Unfortunately I can

Unfortunately I can't recollect the date of this occurrence but it is documented. My only reason for mentioning this in the first place is to prove one thing I would hope. That is, that I was a conscientious Police officer. I was not afraid of hard work in fact I went out and looked for it. I'm sure some of my colleagues could attest to that.

Anyway on this particular day my partner and I where sent to a location to investigate a person acting suspiciously. On our arrival our curiosity was aroused by a male person carrying a large suitcase with half it's contents spilling on the foot path. These contents were proceeds from a break and enter he had just committed. As soon as he spotted us he started walking faster and faster , then dropping the suitcase as he started to make a run for it. We took chase and cornered him near a residence with a high wrought iron gate. Here, he tried to clamber over this gate and as he was about to reach the other side I caught both his legs and had him partly suspended. He then kicked my hands to set himself free and I automatically released my grip. I felt a sharp excruciating pain to my fingers and whilst trying to compose myself saw that my partner had the offender on the ground and was attempting to restrain him. He was writhing violently trying to break himself free and as I drew nearer I saw that his left arm was trying to reach for something he had concealed in his jeans. I placed my foot over his hand till my partner managed to grab the free hand and handcuff him. When we stood him up we saw that he was in fact reaching for a knife.

A number of our colleagues had arrived at this point and assisted us in conveying him to the Police Station. I attended a local hospital and the next day saw a specialist. Two of my left fingers were injured by this assault. One was broken and the other was identified as a boutonnière deformity. That is, the ligaments where stretched and damaged and do not return to their normal position. The middle joint protrudes like a button. Needles to say it was a long and painful two months of physiotherapy trying to restore some manageable movements into those fingers. But I am getting ahead of myself here because I'm sure you would like to know what happened to the offender?

Whilst I was in the local hospital that day the offender was taken to another Police Station to be interviewed by a Detective. On my return I was contacted by this Detective and was advised that the offender was quite a nice fellow and was in fact very cooperative. I tried to take his comments in for a moment. . " So let me get this straight " I said to him, " you have a heroin addict, who's broken into a house, broken two of my fingers, tried to stab my partner and he is a nice fellow. " " What exactly are you trying to tell me here? Apparently he wanted this nice fellow just charged with the house breaking offence and just disregard what he had done to me. I hung up the phone. He rang back and asked why I was so upset. And proceeded to negotiate once again for a lesser charge of common assault. This went on a number of times with me hanging up the phone. Eventually I just went home. I found out the next day that when the officer in charge of our Police Station had found out what had transpired . This detective was directed to charge the offender in the correct manner.

Eventually he was convicted for these offences and in my claim for criminal compensation I got, and I am not certain of this figure around $ 2,000. Off course a chunk of that went to lawyers. Not much at all when your left handed. Oh yes ! I did mention that you could smell alcohol on the Magistrate's breath. That was no big secret, everyone knew that. I just hope it did not affect his judgment.