This evening, while I was driving to the gym, I came to this u-turn, and outta nowhere, this fast, low car with 98% tinted windows whiz past me. Of course it did, because it had a cop car at its tail!
Somebody, some stupid stupid body, was actually trying to escape a police vehicle in this city! Well the cop did a decent job of staying close to the speeding car, and the drivers on either side of the ‘runnaway car’ slowed down, thereby providing the necessary ‘obstacles’ and synergistically, it was a stellar job of cornering the poor bastards right into the pavement. It was like right out of CSI Miami! I think people took a second to look for the hidden camera. All the other cars around the action also slowed down considerably. Why bother getting out of the way, when you can slow down, and hang out to watch all the drama? (It should be mentioned here that I would have happily raced off to the gym so as not to miss my 5.30pm body combat class, but unfortunately, my car was positioned right behind the cops, so I couldn’t move, till they did!)
What I witnessed next was far from an accurate depiction of a Hollywood movie cop-car-chase. The cops got out of their car, and two other men got out from the car in front of the captive car (cops under cover? cop buddies? or just a couple of samaritans?). One of the men pulled opened the front door, and dragged the driver out by his collar. Another man was also pulled out from the front passenger seat, and a four or five year old boy from the back seat.
The two cops and their buddies then presumed to beat the driver and his co-pilot, by way of kicking them down to the floor, by elbowing them and jabbing them hard in the stomach and the behind. Them men put their hands together to shield themselves, and started to cry and wail. After a few minutes, when they had been helplessly handcuffed and on their knees, they were pushed into the back seat of the cop car. Sirens were still blaring as the cars sped off onto the Sheikh Zayed highway, presumably heading to the nearest police station.
Normally I would imagine that under such circumstances, a person caught is handcuffed and has their rights read out to them. But then a ‘cop chase’ is just such a rare event in this city, and it was all so dramatic… from the cop beating to the men wailing. I wonder how much of the ‘drama’ was an automatic learned response to watching the sensationalized versions of such events on the screen, and how much of it was pure reaction of emotions running high.
The poor guys who had their asses kicked, seemed in my opinion, like just a couple of harmless and stupid guys, who were scared as hell, and should have known better than to run from the cops in the first place. Was it really necessary to beat them down? I didn’t think so, but then, hopefully the ass-whopping will teach them not to be so dumb.
As for the cops motives, well, I can’t help but think that even among the nicest of men, a cop wouldn’t mind being ‘seen’ doing his job well, especially in a place like this, where the opportunity for public acknowledgment rarely arises. I think their instinct to beat the men down was just a little show for the audiance. It was a moment of glorification. ‘Hey look at me, Im protecting the city!’ That kind of feeling is hard to beat, in what I imagine is a pretty lacklustre job out here, and so far from the grand Holllywood personification of it.
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