Matt Delito - Confessions of a Police Constable

‘Place your hands behind your back, sir, and I will explain everything to you.’

‘Fuck you,’ he said once again, without showing any inclination to pay heed to my suggestion.

‘Sir, you do understand that swearing at me isn’t going to do you any good, right?’ I said.

‘What the fuck are you going to do? Isn’t this a fucking free country? I know my rights, and you’ve got no fucking reason for fucking kidnapping me! Now let me get the fuck out of these hand-fucking-cuffs, before I fuck you up.’ Clearly my strategy to get him to swear less was less than efficient.

‘Sir, are you threatening me?’ I asked, as light-heartedly as I could.

‘Fucking right I am. I’ll fuck you up, you little bastard. What are you gonna do? Shout at me a little? You’re not the police. You haven’t even got a fucking gun, you gutless pussy.’

‘My friend, you see this little badge here?’ I said, and pointed at the name badge on my Metvest. ‘You see where it says Police Constable? And here’s my identification.’ I whipped out my warrant card with one hand, as I was still holding on to the cuff that was holding his right hand. ‘Can you see the bit where it says “Warrant”? That’s all the warrant I need to arrest you. I assure you all three of us are police officers. You’re going to get arrested now, and we’ll have a chat about all of this at the station.’

Unappeased, the man suddenly moved both his hands up at high speed. I only just managed to hold on to the cuff on my side, but Sasha’s slipped out of her hand. The spare metal cuff glanced her across her face, and sent her glasses flying. She yelped in pain, but recomposed herself quickly. She took one step on to one of the chairs behind the man, then another to get on to the table. Through her swift climbing-on-the-table action, she was suddenly tall enough to reach the cuff. She jumped, grabbed the cuff, and came crashing back to the ground, taking the man’s arm with her.

‘Place your arms behind your back now,’ I said. As the word ‘now’ passed my lips, I twisted the cuffs towards his back. In training, this is a move we practise on each other all the time – you’ll have to take my word for this; a sharply twisted set of handcuffs is powerful tool for persuasion.

During this, Pete had finished his radio call, and approached the man’s wife. Flashing her a charm-buster of a smile, he had firmly guided her away from the struggle in progress.

Sasha and I somehow managed to get the man’s hands behind his back at the same time, and we connected the two empty cuffs together behind his back. With Sasha’s cuff holding his left hand, my cuff holding his right, and both sets of cuffs attached to each other, we finally had the man under control.

A small crowd had gathered around us, which Pete was in the middle of placating.

‘Let’s just step over this way,’ Sasha said, and pointed towards the awkwardly-shaped short leg of the L in an attempt to at least get this guy a little bit out of the way, away from the other guests in the restaurant.

To my surprise, the American went along with the command, but of course not without making a protest.

‘I have my First Amendment rights,’ the man shouted. ‘You can’t tell me what I can say and what I can’t say! You’ll hear from my embassy, you fucking Nazis! This is the last time I’ll visit your stinking little island! Fuck you, get off me,’ he screamed, as he struggled against the two sets of handcuffs.

It wasn’t a pretty sight.

‘I have the right to free speech! I didn’t punch anybody; I didn’t steal anything. Why the fuck am I wearing these handcuffs?’ he said, before reiterating, like a tediously skipping record, that he knew his rights.

‘Right, let me explain this to you,’ I started. ‘Your First Amendment doesn’t apply here—’

‘Fuck you. Like hell my First Amendment doesn’t apply,’ he shouted at the top of his considerable lung capacity and vocal volume. ‘Have you ever heard of the fucking Constitution? I want my lawyer. Why didn’t you offer me a lawyer? That’s one of my fucking rights, you know!’

‘Mate, I don’t care what you think your rights are,’ I exploded. I had had it with this guy; nothing pisses me off more than people who ‘know their rights’ after having watched one too many American cop shows. ‘You have the right to a solicitor, but not until we make it back to the police station. In the meantime, do you remember the bit Sasha here told you about “you do not have to say anything”? That’s basically the same as “your right to remain silent”, and I suggest you use it.’

He half-grunted, half-snorted, which I choose to interpret as: ‘My good sir, I do apologise for causing you such an inconvenience, and I would relish in silently listening to you for the foreseeable future.’

‘So, your First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights. I appreciate that piece of legislation, but you are in the UK, and the First Amendment – along with the rest of the US Constitution – is part of US law. It does not apply here.’

‘But I’m an American citizen—’

‘When I am in the US, I have to adhere to US law,’ I interjected. ‘When I’m here, I have to stick to local laws. The same goes for you, when you’re in England you’re bound by English law. I don’t know how you normally speak to people in the US, but in the UK, we’ve got a piece of legislation known as the Public Order Act.

‘The POA is a set of laws that was designed to make England a nicer place. At its most serious, in section 1, it covers riots. At its least serious, it covers people wandering around in the streets yelling obscenities.

‘Do you recall what you said to the security guard earlier? A word starting with an N?’ I enquired.

‘Yeah. When someone is being a fucking nigger, I’ll call them a nigger,’ the man grunted.

‘Well, there’s a problem with that: your freedom of speech does not extend to swearing at random strangers, especially if you use racial slurs,’ I explained. ‘That’s a pretty serious matter, and I won’t stand for it. It’s bad enough that you were swearing at me and my colleagues, but swearing at the cashier and calling the security guy, who was only trying to help sort things out, what you did is not appropriate.’

I was about to explain in further depth exactly how much trouble he was in, when I spotted Pete waving at me to come over. I looked over at Sasha. She shrugged. ‘I got this,’ she said, and took a firmer grip of the man’s handcuff.

I believed her, and walked over to Pete.

‘Just got off the radio,’ he started. ‘Something’s kicked off in the next borough, and they’ve sent a load of support from our shift over there.’

‘Keep an eye on our American friend over here,’ I told Pete, and I walked over to the security guard.

‘Hey, have you had a chance to look at the security tape?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah, he clearly handed over a tenner and a twenty. I guess he’s just not used to the money over here,’ he said, with a shrug. He didn’t seem particularly upset.

‘We’ve got a bit of a problem. I don’t feel comfortable transporting this fellow on foot, and all the support is tied up on another incident in the next borough at the moment.’ The security guard nodded; he understood where this was going. ‘If I encourage him to calm down and apologise, would that be okay?’

‘I’m not happy, man,’ he said, and handed me Sasha’s glasses; they came off during the struggle, and he must have picked them up.

‘Thanks,’ I said, inspecting the glasses. They seemed to be more or less in one piece.

‘But yeah, if he apologises and gets the hell out of my shop, I’m happy. I’m not here to be abused, but I haven’t got time for shit like this neither.’