Such a good girl...

Shanazza is SUCH a good girl. Shy and retiring, she would never be caught disrespecting an authority figure or bullying a younger child. She's good at school too, passing her GCSE Drama first time!

This her mother tells me as I lead Shanazza, in cuffs and leg restraints, from the police transit van. On seeing her daughter, the mother bursts into howls of dismay. "What have you done to my baby!" I wipe sweat off my forehead to find the back of my hand smudged with blood. It isn't Shanazza's. As four other officers disembark the transit and join me in the "air-lock" to custody, her mother mutters that it doesn't take five big brutes to arrest one little girl.



Shanazza is eleven. She's gonna get arrested every day for a month. Innit.





Shanazza is now shy and retiring. I might even go so far as to say she is mud-streaked and forlorn, like an abandoned puppy in the rain. She shivers as she stands in front of the custody sergeant, who asks her age and immediately orders us to remove her cuffs. Which we do. She winds her fingers together and stares down at them while the sergeant goes through the circumstances of the arrest. She is clearly humbled at her surroundings.

This wasn't the case an hour ago, when we were rolling in the mud at the side of Blandmore's Ring Road with her. She'd smashed up a phone-box and bitten a passing ex-marine who tried to detain her for it. When the police arrived she muttered "Game on" and smacked one fist into the palm of the other hand. Three well-aimed spits, a Reebok-in-the-face, five guttural roars (all from her) and ten minutes later, Shanazza was trussed up with velcro restraints and thrown bodily in the back of the transit van.

After three hours of paperwork, she is charged with criminal damage and assault on four police constables, a gaoler and the custody sergeant (who rather regretted the order to remove her cuffs so quickly). In court she'll once more look like a puppy in the rain, and the magistrates will imagine we were heavy-handed. We might even find ourselves subject to investigation for assaulting HER.

Today another "good girl" has been picked on by society. Read the comments from her family. Where can I find some parents like that? Respect.

On the subject of restraining people:
I'd love to be the guy grappling with the screaming woman: watch how his colleague assists him when she kicks off.


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NB: I take no responsibility for the hugely offensive comments on the above video on Youtube!