The Laughing Policeman: My Brilliant Career in the New Zealand Police

by Glenn Wood

  Mine occurred in the first few weeks and, typical of my section, it was pathetic. All they did was have me drive around the around the airport at night, supposedly looking for a man with a shotgun. Half way through my search the hoony cop leapt out with a broomstick, giving me a mild start, and that was it.

  Back at the station I heard tales of initiation pranks that had gone down in the annals of police lore. One such occasion involved a nervous young constable who was taken to the hospital morgue by his sergeant and asked strip the body of an old bloke who had recently died.

  As they were about to remove the body from the freezer the sergeant was ‘called away’ on an urgent job. He instructed the new constable on how to remove the clothing from the body and then left him alone in the morgue. The young cop checked the toe tag to make sure he had the right corpse then pulled the body tray out of the fridge onto a waiting trolley.

  Nervously he grabbed the sheet covering the corpse and pulled it back to reveal the badly shrivelled head of an old man. All of a sudden the corpse’s eyes flicked open and the body sat up with a hideous moan. The startled cop did what most people would have done in similar circumstances and fainted, hitting the floor like a sack of spuds. He woke several minutes later to find his sergeant and other members of the Section rolling around the mortuary floor, laughing fit to bust. The ‘corpse’ had been another section member who had got an old man’s mask from a fancy dress shop.

  To me, the most alarming aspect of this story is that the practical joker was happy to be shut up in a fridge full of real corpses until his victim arrived.

  Sometimes these practical jokes go wrong, as one did at the station where I was working. A young policewoman was working night shift and was put in charge of operations. This meant she was in the station by herself manning (womaning?) the phones. She was doing well, then, half way through the shift, three masked men burst into the control room and tried to tie her up.

  Not realising they were her section members playing an initiation prank she treated the incident as real and fought like a demon. She got hold of her baton and swung it fiercely at one of the guys. He put up his arms in defence and the baton smashed into his forearm cracking a bone. She fought so savagely that one of the guys had to give her a hard shove just to get away. She tripped backwards over the chair and banged her head on the coms desk.

  The guys quickly ripped off their masks to reveal who they were but it was too late, the damage was done. The policewoman was badly bruised and had a nasty gash on her head, while the attackers were cut and bruised with one nursing a broken arm. There was no way an incident of this magnitude could be kept quiet and when the Senior Sergeant found out there was hell to pay. The three assailants were put on a charge and she was commended for her good work. Fair enough too.

  I was three weeks into my new job and still hadn’t made an arrest. It didn’t worry me but the rest of my section members were getting twitchy. There was no quota on arrests or anything like that but the party line was if you were doing your job properly then arrests would occur. This is true, but my attitude was arrest should be a last resort rather than an everyday part of the job.

  Your first arrest is supposed to be a big deal but mine wasn’t - it was more of an arrest by proxy. The offender was a student (in a university town, what are the odds on that?) and I arrested him for ‘disorderly behaviour’ as he was seen kicking over someone’s front gate. He was drunk and relatively harmless, just stupid.

  I was in the car when we picked him up and he admitted what he’d done under mild questioning. As I was there, and still an arrest virgin, they told me to arrest him. My entire contribution to the proceedings was to say ‘You’re under arrest’ and to do all the paper work (in triplicate).

  This included cautioning the offender, taking his statement and preparing his case for court the next day. I had two cautions to choose from, the short caution or the formal caution. I decided on the formal caution as it is so much more …. formal. It goes like this: Do you wish to say anything in answer to the charge? You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.

  Interesting to note that, unlike American TV cop shows, we do not say the evidence will be used against you. This is because we are nice Policeman and may use the evidence to help your case. Yeah, right.

  The only other decision I had to make (in consultation with my sergeant) was what the actual charge should be. Technically he was guilty of wilful damage but that is quite a serious offence and as he cooperated with us we decided to stick with disorderly behaviour.

  After arresting him, my next job was to hand him over to the watch-house keeper for processing. That done, I settled into the paper work, pausing only to reflect that I was now blooded - a real policeman with my first arrest under my belt. And even though it was only a pseudo arrest it still felt good to have done my job.

  Much as I detested paperwork, I hated releasing prisoners from their cells more. This always happened on early shift – easily my least favourite rotation. What was to like? We started work at 5am and I’m not a morning person. These days I’m disappointed if I’m awake in the 7’s.

  It wasn’t just the obscenely early hour I found foul, it was the state of the prisoners. They had almost inevitably come in drunk, drugged or beaten up (not normally by the police), and frequently they stank. All of which made them grumpy. The fact they’d also been arrested gave them an excuse to behave like a sore headed bear but it was still not very pleasant.

  Often the prisoners were disproportionately distressed about having their fingerprints taken. Most of them complained bitterly about getting their delicate wee digits all inky. This, from reeking, filthy guys who had recently urinated in their pants and had dried vomit matted in their hair. Go figure.

  If early-shift prisoner release is one of the smelliest jobs in the police then scene guard has got to be the most boring. My introduction to it came during my second night shift. There had been a murder in the small nearby town of Foxton. A poor old lady had been knifed to death during a break in and the offender was still at large. The crime had been discovered earlier that morning and detectives had been working at the site the whole day.

  A uniformed officer was required to be at the scene at all times, just in case the offender returned to dispose of any evidence he may have left behind. The detectives hadn’t finished their crime scene investigation and Crusty and I were tasked to guard the location for the night. It was going to be a long shift as we were required there at 9pm and wouldn’t be relieved until 9am the next morning.

  The crime scene used to be a nice small-town home, but its charm had been destroyed forever by a brief violent act of cowardice. The big tough burglar had stabbed a 60-year-old woman seven times with a bread knife. I didn’t know who he was but I hated him. I was half hoping he’d come back so I could have a crack at him; see how tough he was when he wasn’t attacking an elderly woman.

  I also feared his return. It was dark, the house was scary and I didn’t really fancy copping a bread knife in the back. Oh well, at least I wouldn’t be lonely. I had my colleague with me and we could engage in friendly conversation and perhaps even the odd laugh or two. This wasn’t to be. He pulled rank as soon as the detectives left and threw me out of the car. He told me he was staying in the (warm and comfortable) vehicle while I patrolled the (cold and inhospitable) grounds.

  He said he was going to have a kip and I wasn’t to wake him for anything less than a sucking chest wound (at least I knew what one looked like). I was certain this wasn’t standard police procedure but the withering glare I got when I mentioned as much put paid to further argument.

  Before drifting off, my offsider informed me that the old adage of the criminal returning to the scene of the crime was based on fact. He also left me in no doubt as to what would happen if I let my guard down and got murdered. Having a colleague slaughtered created a lot of paperwork and he said i
f the offender didn’t finish me off he would. I think these were just scare tactics to keep me on my toes. Although I did notice he locked all the car doors. I trudged into the cold, pulled my police greatcoat against my chest and hoped he had nightmares.

  Once again it was just me and my, oh so vivid imagination. We weren’t allowed to go inside the house as it had been sealed to protect the evidence. Which left me the outside, including a wooden front porch, to patrol. The veranda was the worst area because the front door had been left ajar, allowing me to see into the hall way where the body had been found. There were dark stains on the floorboards where the life had finally seeped out of the elderly lady. It gave me chills.

  This was real. It wasn’t an exercise carried out in the relative safety of Trentham. During training we were one step removed from reality. What we were shown and lectured on was either theory or it had happened to someone else. We were living those experiences vicariously. But now I was standing metres away from where a woman had been brutally slain, with the real possibility of the offender returning to the scene.

  It was a long night with me jumping at shadows. But as dawn threatened my attention started to wander. By sunrise it had gone past wandering and was in the middle of a 20 kilometre trek. If the murderer had returned he could have whipped inside the house, mopped the hallway, done the dishes and a spot of vacuuming, repaired the porch and been on his way again without me even noticing.

  This was one of my biggest problems in the police. I got bored easily and didn’t pay any attention to detail. Jobs that required meticulous scene-searching and patience were beyond me. I quickly tired of what I was doing and wanted to move on to the next job, just missing that vital clue.

  I’ve always been the same. My wife likened travelling around Europe with me to touring with a large excitable dog. After I’d been cooped up in the van for half a day driving, I had to be let outside for walkies and a good play.

  Fortunately the offender didn’t return and we were able to hand over a clean scene to the detective squad when they rolled up at nine the next morning. I say ‘we’ because my partner woke up at five to nine, due to some uncanny internal alarm developed through many years in the police, and greeted the detectives brightly, reporting all was well. He was as fresh as a daisy; I was knackered. Didn’t stop the miserable git making me drive back to Palmerston though.

  In a positive postscript to this story, if it’s possible for such a tragic event to have an up-side, the offender was caught, charged and convicted for the murder. He was identified by a toe print discovered on a biscuit tin lid. He was 16 years old.

  He’ s Got A Gun

  Sheep was amazed at my ability to sleep. He thought I could kip for my country. If the ability to catch zzzzs ever becomes an Olympic event, he claims I’d get gold. I think he exaggerates somewhat, though I admit to enjoying a rest as much as the next man, especially if the next man is Rip Van Winkle.

  I think Sheep’s judgement was coloured by the fact that he is a freak. I mean that in the nicest possible way, but the man was a machine. His baking job required him to be up to his arms in dough at ludicrous hours of the morning. His regular start time was 4am and often he’d be out drinking until 3am the night before, sometimes not bothering to go to bed at all.

  I have never known anyone who could survive on as little sleep as Sheep. He was a bad influence on me and took me out drinking when I really wanted to be at home learning handicrafts.

  After a week of late early shifts (1pm until 9pm the first day, then 5am til 1pm the next day), punctuated by late-night drinking and chatting with Sheep, was it any wonder I sometimes slept for 16 hours?

  On occasion his lifestyle would catch up with him and some nights he’d sleep for four hours in a row. This is the same man who, in 20 years of working, has only had two and a half days off sick. And two of those days were used to drive to New Plymouth to buy a car off Carey’s dad. That’s taking dedication to one’s work far too seriously if you ask me. Mind you, if I’d shown similar devotion perhaps I’d still be employed by Her Majesty the Queen.

  To counter Sheep’s sleeping super powers, I introduced the Cleanliness Of The Rooms Act. This cunning piece of legislation was designed to force Sheep to conform to Trentham-like standards of tidiness, with failure to do so incurring harsh penalties. The legislation was in effect for a week before Sheep gave up, paid the required amount of beer and tore the Act to shreds.

  Not that Sheep was particularly messy - beside me he was practically a saint - but he’d left home to get away from having to clean his room. Free from the constraints of Trentham, it wasn’t long before I followed suit and the dirty washing pile in the corner of my room was a thing to be feared.

  In my defence I soon discovered that not washing my clothes was only marginally less hazardous than washing them. We had a twin-tub washing machine and it was a beast. After having flooded the wash-house floor for the 50th time in a row I finally gave up and begged Carey for help. She obliged, not in the manner I’d anticipated (by doing my washing) but with lessons on how to use the washing machine properly. She was an excellent teacher and once I’d mastered the correct way to operate the poxy machine I only flooded the laundry every second time I used it.

  I was used to having disasters in my private life and was trying hard to keep my Gonzoisms out of the work place. This meant keeping my head down at the station and I was happy just to make it through my shift without fouling up. I also hoped to learn more about police work. Sadly, good teachers were thin on the ground. The guys that did care and wanted to help were often the younger guys, who were still trying to sort the job out in their own minds, so taking me under their wing was nigh on impossible. Besides, as I had no control over rosters, I had no choice who I was working with.

  Most of the lessons you had to learn in the police couldn’t really be taught anyway. Every situation was different and if you used your common sense (see earlier) you would normally come out of it okay.

  The old adage, ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ was certainly true in the police and there was no teacher better than experience. This is an extremely good argument for not joining the police straight from school, as I had done. I knew little of the outside world. I had never travelled further than you can ride on a Kawasaki 100 (not far) and was unable to sort out my own personal problems let alone anyone else’s. In many cases all I had to go on was what I’d learnt at Trentham; in others I had to wing it. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn’t.

  On one occasion a heady mixture of Trentham training techniques and pure dumb luck combined to give me a fleeting moment of glory, albeit at someone else’s expense. That someone was my section sergeant who was, at the time, in charge of the public desk. We were on day shift and I was in the stationhouse preparing some paper work (just for a change).

  At 2.20 in the afternoon an extremely large member of the Mongrel Mob gang walked into the station. He was well known to the police and had a reputation as a guy not to muck around with. Rumour had it he was once seen walking to his car carrying three one-dozen crates of beer in each arm. Big, strong and mean - and on this particular day, not happy.

  He’d been at the public desk talking to my sergeant for a few minutes before the commotion broke out. I heard the yelling and wandered down to see what the fuss was about. I arrived at the desk in time to see the huge bloke reach across the public desk and punch the sergeant smack in the face. The sergeant’s nose exploded on impact and a fine spray of blood shot out as he keeled over.

  ‘Holy Shit!’ I thought. That’s got to be against the law. And with little regard for my personal safety I launched myself at the enraged giant. Two other cops had also been drawn by the ruckus and they jumped on the big guy as well. The three of us piled into him, forcing him to the ground.

  Even with a trio of cops grappling with him he was still bloody hard to contain. I had grabbed his left arm (figuring it was the least dangerous part of his flailing anatomy) and so
mehow bent it backwards behind his head. Whatever I was doing worked as he was still yelling a lot but unable to move much. I was very pleased about this. I had no doubt that he’d be biffing us about like rag dolls if we hadn’t caught him by surprise, busy as he’d been turning the Sergeant’s nose to mush.

  Into this scene of blood and chaos came the senior sergeant, the officer in charge of the station at that time. He ran to where the four of us were thrashing about on the floor and offered us some handy advice.

  ‘I think you should escort this man to the cells, constables.’ he said in the kind of voice that implied we’d just been about to release the maniac with a caution.

  ‘Oh great,’ I thought. Now we’re going to have to move him without dying in the process. Miraculously the savage beast had calmed down at the sight of the senior sergeant. The sergeant then appeared from behind the counter, came around to where we lay and stood on the Mongrel Mob member’s head.

  Looking at the sergeant’s bloody pulp of a nose I can’t say I blame him but he didn’t make our job any easier. Unsurprisingly, having his head stood on enraged our captive and he started thrashing around like a madman again. I was hanging on as hard as I could, concentrating on keeping his arm locked behind his head. God knows how I’d got him into that position but it continued to work and when I pushed on his arm he yelled in pain and stopped struggling so violently.

  Keeping a precarious grip on his arm we stood him up and dragged him to the cells. Every few steps he tried to have a go at us but my arm lock kept restricting him. Eventually we got him to the cell, threw him in and locked the door before he could rip us limb from limb. Once safely outside the cell all three of us staggered back to the watch-house and collapsed in a heap on the floor. We were knackered and covered in blood. Fortunately most of it was the sergeants, who had been rushed to the hospital by now. The senior sergeant came over to tell us what he good job we’d done. He singled me out.