THUMBS UP

 I stand before you as a man who’s been arrested, charged, prosecuted and found guilty of 

being a pedestrian. Admittedly I was a pedestrian on the hard shoulder of a motorway, and 

it’s a long story but it was a fair cop.  I went quietly.  Hitchhiking was involved, as was the 

style at the time.  I’ll spare you the rest of my ‘hitch-hiking stories.’

 

Now consider the case of Hassan Mansoor Mohammed Ameen who was found walking in the middle of a busy road at the junction of Esplanade Drive and Fullerton Road in Singapore in August 21^st, causing cars to slow down or stop.

 

It seems like one of those stories you can never quite get to the bottom of, but it sounds as though the police tried to arrest him or at least get him off the road but he resisted.  Complications ensued.

 

The following account comes from the Singaporean website Stomp,  ‘The officer told Hassan he would be placed under arrest if he did not move off the road. When he did not comply, the officers called for backup.

‘After another four officers turned up, Hassan continued to ignore instructions to get off the road.

‘Director of Public Prosecutions Iranian said: ‘The accused also adopted a fighting stance at one point, shouted repeatedly and told the police officers that they were fake police officers.’

‘When they tried to arrest Hassan, he behaved aggressively and swung his hands wildly. He pushed an officer on the chest and swung his right arm and hit another officer on the right side of his face. Another officer then tasered Hassan.  He fell down briefly but managed to get up and remove the probes from his body. Hassan then punched one of the officers before running off against the flow of traffic with the officers in pursuit.  When they caught up with him, Hassan, who had taken off his top by then, continued to resist arrest. He was finally arrested after being tasered again.”

 

         

Well, that sounds like a lot of unnecessary bother, doesn’t it?

Hassan eventually had his day in court, and copped to everything. He admitted disorderly behavior, using violence on police officers, two counts of voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servants from their duties, one count of behaving in a disorderly manner on a public road, and one count of consuming methamphetamine. He was jailed on 30 December 2021, sentenced to one year and 29 weeks in jail. 

The prosecution said he’d been taking meth weekly because he was 'bored and stressed about his personal life.'  I have no idea what the defense said.

 

         Well dude, going for a walk is a great way of alleviating boredom and stress, but not always a complete solution, obviously.  As I recall I was fined 5 quid for my illegal motorway walking, though it was in the days when 5 quid was worth something.

 

WALKING FREEWAY STYLE

As some of you will know, the only blot on my otherwise flawless, crime-free character is a bust for being a pedestrian on a motorway – England. M1, hitchhiking, 1970s – and I wish I could say it’s a long and interesting story, but it’s not.

In any case I wasn’t really ON the motorway, just on the grassy bank beside the motorway.  To actually set foot in the middle of the lanes on, say, the Hollywood Freeway, now that’s what I call being a pedestrian.

And although I still haven’t personally lived that dream, a couple of weekends back I did see a number of cops strolling about on the 101 north of downtown, thus:

There were half a dozens police cars, and they got in front of the traffic and brought it to a standstill so they could deal with a miscreant some way down the track.  I was in the front row of the cars that they stopped.

They did arrest some guy – guns were pulled though none fired, and the guy went quietly, hands up behind his neck,  but oh my there was some serious strutting by the cops as they set foot on the freeway.  That’s some Hollywood walking you’re doing there fellers.