A Wonderful Experience With A Police Woman In Amsterdam

A Dutch Policewoman in Holland
Reflections of bitter experience had made me not to like the police, soldiers or any law enforcement officer, due to the fact that instead to keep peace, order and protect citizens some abuse the power bestowed upon them.

It is likely that many people get enrolled in the police service to cause harm to other people or to steal from the weak and the vulnerable ones. As a traveller, adventurer, and a writer, I travelled extensively in Africa.

Every country I visited has its story. Painful stories and brutalities at the hands of law enforcement officers. In Nigeria, an immigration officer slapped me across the face several times and at the end of it took all my money from my pocket.

In Lagos, two armed men in police uniform kidnapped me just to steal my money, after the plan failed, the beat me up mercilessly and pushed me out of a moving vehicle.

Travelling by road to Abidjan, the corrupt Ivorian immigration officers despite in possession of a passport rendered me penniless by taking all my money at every barrier we reached.

Instead of protection, I suffered at the hands of law enforcement officers to the extent that I lost confidence in them, but an incidence which took place in Amsterdam, changed the negative perception and thinking I had about the police to like them forever.

It was winter, and very dark. On my way to work, I was stopped by a group of traffic police officers who were arresting cyclists with faulty lights. They have arrested over a dozen, issuing to them fines to pay. I couldn’t escape when one of the officers, a woman, stopped me. I got off my bicycle and she inspected my lights. The front light was faulty.

She looked at my face, then said something I wasn’t expecting: “You know? I don’t want to issue you a ticket. Try to fix it tomorrow before passing on this route.” While she was interacting with me, her colleague, a male police officer, was watching us and wondering what we were talking about instead of her issuing me a fine to pay.

The policewoman asked me to leave as quick as possible, by then it was too late, her male colleague was catching up on us, so I told her, “Your curious colleague is coming, there is no way I can flee because he is now close behind us.” The male police officer asked her why the delay in issuing a fine because my front light is faulty.”

The ‘Good Samaritan policewoman’ said to him, “His rear light is in order, but the front one, he is not aware that is faulty. I asked him to fix it tomorrow.” Her male colleague didn’t say anything and he walked away. Then the policewoman told me to leave but I shouldn’t ride the bicycle.

I obeyed her instructions and went away. Luckily enough I was just a few meters from the workplace, ‘The Okura Hotel.’ What transpired shocked me both physically and psychologically that I have loved the police till now. Whenever I see any policewoman, this bicycle story doesn’t only come into my mind but I love them too.

Many times, people judge the police wrongly and say all sorts of dirty things against them but some are very nice indeed.