Caught by the Fuzz

The first time I got arrested was in Birmingham in 1996.

I had gone out clubbing with a mate of mine, both of us big techno heads and pretty much addicted, at the time, to Atomic Jam and House of God.

But we decided we needed a change. Techno nights played fantastic music, but they were always short on women. Either women didn't like the music (a sweeping generalisation- I knew quite a few girls who dug it) or they weren’t impressed by a bunch of sweaty druggies in hooded tops. I dunno.

So we thought we would go to Wobble, a house club famous for its bouncy wooden floor. When everyone was dancing, the whole place wobbled. 

About ten minutes after the pills started kicking in, we both realised that the club was utter shit. Fatuous househeads drifted by, coked up to hell and sneering at each other. The music could have come from Woolworth's.

We looked at each other and, as one, decided to leave. Just going home to chill out and listen to decent music would be better than this.

My mate had parked his car just outside the club, so we left and tried to make a quick getaway. We had only gone a couple of streets when a flashing blue light in the rearview, combined with a whooping siren, let us know we were about to have a tet-a-tet with the boys in blue.

Minutes later, we were sat in the back of a police car, our hands cuffed behind us, under arrest for £5 worth of marijuana they had found in my mate's car. The strange thing is that my mate had had a pill on him, in a plastic cash bag, which the police had given back to him, then left us alone, probably to give him the opportunity to swallow it.

As they drove us to the station, one of the police turned around, saying "You know, it's amazing. We've pulled everyone leaving Wobble tonight and every single one of you has had drugs on you. I think that says something about that place."

"No, I think it's says something about youth culture nowadays, officer," I replied.

Back at the station, the pills I had taken were really starting to kick in. I knew I was in trouble, but the whole situation seemed unreal. I've said it before, and I'll say it again- fluorescent jackets are real; flashing blue lights are real; the police are a social fiction. So how could I recognise them as any sort of authority?

When you get busted, they ask you for all your details- weight, height, hair colour, aliases- that kind of thing. When the officer asked me my eye colour, I said "Hazel".

"Hazel?" he asked, sneering. "Well, they're black fucking holes right now. You've been on something, haven't you?"

"Yes, officer," I replied, sighing. "I've taken two ecstasy tablets."

He leapt up then, overjoyed at the ease of my confession. "Right," he barked, pointing at me and turning to the other police. "I want this man strip-searched."

I was led into another room, where I had to remove one item of clothing at a time. And this is the thing- the male officer who had ordered the strip search was quite clearly letching at me. He also looked disturbingly clone-like with a big Freddie Mercury moustache. Probably being in uniform was a bit of a fetish for him. I stood naked, with a cock like an acorn, feeling miserable, yet strangely defiant.

Next I was fingerprinted, mug shot taken, and banged up in a cell for four hours. In the cell, the pills- some of the strongest I had ever taken- made me feel like I had one motherfucker of a case of flu.

Eventually, they let us go. We had been promised a lift back to my mate's car, but the officer who had made this empty promise had gone out again to bust more heads.

"We were promised a lift," my mate was saying to an underwhelmed desk sargeant. "We don't know where the car is."

"Well that's what happens when you take drugs, ennit?" he laughed. "You can't remember where things are, can you?"

"It's not about remembering. We're not from Birmingham. We don't know where you arrested us."

It was to no avail. We were left to wander the dirty streets of Digbeth until the car was spotted.

So, my first arrest and experience of how dumb police really are, criminalising and bullying people who would normally be decent, law-abiding citizens. I got a three year caution for possession of one gramme of soap bar, and one fuck of a chip on my shoulder about 'the law'.

Remember, it's not a War on Drugs. It's an attack on personal liberty.

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Coming up (eventually)- my second arrest. Also for possession of a single gramme of marijuana. 




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