’t have been above our collective abilities. Pick grass, give it to the rabbit, and watch her it eat it. Piece of cake.
Having successfully completed the task we felt we were ready for a bigger challenge. We decided Gatsby looked cooped up in her hutch and thought it would be nice to let her frolic in the back yard. It was well fenced and there were two of us watching her. What could go wrong?
Things were fine at first. Gatsby took her new found freedom in her little bunny stride, hopping about but making no attempt to escape. She seemed quite content to sit in the middle of the lawn chewing the grass. It was a peaceful scene, like something out of ‘Bambi’. Then things got even cuter. Another bunny rabbit appeared from under the hedgerow and hopped over to join Gatsby.
'Oh look!’ said Quentin with charming naiveté, 'They’re playing.’
I inspected the action more closely. ‘Err, Q, I don’t think they are playing,’ I replied.
Quentin gave me a confused look, bless him and then he realised that it was not leapfrog he was watching.
The scene had gone from ‘Bambi’ to ‘Bambi Does Dallas’.
We rushed to the middle of the lawn to protect Gatsby’s virtue but were too late. The other rabbit had got what he’d come for and had run away (typical male!). Quentin gave Gatsby a stern talking to and put her back in her hutch. We debated whether to tell Lynette what had happened and decided not to. The other rabbit had only been on top of Gatsby for 30 seconds max - surely that wouldn’t have been enough time to get her into trouble?
Several weeks later and much to Lynette’s amazement, Gatsby became the proud mum of seven little baby bunnies. Quentin and I made a pact to keep quiet about our lapse in supervision but I think Lynette worked it out because from the birth onwards Gatsby and family went to live at Quentin’s flat. Quentin didn’t mind as he really was quite fond of the bunny. He also discovered that if he held her upside down above his stereo turntable she made a great record cleaner.
The Big Cases
Good news. My sergeant got punched in the nose. Naturally I wasn’t happy that he suffered, but it caused him to re-evaluate his police career and he decided he’d had enough. This meant my section would be getting a replacement sergeant and I had high hopes of finally getting some leadership.
In the meanwhile the two senior members of my section took turns at being acting Sergeant. This was a problem for me as I didn’t get on with either of them. One in particular, a policewoman in her mid-thirties, hated my guts. I don’t know why, she took an instant dislike to me and treated me like dirt. I won’t mention her name but will refer to her as ‘the hell bitch’ from now on.
The other senior member on my section was a much older guy with a drinking problem. He didn’t like or dislike me - he just didn’t care. Most of the younger guys were okay with two in particular (Bruce and Rob) becoming my friends, but they were not in positions of power and spent most of their time watching their own backsides.
It was going to be a long two weeks.
Things improved momentarily when a constable from one of the other sections joined us on a temporary assignment. His name was Bill and he was a good bloke. He had a fourth-dan black belt in Karate, so he was very useful in a fight. I tried to persuade him to demonstrate some of his moves one night while we were on the beat together. After two hours of nagging he finally agreed. He asked me to stand very still then stood directly in front of me. Suddenly he burst into action
and hit me thirty two times in about twenty seconds. Each blow barely brushed my uniform or my skin. His control was incredible, he timed every punch perfectly, applying just enough pressure for me to register the blow but not be hurt. I was most impressed. I half hoped we’d get into a fight that night just so I could watch Bill in action. We didn’t. Typical.
I really enjoyed having Bill on the section. Not only was he friendly and fun to be around but he was also a very experienced cop. Every incident I attended with him was a learning experience. He was generous with his knowledge and always took control of the situation, no matter what it was. His karate skills gave him tremendous self-confidence but not arrogance. He was easy going and never let the job get to him. Not that I saw anyway.
I attended my first death since training with Bill. The person who passed away was a man in his late forties. He had suffered a heart attack while playing sport and expired in hospital. We were only in attendance because he had died unexpectedly and the police are required to look into any sudden death. This particular death was routine. There were no suspicious circumstances and we just had to make sure the hospital had done everything by the book, which they had. For the family, however, their day was anything but routine. Their lives had been ripped apart. The man had a daughter in her late teens and a younger son. When we arrived the family was all there and the girl was hugging and crying over the body of her dead father. She wouldn’t let go of him and her mum had to physically drag her away. This poor woman had to deal with her own grief as well as the palpable trauma her kids were experiencing. It was heart wrenching. I just stood in the background feeling like a ghoulish onlooker who had no right to be there. I didn’t want to intrude on these people’s grief; they were obviously a close knit family who were devastated by what had happened. The last thing they needed was some pimply young cop asking stupid questions.
I kept my mouth shut and watched as Bill spoke to them. He was sympathetic and professional. The family made it obvious they wanted was to be left alone so we ensured a support network was in place and signed the appropriate paper work for a quick release of the body. The hospital staff was excellent and, for a death, everything went smoothly. I have seen bodies in far worse condition, but for some reason this death really affected me. I have never been able to shake the image of that young girl clinging so desperately to the corpse of her father. It shocked me. Her emotion was so intense. I felt utterly ineffectual and there was not a damn thing I could do, except try and forget. Sadly, not an option for her.
Bill went back to his own section just before my new sergeant joined us in April 1981. His name was Sergeant Nelson (no it wasn’t but I’m not telling you what it was as I don’t want him to hunt me down and kill me) and he was a huge man. His reputation was equally large, mainly for being a tough guy.
He was in his early forties, but despite his relative youth he was an old-school cop, with old-school attitudes and little patience for anyone who did things differently. In many ways he was a very good policeman and in just as many others, he wasn’t. He was a hard drinking, hard living son of a bitch who had a passion for the job and a real nose for crime. One of those guys who threw away the text book and got by on gut feel. The exact opposite of me. The only gut feel I ever had was a bit of a rumble at dinner time.
Right from the start he thought I was soft. He had mistaken my dislike of confrontation for weakness and was unable to understand the subtle difference. I think he saw potential in me even though after the first few weeks he was questioning my suitability for the job. His style of policing and mine differed wildly. He lived for the street. He loved conflict and the way he dealt with criminals was to push them until they cracked. He advocated brawn over brains which I had little time for. I hated dealing with low-lifes whereas he lived for it. I had a real loathing for the reprobates we had to deal with on a daily basis. Scum, whose idea of a great night out was getting pissed with their mates then going home and hitting their wife and kids. And the dickheads who thought it was amusing to call you a pig in front of their mates. There was always plenty of that sort around - morons who wanted to prove how tough they were by taking on a cop. I couldn’t be bothered with that sort of crap and most of the time I just walked away. I know my sergeant and several of my colleagues saw this as a sign of weakness and maybe it was, but I never felt the need to butt antlers with these clowns. I found his methods of policing unnecessarily combative and hard to stomach.
This was tempered with the enormous respect I felt for Sergeant Nelson. At least he made an effort to forge me into a better police constable. Sadly though, he was trying to shape me into the sort of policeman I was never going to be.
There was of course fault on both sides. I was too young and foolish to sift through his advice and separate the good from the bad and he was too arrogant to concede that there was a place for my style of policing. Sergeant Nelson (and the Police Department as a whole) was also completely unprepared for the random acts of Gonzoness that occurred with disturbing regularity in my life. Random misfortune can be very hard for people to accept. There is a tendency to believe the unfortunate victim of fate’s twisted sense of humour must somehow be at fault, however this is not always the case. Oh sure, a good portion of the blame can be laid at the doorstep of Mr Clumsy and Mr Careless, but it’s normally fortune’s little knife twist that really does the damage. Observe.
The first example of Gonzoness during Sergeant Nelson’s reign came with the loss of my hat. Not, you’d think a very big deal but it was to haunt me throughout my entire career.
It was a busy Friday evening on late shift and I was working I-car (Incident Car) with another young cop. We were called to the Fitzherbert Tavern to attend a disturbance. The Fitz, as it was known, was a notorious student hangout and it was packed solid. So lively was the night that the front car-park was teeming with students in various states of disrepair. The mood of the crowd was quite convivial and we were not expecting any serious problems. Just the appearance of a few uniforms normally sent the troublemakers scurrying for the back door and the rest fumbling for fake IDs.
My partner and I disembarked from the car, placed our flat caps upon our heads and pushed our way through the crowd to the front door of the pub. It was crowded inside and after a quick chat with the manager we decided a walk through was all that was required. There was no point trying to weed out the under-age drinkers as it would have meant throwing out half the pub.
I had a loose attitude to under-age drinking as I was indulging in it on a regular basis. I was a lot of things but hypocritical wasn’t one of them.
My partner and I became separated as we pushed our way through the heaving throng. About half way through the crowd I was accosted by two attractive young female students who engaged me in conversation. One was rather taken by my police hat and wondered if she might be able to try it on. This was seriously against regulations but I thought what the hell, it can’t hurt and it may even help the student population see us in a more positive light. At least that was how I rationalised it later, at the time I was just being a dumb male - a sucker for a sweet smile and a generous amount of cleavage. The girl popped my hat on her head and managed to look rather fetching. Her friend certainly thought so and went out of her way to tell me what a good sport I was being, thus distracting my attention from her hat wearing friend, who took this opportunity to slip off into the crowd. That was the last I saw of her or my hat. When I turned around again her friend was gone as well. I’d been had. I searched the crowd for about half an hour and aside from the occasional glimpse of black and white checks in the distance I came away empty handed. There were just too many people milling about to conduct a proper search; besides I was keen to get out before I lost anything else.
My partner was horrified at my stupidity and helped me come up with a more plausible tale to tell the sergeant. The official report stated that the hat had been grabbed off my head by an unknown perpetrator as I walked through the crowd. My sergeant treated t
he story with the scepticism it deserved and made me file a full report on the incident. Apparently losing your police hat was very naughty and I had to undergo a lot of tut-tutting by the officer in charge of the stores before I was issued another one.
Had this been anyone else that probably would have been the end of the story. But no. Like a good constable I had put my name on the tag in the original hat. ‘This hat is the property of Constable Wood.’
The student population found this phrase rather amusing and my stolen hat became a centrepiece in student marches. It was seen on many a demonstration, always in the inaccessible middle section of the crowd and almost always being worn by an attractive female. Normally its appearance was preceded by a loud chant of 'This hat is the property of Constable Wood'.
Great. Whoever said no publicity was bad publicity obviously never had their nicked hat paraded before their superior’s eyes during unruly student rallies.
I guess I should have been flattered to have achieved cult status, but the Police Department didn’t see it like that. It was just a constant reminder that Constable Wood’s stolen hat was still out there somewhere, flaunting the law at every turn. Towards the end I think the police believed I was in cahoots with every rebellious element in town. Bloody students, I was developing a healthy dislike for the lot of them.
Except of course for teachers’ college students. They were a completely different kettle of fish. I was surrounded by them and thought they were alright. I had to: I was going out with one, as were Sheep and Quentin. The only person who had nothing to do with teachers’ college was our new housemate, Michelle. Sheep and I had been using the third bedroom of our four-bedroom house as storage for empty beer cans and had recently decided it might be better to fill it with a flat mate. Michelle was a friend of a friend and we thought having a female around the flat would be a good thing. The theory was that we would be much tidier and be more responsible with the cooking, which at that stage involved not so much cooking as thawing and reheating. She was also a nurse which was bound to come in handy given my accident prone history.