You've been charged
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
It was 5:25 pm tonight when I received a call from a local police officer asking if I would be interested in translating for a woman who had been charged with uttering threats after a problem last night at the Waterford Hospital.
This sounded familiar, so I said I could certainly help with this.
Half an hour later, a new-style, Police PT Cruiser was parked in front of my house. This neighbourhood rarely gets police visits, so I could see the neighbours' drapes and curtains shaking as a rather attractive, built-up officer came toward me to get the idea of what had happened the night before, during my interpreting trip...
We headed towards the charged woman's house in the new PT Cruiser [wow, I was in a police car!]
As we approached the woman's house, the officer said that he had been told that the woman's husband is driving around town with no insurance on his car, which I found funny. He said he wouldn't go into that tonight, as that would lenghten the whole night, so he preferred to keep it to last night's incident.
We went to the woman's house and had a nice chat, her asking every five minutes if she was
going to prison. I told he what the charge was. She said it was all a misunderstanding and that she had in fact said "You are killing me by bringing my daughter to the hospital. I will have a heart attack by tomorrow if you don't help me get my daughter out tonight" to the translator.
This was quite a different version of what had been alleged she had said. The officer bought it and so did I. I think it was all a misunderstanding/something said in the heat of the moment. The charges were dropped.
I had a rather interesting chat with the policeman, as I got dropped off at my house, again, in a police car. It was impressive to see someone who was really sensitive to the differences between the two cultures [Albanian and Romani], as, sadly, with reason, I have grown to develop a very stereotypical and prejudicial view of the police force. He had a sociology and history degree and three years of police studies. Though his wife is a police officer, he doesn't "love" his job, saying it's not challenging enough and how local fraudsters and thieves are too easy to get. He is considering going back to school and studying law because he wants to defend people...
We called it a night and he promised he wouldn't charge me if he stopped me on the highway for driving too fast. Well, that's the least he can do. Otherwise, I'll just challenge him...in court. ;)
This sounded familiar, so I said I could certainly help with this.
Half an hour later, a new-style, Police PT Cruiser was parked in front of my house. This neighbourhood rarely gets police visits, so I could see the neighbours' drapes and curtains shaking as a rather attractive, built-up officer came toward me to get the idea of what had happened the night before, during my interpreting trip...
We headed towards the charged woman's house in the new PT Cruiser [wow, I was in a police car!]
As we approached the woman's house, the officer said that he had been told that the woman's husband is driving around town with no insurance on his car, which I found funny. He said he wouldn't go into that tonight, as that would lenghten the whole night, so he preferred to keep it to last night's incident.
We went to the woman's house and had a nice chat, her asking every five minutes if she was
going to prison. I told he what the charge was. She said it was all a misunderstanding and that she had in fact said "You are killing me by bringing my daughter to the hospital. I will have a heart attack by tomorrow if you don't help me get my daughter out tonight" to the translator.
This was quite a different version of what had been alleged she had said. The officer bought it and so did I. I think it was all a misunderstanding/something said in the heat of the moment. The charges were dropped.
I had a rather interesting chat with the policeman, as I got dropped off at my house, again, in a police car. It was impressive to see someone who was really sensitive to the differences between the two cultures [Albanian and Romani], as, sadly, with reason, I have grown to develop a very stereotypical and prejudicial view of the police force. He had a sociology and history degree and three years of police studies. Though his wife is a police officer, he doesn't "love" his job, saying it's not challenging enough and how local fraudsters and thieves are too easy to get. He is considering going back to school and studying law because he wants to defend people...
We called it a night and he promised he wouldn't charge me if he stopped me on the highway for driving too fast. Well, that's the least he can do. Otherwise, I'll just challenge him...in court. ;)
