Aldgate East

It had been a difficult day for John Harper. This was the fourth time that he had visited the
East London mosque in the last couple of weeks, and each visit seemed to be getting harder.

He was a Race Relations officer, working closely with the Youth Justice System, and his usually balanced view was being stretched to the limit. The Muslim community was becoming nervous by the growing use of seemingly random stops under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, even though in January 2010, the Strasbourg court ruled that it was unlawful for police to use the powers: to stop and search people without needing any grounds for suspicion. A more alarming aspect of this situation, were whispers of police officers hiding their ID numbers during these searches, thus making it very difficult to bring any action against them. The police in turn were denying many of these activities, but were open about their concerns at the rumours going around about growing terrorist organisations in the area. That Tuesday had truly turned into ‘Devil’s Advocate Day’ for John, and he had hated every minute of it.

He was relieved that the day was nearly over, and it was finally time to go home. Walking to the nearest train station, a poster caught his eye: A picture of the prime minister, advertising the coming election. Someone had drawn a pair of glasses and a moustache on it. John smiled.

“Bloody general election’s tomorrow,” he thought. “I’ll be glad when it’s over. Who cares who wins anyway? They’re all the same. I just want to stop hearing about it every night on the news.”

He looked at the back of his A to Z studying the London Underground map. Putting the book back into his pocket, he visualized his journey home: the usual cramped and uncomfortable fight to the death. Even getting on the tube train was a feat in its self, and then, once on the train, standing like sardines; his face inches away from an equally distressed stranger; both of them pretending as though it wasn’t happening.

As he approached Aldgate East station, he noticed an Asian man coming out of the busy station, and walking in his direction. The man looked over at a police car that was parked outside, then quickly looked away. At that moment, two white police officers got out of the patrol car and approached him. With that he looked agitated and started to run. The policemen proceeded to chase him, all three men now running in John’s direction.

“Stop! Police!” One of the officers shouted loudly.

Then the noise of a gun shot rang out, followed by another. A woman started screaming, and people ran in all directions, confused and panic stricken.

John ran into a nearby doorway, waited for a moment, then gingerly looked out along the street. The Asian man was laying on the floor; his pain all too obvious as he writhed around on the pavement. The two police officers were standing over him.

John ran over to them.

“Stay back sir, this is a police matter!” one of the officers barked loudly, holding his hand up in an authoritarian fashion.

“Ok ok,” John said, stopping in his tracks, “but he needs an ambulance!”

A crowd was starting to gather around them, and the other policeman was talking on his radio.

“An ambulance will be here in a minute,” the officer said, “now everyone, just give us some space.”

An Asian man pushed his way to the front of the crowd, sporting a large scar down his face.

“He ain’t got a weapon on him!” he shouted at the police, “So why the fuck did you shoot him?”

Jeers started building from the crowd, and John noticed that the ID numbers on their uniforms had black tape over them.

“Listen mate,” one of the policeman answered, “just back off! This is not your business!”
An ambulance then pulled up in front of the police car, and two paramedics jumped out, running around the back and opening both doors. Taking out a stretcher they ran over to the crowd.

People were growing very restless; pushing and shoving, and several people were shouting at the police.

“Just get him in there now!” the policeman shouted at the paramedics, ushering towards the ambulance.

As it pulled away, sirens blaring, the police ran to their car and screeched off behind it.

Pure rage and confusion was fuelling many of the onlookers, and there seemed to be quite a number of young Asian men in the crowd.

The guy with a scar down his face started addressing the crowd.

“Those bastards can’t get away with this!” he said, “we need to make a stand; otherwise anyone of us could be next!”

“This is crazy,” John thought, “I cannot believe what I have just witnessed! And this crowd is starting to look very menacing; besides, I have to see if that injured guy is ok. They must be taking him to the Royal London Hospital. It’s the closest A & E department.”

He swiftly turned and started walking in the direction of the hospital, leaving the volatile and noisy crowd behind him.

As he approached the A & E department, through a combination of running and walking, he ran in to the reception. Panting with exhaustion, he leaned on the desk.

“You’ve just had a guy brought in with gunshot wounds,” he said, “is he ok?”

The receptionist looked at her computer monitor, and tapped a couple of buttons while scanning the screen.

“Erm, sorry, but I have nothing showing here. What is his name?”

John thought for a moment.

“I… I don’t know,” John mumbled, “it only happened about twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago. Surely you must have a record of it? He was brought in by ambulance.”

The receptionist looked again.

“No,” she said, scanning the screen once again, “there hasn’t been anyone admitted with those types of injuries, not on my system anyway.”

She then spun around in her chair and picked up a phone.

“James? It’s Donna. Yes hi, listen, there’s a guy here who’s looking for a patient with gunshot wounds. Do you know anything about it?”

She sat listening on the phone, swivelling backwards and forwards on her chair, chewing the end of her pen.

“Ok, I didn’t think so but I thought I’d better check. Thanks.”

Putting the phone down, she turned back to John.

“I’m sorry sir, but we definitely have not had anyone with gunshot wounds. Perhaps he was taken to another hospital.”

“No.” John said, thinking for a moment while wiping his forehead, “it happened just around the corner, and the ambulance headed in this direction. There isn’t another A & E department for miles!”

“Sorry sir,” she repeated smiling helplessly, “I’m afraid there’s nothing that I can do.”

John wandered out of the hospital in a daze.
“How can a hospital not know that they have a gunshot victim?” he thought, “It doesn’t make any sense.”

As he made his way back to the station, he was awoken from his thoughts by the noise of sirens. They were everywhere, and people were running past him looking frightened, away from the station. As he got nearer he realised his worst nightmares: shop windows smashed; burglar alarms ringing; several cars set on fire, a couple of which were turned upside down on their roofs. It was a full blown riot.

Shit,” he thought, “I’d better get out of here!”

After running for about fifteen minutes John decided that he was out of danger, so he stopped to get his breath back, and sat on a garden wall. It was a quiet suburban road. As he sat there panting for breath, a police car slowly drove past and turned down a side road.

“That’s funny,” John thought, “I recognise that registration number from somewhere.”

Trawling through the events of the day, he remembered that it was the police car involved in the shooting, but what was it doing there? Perhaps they were keeping that poor injured guy somewhere, wondering how to get out of the mess that they had caused. Perhaps he was even dead!

John mustered up the courage to investigate, and very cautiously followed the route of the police car. At the end of that quiet and secluded side road there was a long line of garages, and parked right at the end was the car. He could see that the doors of the last garage were open, and although frightened, John had to know the truth. As he peered into the garage he couldn’t believe what he saw: The injured Asian man was still alive, sitting on the floor, leaning up against the wall. He was alone so John walked in.

“Are you ok?” John asked crouching down in front of him. “Where are they: The Police?”

The man looked up at him but said nothing.

“Come on,” John nervously said as he kept looking over his shoulder, “let’s get out of here!”

As the man continued to just sit and stare at him, a vehicle pulled up outside and John jumped up. He could hear voices, and footsteps getting closer and closer. John stood looking at the garage doors. He could feel himself shaking. A group of men dressed casually appeared at the entrance to the garage.

“Who are you?” one of the men asked.

“This man needs help!” John stammered, trying not to show his fear.

“And why is that?” The man asked, looking more serious.

As he looked around at the Asian man, who was now standing with his arms crossed, John noticed that he wasn’t injured at all.

“But, but that’s impossible!” John said, as his fear turned to bewilderment, “I saw it happen. You were shot.”

John’s fear quickly returned as he turned to face the other men, one of whom was standing right in front of him. He recognised him as one of the policemen, dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt.

“Do we waste him Boss?” one of the men at the back of the group said, pulling a gun from his pocket and calmly screwing a silencer to it.

The man standing in front of John thought for a moment, keeping constant eye contact with him.

“Hmmm. No, it’s too messy, besides, who would ever believe him. Anyway, I think the Police have enough on their plate at the moment.

As the men laughed, John recognised more of them: The ambulance men; the Asian guy with a scar down his face. They were all there.

A lorry backed down towards the garage and stopped.

“Get that police car and the ambulance in the lorry,” the man in tee-shirt said to the others, “It’s time to go.”

The men started walking out of the garage.

“So it was all an act then?” John asked still physically shaking with fear, “but why?”
As the group started loading the Lorry, the man in the tee-shirt turned and faced John smiling.

“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. We’ll be out of here shortly, and like I said before, no one is going to believe you. Something like a riot can do a government a lot of damage. Especially the day before an election, know what I mean? There are some pretty influential people in this country who just wanted to tilt the balance slightly, that’s all.”

“And do you think that is right?” John bravely asked, “People could die in that riot!”

“Well boo fucking hoo,” the man said as he turned and walked towards the loaded lorry, “it’s all about the bigger picture, and if there are casualties, so what!”

As the lorry pulled away, John breathed a sigh of relief and started on his journey home. He thought about the day’s events, and how he had read the situation completely wrong. He thought about all the violence, and how he was powerless to stop it. He thought about how many other terrible events in history had been orchestrated by people like them, but most of all, he couldn’t help but think… who really runs this country?