"Believed to be Black"

Sounds like the title of a song that *I* would come up with, a sort of reverse-engineered Hurricane rant.

But puLEEZ. Grow up, you over-PC PCs ....

In late 1981, soon after getting married, I was parked outside Balham tube waiting to meet my wife and out sprinted these black youths, looking like they'd committed some villainy and moving fast in the way that whitey never quite manages. Then emerged my wife in tears.

I actually gunned the Renault 5 across the traffic and down the pavement in pursuit. Of course, I never got near because I would have had to have mown down innocents, but the anger was on me.

When we gave our statements to the police, I was time and again queried over my assumption that they were of a different hue:

It was evening, hard to tell in that light; what did I mean that ... er ... the alleged offenders somehow had a different more athletic gait? Did I have anything prejudicial against ... er ... people of a different ... um ...?

I did keep my temper. My wife was weeping and I didn't intend my anger to spill over and give PC Plod an excuse to plod even slower on this hopeless case.

But here's an indication of my mood: I found a useless briefcase, weighted it with one of my pump-iron discs, and hovered at the top of the escalator to spot anyone else being robbed so as to thump the thieves for a six as they sprinted up and into range.

No success, but I sure as hell was ready to lash out.

Post-script: I went to link Dylan's chef-d'oeuvre Hurricane to this piece but also spotted this abomination - WTF? I thought we had roving bands of vigilantes out there, blow torches and pliers, ready to get medieval on meddlers like this.