Brushes with the law

[Caomhaoin]

I recently got cited for a large number of motoring offenses and it's not the first time I've had some langer in a robe with a gavel giving it the big one in front of me. I got caught speeding on the Kilkenny-Carlow road when I was 20 or so and 'Shamed the family' etc when it appeared in the Kilkenny people that I was over the limit.

Got the makings of a joint taken off me when I was young but no charge.

Any scealaí?

[Ollkiller]

Criminal damage and trespassing when we broke into a school at night drunk as fuck. Got off with a probation report as the probation officer was my friends ould lad. Thank fuck.

Also at knockcroghery in roscommon at a punk festival I got caught with 20 quid of hash when 30 cops raided the place. They were vicious in the raid. Kicking the crap out of people. One young fella had a camera in one hand recording it and a phone in the other. When a cop said to stop filming he handed the phone to the guard. His ould lad was the chief judge on the supreme court. I could be wrong but I believe no one got done because of that video.  Now after the cop searched me he phoned the local garda station to confirm my identity. I gave him a name of a local guard who was my Gaelic football coach at the time. After the phone call the cop changed his tune and said dont worry about it. Again thank fuck.

Crazy to think how minor scrapes when your young could fuck up your later life. I was very lucky.

Edit both happened back in 1998 or 1999.

[astfgyl]

I've a decent couple but nothing in the last few years. I'll throw in a couple when I'm on the laptop

[ochoill]

Nothing hectic but funny ones.  Got caught with two friends drinking a flagon walking up through the town drunk on a new years eve about 20 years ago.  Gardai told us to put it away and go home, then followed us up the road and searched us.  We had nothing but they took a ripped up pack of silk cut ultra filled with skins and half fags (lol), asked me what it was for so I told them I gave them up for new years and was rolling up half fags out of what I had left for the evening.  Bum excuse but ultimately we were all 18 and had nothing on us so just got sent home with our flagons.

Another New Year's - in Vancouver, went drinking with work mates from about noon on a half day, wife meets us a little while in.  We get absolutely blistered.  In a pub a good bit outside the city and have to get the bus & train home (no bother, an hour-ish).  Just us two, not being shitty but being sloppy Irish Abroad style locked.  She says she feels sick, asks to get off, we both jump off the bus at a stop near a shop.  I leave her sitting on a wall and go get a bottle of water... and come back to four cops asking her what she was doing and if I knew her.  Seemingly saw her slumped on the wall waiting for me.  One of them won't let me over to her.  "Is this man with you?  are you safe?"  Both of us started laughing, the cops mood turns and they are pissed off with both of us now.  ID'd, Address given, warning about being so locked in public (we could barely stand up), and then they wouldn't let us get the bus home, instead they phoned a taxi for us and wouldn't leave until we got in it.  We were so far out of town we must have been on the wrong bus, paid the bones of 40 quid back to the gaff.  8pm when we got back, she went to bed, I rang in the year on my own with a pizza lol.

More Vancouver, less trouble but still great - messing one night with friends in the house and they locked us out while having a can outside chatting.  Friend tries to push the door back in and a whole pane of glass in it just falls out, in one piece, and smashes on the ground.  Laugh about it, tape it up with a bag, forget about it.  The bag comes loose at some point but we didn't look at it again for weeks.

A friend from home comes to visit and we all plan a day's snowboarding.  One of the girls living with us can't get the day off work so she says she will ring in sick.  Up cypress mountain for the day, right buzz, none of us have any signal up there so she can't call in, we laugh at how much shit she will get in for a no-show.

We get back at all hours, crocked from it, and flake off in the house getting wrecked and drinking.  There is about an oz of smoke laid out on a chopping board that we're all working off.  Next there's a knock on the door, a very official knock.  "VPD, could you please open the door for us?".  Fuck that's loud, it's like they're in the room with us.  Instant fear (the green isn't fully legal yet there) and panic cleaning the house, my friend starts saying "hide it, slide it under the couch, fuck" we don't even have the door answered.

"It's okay guys", says the cop, "we're not here for that".  His whole face was leaning in through the broken window on the door watching us all scurry around the room, absolutely clouded with smoke.

Oh.  How can we help?

"We're looking for a Siobhán, is she with you?"

Yeah, she stands up, is everything alright?

"Can you let us in please, we need to talk to you?"  He's still just a face in a broken window.

Yeah of course, come in!

The rest of us are still shitting it.  Maybe if it was just a joint then grand but a full oz, jesus they would definitely do us, surely.  We open the door, it's a fuckin detective and two cops.  They introduce themselves and two of them go to the kitchen with Siobhán.  One lad just stands at the door looking around at us.  "So... you guys from Ireland?  Having a good time?"

Ahh yeah we were snowboarding, just relaxing there now garda-sorry officer.

"Cool".  We all just sit in silence looking at the cutting board at our feet.  The rest of them come back.  "Thanks for your help guys and ahh... take it easy right?" the three of them are laughing at us.

No bother officer thanks.  Sweating.  They're gone.  But what did they want Siobhán for?

Turns out when she no-showed at work, they didn't get thick about it, they got worried.  It was a small shop and they all knew each other.  Tried calling her but couldn't get through (because we were already up the mountain), then called her boyfriend, who wasn't with us and didn't know where we were.  He tries calling a few of us, no answer.  He decides to call to the house, nobody is there, he manages to climb in the back window to her room, and sees that the house is just as-is, like we had just abandoned it.  He gets worried that something has happened, and calls her work back.  They get supremely worried, dig out her fucking next-of-kin number on her forms from work, and it's her mother.  In Ireland.  They CALL HER, say her daughter and all her friends have gone missing, and nobody can find them.  It has been probably six fucking hours.  She freaks out, tells them to call the cops, cops obviously won't take a missing persons report for something so ridiculous so they said they'll keep it in mind and check the house later, if something is wrong they'll go further with it.  Somehow a fuckin detective ends up in the car with the two patrol cops and swings past, finding us.  Completely, totally overblown response to not showing up to work lol.  Fair fuckin funny when she turned her phone back on and had about 1000 texts and calls looking for her.

These are the best ones, I have been got with noise complaints several times in both countries, they were always tame.

[StoutAndAle]

"We're looking for a Siobhán, is she with you?"

That is class.

[ochoill]

"We're looking for a Siobhán, is she with you?"

That is class.

I have to clarify on a re-read, even though the smoke wasn't fully legal at the time, the cops would mostly turn a blind eye to it.  Completely forgot I got stopped for drinking in public there once on the beach and was made empty my cans into the sand, even the unopened ones.  Threatened with a fine and all.  By comparison the same cops (quad bike beach cops lol) drove past me another night while I was sitting there smoking a joint and just said "no smoking on the beach, move on".

I also drank on that beach and in alleyways more than in pubs (it was great sport) so was fairly adept at hiding the drink most of the time.  Wife & I on the beach one evening with a slab of cans under a blanket, listening to tunes, same cops pulled another group of Irish lads beside us - didn't know them, just heard them and copped the accent - caught them drinking, and again made them tip out every can into the sand.  They probably had a little case each and there was about six of them.  Hilarious but maddening.  They just ignored us because we looked like a couple enjoying the sunset instead of horsing in PBR in an effort to make the pub visit later more entertaining lol