Cop Out - The End Of My Brilliant Career In The NZ Police (The Laughing Policeman)

by Glenn Wood

  'A rapist, eh.' said the doctor with an evil gleam in his eye. 'I’ve got a daughter at university,' he told me as he fetched a long steel needle from a tray. He turned back to the offender. The nurse had cut away what was left of the guy’s jeans and the leg wounds were fully exposed. They were deep and raw, with one gash slicing right to the bone.

  The doctor spread the gash apart and smiled. 'Better get some anaesthetic in there,' he said before plunging the needle hard into the middle of the wound.

  The rapist roared in pain.

  'Oh, I’m sorry, did that hurt?' said the doctor with a grin. Then before giving the anaesthetic time to work he began stitching the wounds. He didn’t seem worried about how good his stitching looked and when he’d finished, I could see he’d done a rough job. The nurse looked perplexed as she placed a clean bandage on the leg with the worst injuries. When she had finished the doctor gripped the wounded leg hard, causing another shriek of pain.

  'Looks like you’ll have some scars there,' he said. 'A reminder about what we doctors think of rapists.'

  After his repair job, we returned our prisoner back to the cells at the station. It was an uncharacteristically bumpy trip back, with the police car somehow seeming to find every hole in the road. Every bash of the car causing our prisoner to moan, and, wouldn’t you know it, he accidentally caught his bandaged leg in the car door when we were taking him out. Thankfully, it just hadn’t been his day.

  Cop Out

  It’s time for the rabbit story, probably the most pathetic chapter in the arsenal of evidence against Constable Glenn Keith Wood of the Palmerston North Police.

  Mid-August. Night shift. It was Wednesday and it had been a quiet week. I was happy we hadn’t been busy as I was really struggling to keep on top of my life.

  My relationship with Carey didn’t seem to be going anywhere. We were drifting along. It was no-one’s fault, this can happen in even the best relationships. Eula wasn’t helping. I really enjoyed her company and loved the spark-filled debates we’d have on any subject I decided to tease her about. I felt guilty about enjoying her company so much as I still loved Carey. It wasn’t Eula’s fault, she did nothing to encourage me but my affection for her was growing. I didn’t know how to solve the problem so I decided to do the honourable thing and ask Carey to marry me. We had been together for some time and it was either that or break-up. I thought getting married was a better option as it might bring some stability to my chaotic life.

  Carey said yes but we elected not to tell anyone. I felt strangely flat by the decision. The stress of the engagement and the terror I felt at having to tell our respective parents wasn’t helping my health. Shift work didn’t agree with me and some days it was a real effort to drag myself out of bed. The upkeep of my uniform suffered, as did the quality of study I was doing on my police units. I was still passing them but the margin of error was getting slimmer and slimmer. The threads of my life were unravelling but I was too caught up in it all to notice.

  I had even come in to work one night still drunk from an afternoon session with Bruce and Dave. This was out of character for me and was symptomatic of the pressure I was feeling. My sergeant noticed my mildly intoxicated state and put me in the ops room, ripping strips off me when I’d sobered up. Bit hypocritical I thought, when it was he who claimed I should be out partying more. Plus his best mate on the section was a chronic alcoholic who often stank of booze on the job.

  Several nights later I was still in disgrace and had been relegated to pounding the beat for the remainder of night shift.

  It was a cold night and I’d spent most of it huddled in doorways, pulling my greatcoat around me to keep out the chilly air. At two am a call came over my radio from operations.

  'Beat from Ops.'

  'Beat, 10/3 Cuba Street.'

  'Can you proceed to blah blah address? We’ve had a report of a person attempting to molest a rabbit.'

  'Come again,' I said. Not correct radio procedure I’ll admit but I was sure I hadn’t heard right.

  'This is a real call Beat, see the complainant on arrival and he’ll explain further.'

  I-Car came on the line.

  'Beat from I-Car. Do you require back-up?'

  It was too good an opportunity for my sergeant to miss.

  'I’ll put the AOS on standby Gonzo in case things get out of control.'

  Oh, ha ha ha. I didn’t dignify them with a reply.

  It took a while to find the address because it was very dark and the house was located at the rear of a church. When I arrived I pulled out the large metal torch I was carrying and swept the beam around until I spotted the complainant. He was standing next to a huge wood and wire fence that stood about two and a half metres tall and stretched out for ten metres in a quadrangle. The whole construction looked like a miniature Fort Knox. As I got closer I saw it was an extremely fancy and very expensive-looking rabbit hutch. The owner waved me over. He told me he’d just disturbed a suspicious character who had been hanging around his hutch. He explained that he was a breeder of rare rabbits and had some very distinguished and expensive bunnies living there. My only previous experience with leporidae involved Gatsby and that hadn’t gone at all well. I shone my torch over the fence and saw several strange looking bundles of fur snuffling around.

  'Most of these are angora rabbits,' their owner said with a grand sweep of his hands. He pointed to one particular bunny that was obviously his favourite.

  'And this is Benny, the most valuable of them all. My prize stud rabbit.'

  The rabbit breeder’s enthusiasm for his charges was infectious.

  'What’s he worth?' I said curiously, moving a little closer.

  'Oh, I couldn’t put a price on him,' he said, 'Just look at how beautiful he is.'

  I placed my torch in an upright position on top of one of the fence-posts that supported the wire netting and peered into the enclosure.

  I had to admit Benny was a cute looking critter.

  'Feel how soft his fur is.” urged the rabbit guy.

  As I reached in to give the little guy a friendly pat, disaster struck. I bumped the fence-post that was supporting my torch and knocked it from its perch.

  I’ll take a moment to describe the torch. It was solid metal, jet black, about forty centimetres long and very thick. It took five large batteries and was extremely heavy. Most cops carried them because they doubled as a very effective baton.

  The torch fell from the post and tumbled end over end toward the ground, or more accurately, toward Benny the prize stud rabbit’s head. It landed on the back of his skull with a sickening thud. Benny gave a tiny yelp then fell onto his side, his little paw twitching in the air. Then he died.

  The rabbit guy was beside himself. He leapt over the fence in a single bound and threw himself down next to the convulsing corpse of his favourite bunny. He picked up Benny’s little warm body and began screaming at me.

  'Oh my god. You’ve killed Benny! You Bastard!’

  I didn’t know what to do, it had all happened so quickly. I stammered an apology and tried to explain that it had been an accident.

  He didn’t want to listen; he was too upset. I tried to console him but just made matters worse.

  'Look, it’ll be all right. You’ve got plenty more rabbits and they breed really quickly.' I said with all the tact of a politician addressing the poor.

  That really set him off. What I was going to do about Benny? He started demanding compensation. His grief was obviously not so terrible that he forgot about the possibility of financial gain.

  I told him I’d write a full report on the incident on my return to the station. Then I retrieved my torch and got the hell out of there. As I was leaving I took one final look back over my shoulder and saw the rabbit breeder rocking back and forth holding Benny’s body tightly to his chest. I’d really done it this time.

  Everyone at the station found the rabbit story extremely amusing. Everyone apart from the senior sergeant who took the compla
int from the rabbit breeder the next morning. The guy came in and said he had a murder to report. Bloody drama queen, it was manslaughter at best.

  His version of events differed substantially from mine with him claiming I’d thrown my torch at the rabbit. I guess this would enhance his chances of compensation.

  I was called in that afternoon to give my version of the incident. This was the second official complaint that had been laid against me (the first being by the Customs Department) and it had to be fully investigated.

  The rabbit breeder had been able to put a price on Benny after all. He was asking for $5000 to replace him. $5000 for a rabbit! You could buy a car for that.

  I knew the police had no intention of paying him, but they had to go through the motions. They found I had acted without malice but had handled the situation poorly. I was given an official reprimand. Another nail in the coffin. Thanks Benny.

  It was getting harder to keep up my enthusiasm for the job, but despite everything I still enjoyed being a policeman. I felt like I was helping people (well, some people). Most of the things I completed successfully were small things but they gave me immense satisfaction. I recovered a lot of stolen property, settled many domestic disputes peacefully, helped several children in need, solved burglaries, stopped fights, took quite a few nasty characters off the streets and did some excellent general policing. Unfortunately all my good work was buried beneath my Gonzo reputation and the frequent stupid mistakes and misfortunes that dominated my career. Little did I know that behind my back things were heating up. The officer in charge of permanent appointments had opened a file on me and was busy collecting all the evidence he needed to dismiss me from the police. He didn’t have to look far. My personal file was bulging with black marks by the various officers who had worked with me. I had a low arrest profile and my health record was appalling. But the police didn’t want to dismiss me on medical grounds as that would have cost them money. They wanted to push me out the old-fashioned, knife-in-the-back way. All they needed was another incident to highlight my incompetence. I happily obliged.

  There were several traditions in the Palmerston North police that officially never happen. I’m talking about some harmless fun during the down times on night shift. Not breaking the law, but indulging in activities that would be frowned upon by certain factions within the police ranks and the community at large. Things such as chasing rabbits with police cars during night shift, practicing hand brake turns on the airport runway and indulging in fruit fights on the beat. Most of the officers in the station knew these pastimes occurred, having done it themselves during their beat years, but it was acknowledged that you undertook these activities at your own risk.

  My favourite was the fruit fight.

  The rules were simple; you waited until early in the morning on a slow night. Then you paid a visit to the rear of one of the Chinese fruit shops that were scattered around the centre of the city. You picked out the oldest, mouldiest piece of fruit you could find. If you were in the I-Car or Mobile Beat vehicle you called the beat constable and asked for his location. When he responded the idea was to cruise around until you found him, then open fire with rotten fruit missiles. A smart and experienced beat constable could protect himself from being bombarded in two ways. Firstly he would make sure he was armed with a mouldy lemon in his pocket and secondly he would never give away his exact location. Ideally he would give a location close to where he was then he would hide nearby. When the I-car came cruising past the element of surprise would be his and he could launch a pre-emptive strike.

  Fruit fights only occurred during the winter because the cold would force most beat constables to wear a greatcoat. This heavy garment covered nearly all of your uniform so when the fruit splattered on you only the greatcoat would need cleaning. I had been caught by this prank several times but whenever I got hit the fruit managed to splatter my trousers or tunic as well. Often I didn’t notice the stains and would be pulled up next shift for having a dirty uniform. This was one of the major areas of complaint against me in my personal record.

  On this particular night, I was in the I-car with one of my section mates. We were keen to attack the beat constable because he was fresh from training and was therefore fair game. We waited until four thirty am, half an hour before the end of our shift. The time everyone starts to walk back to the station. This would give us great cover. If we called him and asked for his location he’d probably think we were going to give him a lift back. Perfect.

  We cruised quietly to the back of a fruit store and surveyed the rubbish. I saw it immediately. It was beautiful. A large full grapefruit, so rotten that the skin had turned a dusty green. A single ray of light shone on it from the heavens and I swear I heard angelic voices singing as I beheld this divine fruit. When I picked the grapefruit up I was impressed by its consistency. Despite being mouldy and squishy it had retained much of its original density. This made for a much more powerful weapon as it would fly through the air whole and then explode messily on impact. We were excited. We called Beat and could barely contain our impatience as we asked for his location.

  He told us he was walking down an alleyway in the central city. This was ideal; we could get him as he came out of the alley then disappear quickly into the night. We knew that the lane he was in was close to the corner of a major intersection and it would be a piece of cake to splat him then escape round the corner before he could recover. The perfect crime.

  I wound down my window and crawled half way out to give me full arm movement for the throw. My partner kept the car at a steady speed, foot hovering above the accelerator ready for our getaway.

  Suddenly Beat emerged from the alley, stepping right into my line of fire.

  I let out a whoop of triumph and sent the grapefruit on its way, every ounce of my strength in the throw. My victory whoop was premature. Beat heard my cry and leapt backwards, quickly comprehending what was going on. I watched in horror as my deadly grapefruit bomb whizzed right past the beat constable’s chin and impacted with a man in a suit who had just walked around the corner. God knows where he came from. One moment the street was clear and the next he was there. The grapefruit hit the guy’s briefcase and detonated like a puffball, spewing its putrid innards outward like radiation from a nuclear explosion. The mould blew a mist of green powder into the man’s face while bits of black and yellow flesh splattered his suit. Beat’s jaw dropped open and he ran as fast as he could back down the alley. My partner slammed his foot on the accelerator, nearly throwing me out of the window as he belted past our fruit splashed victim. I hauled myself back in the car and tried unsuccessfully to hide under the dashboard. My partner drove quickly back to the station, muttering as we went: 'That wasn’t good.'

  I didn’t say anything. I hoped the suit hadn’t got a good look at the car. There was a possibility he may not have as his face was full of rotting grapefruit. Police cars are quite distinctive and if he did notice it would be easy to find the culprits.

  A report was filed that day. The fruit covered man had walked straight to the station just after our shift ended and demanded an explanation. He was a local councillor who was heading to work early to clear his in-tray. He didn’t want to file an assault charge (fortunately) because he’d seen that the fruit had been thrown at another constable and understood he wasn’t the intended target. But he did want an enquiry launched into the matter and expected an apology and the full co-operation of the police. After receiving a serious dressing down from the councillor, the senior sergeant demanded to know who had been in I-car the night before. The name Constable Wood echoed down the corridors.

  It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was called into work the next day and told to see the District Commander. This was serious. I waited nervously outside his office and after a half hour I was asked to enter. He was looking extremely stern.

  To my surprise he didn’t mention the grapefruit incident but instead referred to a stream of negative reports he had receiv
ed about my conduct. He patted a huge file on his desk and spoke of a catalogue of foolish behaviour and conduct unbecoming a constable in the New Zealand Police. He paid particular attention to my medical file and wondered aloud how it was possible for one man to injure himself so badly, so often. The untidy state of my wardrobe was another bugbear and I was told I should have more pride in my uniform as he expected all his officers to maintain the highest standards of neatness and cleanliness. He carried on in this vein for some time. Obviously the permanent appointments officer had been busy and he’d raked over things I’d forgotten about. Sergeant Nelson’s less than flattering assessment reports were there, as was my humorous injury report, plus files on The Tartan and Green Spots Squad, the Customs computer debacle, the rabbit, my lost hat, the fruit fight, Prince Charles, my Failure to Give Way conviction, mucking around in the ops room, the search warrant on my flat, a poor assessment from the DS, the blank rounds AOS incident, and most curiously I was seriously criticised for my anti royalty sentiments and radical views. I wasn’t aware I had any.

  The District Commander also referred to an incident from a few weeks earlier which I thought I’d handled well. I was mistaken.

  The event occurred while I was working late shift with a policewoman from another section. She was on swing shift and they’d teamed her up with me. I’d worked with her before and we got on well. We were on patrol and received a call informing us of a fight in progress outside a local gang headquarters. We were just around the corner when the call came through and raced to the scene. Sure enough, there were two guys swinging punches at each other while a large group of their mates stood by watching. They were a motley-looking crew, big blokes with dirty clothes and gang patches on their jackets. As soon as we arrived, I leapt out of the car and ran into the middle of the brawl, hauling the two combatants apart. They stopped fighting immediately and moved toward me. As the gang members closed in I looked around to see where the policewoman was. She was still in the car yelling into the radio mike. I stood alone amongst a group of irate gang members, totally surrounded and completely outnumbered. Yes, I felt nervous and was acutely aware of the danger, but I didn’t panic. Instead I took control of the situation. I fronted up to the leader of the gang and told him I didn’t care if his members wanted to fight each other but I did have a problem with them doing it in a public street. He glared at me for a few seconds then said: 'Fair enough.' And they all started moving away.