poor copper
I was on my way to the house of some friends (now, sadly, separated, but that's another story) for an evening of dinner and recreational drug abuse. They live in Earlsfield, South-West London. Normally quite a nice area, but then again this is London so you can never be too careful (especially south of the river).

As I exited the station at the crossroads, I noticed a pair of coppers having a discussion with a young man across the road. Being a nosy type, I decided to stop and watch, in case anything interesting happened. I take a guilty pleasure in watching people being arrested: it gives me a great sense of smugness, especially when I'm carrying several grams of Bolivia's finest in my pocket as I was on this evening.

The chap in question looked nefarious from the off: baseball cap swung at a criminal angle under a big black hoody, jeans barely covering his boxers so they ruffled down over a pair of impossibly white trainers with the enormous tongue poking up from where his shoelaces should have been. He was shifting nervously from foot to foot, and becoming incresingly agitated as the policemen started to frisk him. When the long arm of the law reached towards his jeans pocket, he bolted.

Managing a turn of speed possessed only of the gazelle and the criminal underclass, he dashed over the crossing towards me, but the fuzz weren't giving up. The first policeman was closing on him, readying himself for a tackle, when the crim pulled a sports-drink bottle from somewhere in the dark recesses of his hoody, turned, and squirted a stream of clear liquid straight into the oncoming lawman's face. The copper screamed as it hit him and dropped to his knees. The second pursuing officer hesitated for a second before he too was hit in the chest and the neck. He stumbled and just caught his balance, stopping by his fallen colleague as their target raced away up the street.

I approached the first policeman cautiously. He was stripping off his knife-proof vest and shirt, obviously in pain as he did so. Shaking, he stared at his hands. The skin on his hands and forehead was turning white and there was an acrid smell about him which reminded me of the chemistry labs at school: he'd been hit by acid. He gasped, "water". I and another woman who'd seen the incident sprinted to nearby pubs to fetch buckets of water. The news that policemen had been attacked in the street brought quite a crowd of drinkers out to gawp as the two unfortunate officers washed themselves off and inspected their wounds.

Within minutes three police cars, a van and an ambulance schreeched up and the two injured policemen were attended to while their newly arrived colleagues cordoned off the crossing. As a helicopter began circling overhead, no-one seemed interested in taking a statement from me so I decided to leave them to it and join my friends to partake in, rather than witness, a crime of our own.

Two things stay with me from this. One, the assailant passed within yards of me as he made his escape. I'm 6'3'' and used to play rugby. If I'd been a bit faster-thinking I could have tackled him. I'm ashamed to say the thought never occurred to me at the time, but looking back on it I probably would have received similar treatment to the policemen. Should I have tried to take him down?

Two, I know that assaulting a police officer is a serious crime, but the speed and size of the response took me by surprise. I wonder what kind of police prescence there would have been had it been me who was the victim instead?


Length? Several years hopefully, but I doubt they caught the bastard
(pmsc, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:58, Reply)