Safe Streets- Immigrants Deflowered

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday April 20, 2003 14:51 by F. Leddy fearghalleddy at yahoo dot com 01-8560233

Where have all the flowers gone?

On friday 18 april at 1.30am, an incident happened on Dame st. Dublin city centre which put in perspective much of the recent debate over street safety and the poor availability of garda manpower to combat violent crime.

SAFE STREETS-IMMIGRANTS DEFLOWERED
On friday 18 april at 1.30am, an incident happened on Dame st. Dublin city centre which put in perspective much of the recent debate over street safety and the poor availability of garda manpower to combat violent crime.
On said morning, this writer observed a marked garda car pull to a stop alongside the central bank. A uniformed garda then exited the vehicle and ran urgently across the street in the direction of the pedestrian lane linking dame st. with the 'Stag's Head' whereon he caught up with his target, two immigrant flower sellers; a ten-year old boy and a thirty-something adult. The guard then snatched a bunch of roses from the two and turned on his heels to return, rather triumphantly I thought, to his car.
After a conversatin with the two lads, I decided to lodge a complaint in Pearse St. Garda station. This is when it got really interesting.
After a 25min. wait, I finally got the attention of the sergeant-on-duty.The conversation went somthing like this,
Me:...You have heard my story, I'd like you to register my complaint
Sgt: You do realize that,unlike the flower sellers in grafton street,for example, many of those engaged in this trade are unlicenced.
Me: Why then weren't they asked for their licence or their names and addresses, or even arrested?
Sgt: You should be aware that many flower-sellers use this trade as a front for pick- pocketing.
Me: Is it then the policy of this department to confiscate the property of suspected pick-pockets?
Sgt: What has this got to do with you? What's your interest in all this?

The next few minutes where spent trying to convince the acting chief of Pearse street garda station that, as a citizen of the state and resident of Dublin I was entitled to be concerned about how my city was being policed and wasn't it in fact my civic duty to report a robbery if i had seen one.
Eventually , when it became clear that I wasn't going to be disuaded, he left me in the interview room( yes you have guessed it , to fetch a piece of paper!) whereon he returned and grudgingly registered my complaint.

The incident, to my mind, raises a number of interesting issues/questions.

- Garda representatives are on public record in the last week explaining their shortcomings in dealing with violent street-crime as the result of cutbacks in their various departments. Why then, when it comes to soft crime ( ie. the efforts of members of immigrant communities to subsidise their meagre means by providing a service) there seems to be no shortage of man-power?

-Secondly, was there actually a crime committed and, if so, who committed it? Surely, if it was the immigrant pair, there should have been some efforts to record their details at the very least.

- If it was in fact a robbery conducted by a uniformed officer, how does the judicial establishment recommend that we safeguard ourselves against criminal elements in the gardai?

- And could there be a deeper, more sinister issue to be addressed? Could there, in fact, be a culture of racial and social prejudice endemic in the force????

Would be interested in hearing a legal perspective on the aforementioned incident. Can the cops really do this?

P.S : could this robbery have been conducted in aid of the failing lovelife of one of our boys in blue?