the law

When I was a child, about 4 or 5, I used to be scared to death of policmen because of the guns they carried. I was so afraid that I would look at them wrong, or say something wrong, and they would take out their gun and shoot me! Now that I think about it, this was a strange fear, especially considering that one of my best friends at the time was the daughter of a state trooper who was one of the nicest guys you'd ever hope to meet.

You know how men and woman in the armed forces wear those Camoflage Uniforms? Well I used to think that they were burglers and I kept having Nightmares that they would come and Kill me and rob me. I used to see them in Shopping Centres and I would really freak out.

In our town the slang name for police vans was 'meat wagons'. For an embarrassingly long time I believed that they actually carted off criminals in a butcher's van along with the legs of lamb and stuff.

I used to believe that all 'bad people' (criminals) were short, unshaven and ugly and wore black-and-white striped shirts because that's how they were always pictured in storybooks. If only it were that obvious in real life!

I used to believe…

many years ago my husband andi were discussing peter sutcliffe's arrest. we said,"oh, he will plead insanity"insanity this" "insanity that"
our daughter, who would be,ooh probably 10 yrs old at the time,said but what has santy(claus) got to do with it?
then again, i always thought, as a child, everyone was happy when they got married. how wrong was I

I believe my mother once told me that you had to go to a special school to learn how to be a criminal. I imagined all these kids sitting in desks learning how to rob and kill people. I also imagined they'd get homework assignments like, "Go kill someone."

When I was about 8, I heard the term 'kerb crawling' on the news. Upon asking what it meant, my mum informed me it was when people were walking along a kerb, trying to break into the cars parked in the street. I held this belief for about 10 years after that!

I used to think whenever I heard the phrase "A man is helping police with their inquiries" on the news. That there was this really nice man driving around with the police helping them solve the case and find the criminals.

I used to believe that Bill Stickers was a real person! I thought he must have been really bad because he had his name plastered all over town and they kept saying he will be prosecuted.I felt sorry for him. I used to imagine what he looked like. Maybe he was on the run from the police or something.

After watching american cop shows like CHIPS as a kid, I used to believe that all you had to do to catch a criminal was put out an APB and couldn't understand why the police here didn't do that.

Underneath The Westway road in West London the phrase "BILL STICKERS WILL BE PROSECUTED" was stencilled on the pillars in big black letters. I used to believe that Bill Stickers had done something for which he was going to be prosecuted, but I though it was really unfair that his fate was being advertised so publicly.

When I was young and I got ringing in my ears, I thought that it was my call from the police and that they needed me to arrest somebody! I believed was really a police woman but that nobody knew it! Men in white coats coming to take me away!

When I was little, I thought rape was when a man would approach a woman on the street and tear off all her clothes. (No sex, just ripping off her clothes. I didn't know that sex was something that anyone other than mommies and daddies did together.)

I used to believe…

for some strange reason, I used to believe that criminals always ate prawns. And when my grandad got his car stolen and it was dumped at tescos i thought the robbers had stoped to buy prawns

I used to hear my parents talk about the Highway Patrol and I misunderstood them. I thought they said "troll" as in troll under the bridge in the billy goats gruff story. Every time I would hear a siren, I would run away in a panic thinking the troll was going to eat me.

When I was younger I saw some graffiti in an under pass, My Nan told me that a vandal had done it.
I thought about vandals and decided that they were men in suits with big tanks of paint on the back. (like a space suit)