An Interesting Life and some Hawks

The Chinese have a curse which says, “May you live in interesting times.” I have and am leading an interesting life. The stories I write about the Mexican Horse Thief are all based on this life and what I see.

On Friday I got some new material for later Chronicles, you see, just recently I moved into a building that has a lot of ladies from Thailand living on the premises.  On Friday Afternoon, there I was, minding my own business, when some things went down. The elite members of the Hawks police unit raided the premises. A lot of them, 20 at least and 8 vehicles, that I saw. They apparently believe that a whorehouse is being run here. :}

Prostitution. Is it right or wrong? That depends on your own morals and upbringing I suppose. That is neither here nor there for the moment. In a country that has such vicious crime and so much of it I must wonder at the use of this unit for a “nothing” raid like this. Sum total of the bust was 2 Thai women arrested and the owner of the building’s wife too. All the woman here are under 5”2’, why such a huge force to deal with this essentially non violent crime. They came into my section of the building and just stared at me for a minute and then turned away. All in all 4 hours of the units time was used just for the raid, next the hours wasted in court can be added.

Not only that, I question their professionalism in other ways to. As I grew up with the owner of the building I believe and saw evidence of what I will say now. Firstly they slapped the owner’s wife about. I have been in trouble before and know that the police can hurt you quite a bit without leaving one mark. They also destroyed the premises, smashing in unlocked doors and wardrobes, totally unnecessary. I was with the cleaning lady yesterday; her Saturday was spent cleaning up the mess. Then two of the Thai ladies were not here on Friday evening came back to find that their money and valuables, such as laptops, were stolen out of their rooms. As I had all my kit stolen by cops just recently I do tend to believe them. The Hawks are pushing for a Human Trafficking charge, which I do not believe will stick. The ladies here go to and agent in Thailand and put themselves on a list, much like an employment agency. Also I can vouch that they have free and easy access to the premises and could walk away if they wish, some have.

This great advancement in law enforcement made it onto News24, without the little problems above been mentioned. Now I have a few friends on facebook that are in the police force at present and many that were in the old SAP, I wonder what they think about this? No, actually I am pretty sure they are as disgusted as I.

Tags: Africa, Chinese, crime, facebook, Hawks, Human Trafficking, Mexican Horse Thief, observations, police, Prositution, religion, Thailand, Women