ADVICE FROM A "VILLAGE POLICEMAN"
   One of the “Villages” in my life includes people from all round the world who come to “Our Farm-Park” where ‘friendship’ (not religion) is the projected outcome. One such visitor in December, gave this sobering advice...
    A ‘not guilty’ verdict ended a murder charge brought privately against a policeman following a very sad altercation with a youth on the rampage in Waitara. When the news appeared on TV1, I had a German policeman, Walter, here on a “Conversation English” one-to-one Course.
     Walter had been a policeman nearly 30 years.  It was essential to protect members of the police, he felt, especially if they had been involved in an on-duty killing.  It was an horrific experience for anyone to have to kill in self defence and the police were placed in the position of dealing with people on the rampage in order to protect the public.
     Noone would kill unless in self defence when all else was beyond consideration.  The decision, made in an instant without any time to think, brought on instant shock to be remembered for the rest of your life, he said.
     “When I arrived at the house, the burglar alarm siren was going and a light was flashing on the front wall.
     “At the back, a window was broken and we went into the house.
     “Two of my colleagues started to search the ground floor and there of us rushed upstairs.  I was sent up to a tiny attic.
     “I held my gun in my right hand. With truncheon in my left, I turned the door handle and flicked it quickly open.
     “In that second I saw him standing there with a gun pointing at me and his arm moving.
     “I had no choice. I fired and there was a double explosion.
     “My colleagues raced to me and took the gun from my hand as I sat on the floor with pieces of a full sized wall mirror all round me.
     “ I was in shock that I might have killed someone and it lasted for many weeks but will never be forgotten.”
     There was a light side to this though.  Some three days later the owner of the house arrived at the police station and asked to speak to the man who smashed the mirror.  Walter took him into an interview room and sat opposite him across a table, worrying that he might have to pay for a big and expensive mirror.
     “I have come about the mirror,” the man said. “My wife insisted in having that mirror for dressmaking. Every time I walked into the attic I would give myself a fright.  You have solved my problem. Thank you.”              
                                                        PER c Dec 2002

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