by johnofgwentFull story here
It was almost thirty years ago that I woke at 3am in the bedroom of my ground floor flat in the middle of one of Cardiff's student and low paid rental sector to the sound of breaking glass and enraged shouting in the street.
Looking out of the window I saw a madman rip a bonnet off a Triumph Herald with his bare hands and use it to smash all the glass. He then picked up a smaller piece of wreckage and started using it to dent the roof and doors.
He then picked up a bit of the bumper that he had wrenched of with the bonnet, and used it to smash the windows of the Mini behind the Triumph. My Morris Marina (!) was parked behind that Mini.
I ran to my pushbutton trimphone and held the 9 key down until it started ringing.
In a few seconds I was through to the desk at Roath Police Station where I told the bloke on the other end there was a mad man in my road smashing cars with his bae hands and mine was next in line after the one he was now destroying and I was off to get my lumberjack axe from my cupboard and if they were not there to stop him going for my car I would be using it.
I put the phone down, threw some jeans on, ran to the cupboard and got the axe. I moved timidly to the door just as the smashing and crashing sounds died down. I opened the door .....
.... and was met by the sight of a bloke who looked like he wrestled grizzly bears for a hobby, standing at my front gate, wearing a blue uniform and Dixon of Dock Green Helmet. On seeing me he called out "it's OK sir we have him you can put that away". Which I gratefully did.
In those days community policing MEANT something
I read this afternoon that the next person in my position will not be so lucky. The station from which those men sallied forth to uphold law and order , and three others, are to be sold off on the grounds that ithey are old, inefficient, expensive and that in any case they are of no use as "when they were built, people had no telephones and needed to be able to run to the police station to summon help, and these days such an ability is no longer needed"
Bollocks.
Yes these buildings may be old and beyond their usefulness as such. So pull them down and build something better. We have thousands of builders sitting on their arses right now thanks to the property slump I cannot believe there are none who would value the chance to do some work.
Because the biggest lie of all in this disgraceful story is that "policemen in the community within easy reach of a running man in need of help" are irrelevant in today's Britain. Nothing could be further from the truth and the politically correct scum behind this measure should be found and sacked.