The Angry Exile: Tourist advice for travellers to Australia.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Tourist advice for travellers to Australia.

Do, do, do try not to get arrested in East Perth unless you like being surrounded by cops and repeatedly tasered. In the fucking custody suite at the station.

Nine police who surrounded an unarmed man at the East Perth watch house used a Taser on him 13 times even though he wasn't threatening them, the WA corruption watchdog has found.

The Corruption and Crime Commission investigation was part of a wider examination of WA Police's use of Tasers since their introduction in 2007, the majority of which were found to be reasonable.

Perhaps. I'm certainly prepared to believe that and I don't have a problem with officers using tasers or even their sidearms to protect themselves or members of the public. And I'm even prepared to believe that the guy was somewhat short of a sainthood.

Police said they tried to arrest the man on a Bayswater street after complaints of a trespasser sniffing petrol from cars, but he fled. They later arrested him after he ran into a stationary car on Guildford Road. He allegedly collapsed and became violent, kicking two officers when he woke.

He was taken to the watch house, where police attempted to strip search him. Police said he had previously been convicted of a number of offences including assaulting police officers, resisting arrest and common assault.

On the other hand all he was doing was just sitting there saying he didn't want to be strip searched and wouldn't let go of the bench. Is the taser supposed to be a tool for protecting police officers in the field or is it okay to use it as a cattle prod to shock, literally, into submission anyone who's doing nothing worse than being a passive aggressive pain in the arse?

"The man had been compliant, removing his belt and earring when requested by police officers. However, the man refused to comply with a strip search and held onto the armrest of the bench. One police officer kicked out at the man in an attempt to 'startle' him into letting go of the bench," the report said.

Because to me that's what they look like they're doing (you may not find this easy watching).

Do you wanna go again? Do you wanna go again?

I don't even want to watch it again, but in case you didn't that was said after he'd been shocked a few times, and it was by no means the last one he got. For Christ's sake, couldn't they have got two cops on each limb and gone from there? I mean what did police do before they could just repeatedly send electricity through people? Well, I suppose there was bouncing people off the cell floor, but surely they didn't do that to everyone. Still, I'm sure at least that was the worst and the interview was comforta...

No, I don't want to go again.

... Oh.

Joking aside I do seriously wonder how well I'd do in a police interview if I'd taken 13 shocks from tasers when they brought me in. After that I might be inclined to waive a solicitor, confess to pushing the iceberg in front of the Titanic and worry about court later... anything as long as it got me the fuck away from that bloody cop shop. I'm sure that wasn't the cops' intention but it's a possibility and it worries me, because if it can be done eventually some dodgy copper will do it. I'd hope that WA Police haven't got a single member who'd stoop that low but between tasering each other on purpose and maybe accidentally setting someone on fire they haven't exactly covered themselves in glory when it comes to taser use.

And the other thing is that this kind of thing is changing my opinion of tasers. I'm never slow to criticise the police but in principle I'm all for giving them the tools they need to enforce the law (getting rid of a lot of unnecessary and illiberal laws would be far more effective a way of tackling incidences of over the top policing). Up until recently I've felt that that includes tasers simply because they're a less lethal, usually non-lethal, alternative to using a gun. But the reason why I'm now no longer sure is that these controversial taser incidents seem to be happening more and more around the world and I'm wondering if a cop with a less lethal option than a gun will be more likely to use it. I read somewhere that we humans have a kind of built in acceptable level of risk and so the more safety features are on a car the less careful the driver will tend to be as a result of 'risk compensation'. Could the same thing apply to a cop choosing between a baton, a taser and a gun? Any reasonable person, and I believe most cops probably are reasonable people and quite possibly the cops in that video are too, would be extremely reluctant to pull the trigger of a gun aimed at someone, but would we be equally reluctant to pull the trigger of something which while undeniably unpleasant and painful only very rarely causes a fatality? I hope that I would be as hesitant to taser as I would to shoot but in all honesty I'm far from sure. And I'm not sorry that I'll probably never find out.