Friday 7 December 2012

Police and thieves


Police And Thieves by Junior Murvin on Grooveshark
FG has a reputation among the metros (people from mainland France) as being lawless, and there's no denying it can feel wild west.
The presence of the various forces of order are felt universally on the territory, and their ineffectiveness is universally commented on. Gendarmes-  military police, Police municipale - community police, Police national, BAC, Douane - customs... Babylon, as anyone who's crossed them may call them. Various unpleasant characters in all of their ranks (in the interests of fairness, surely some good cops among them too)
In Chicago, a shabby neighbourhood along the stinking crique in Cayenne, you can buy any drug, sexual service, weapon, you could dream of, more at risk of being mugged than being arrested. Dealers sit openly on street corners, they'll cheep for your attention as you pass. At night, small bars open, playing bachata, zouk, compa, dancehall. Creoles, Brazilians, Haitians  Dominicans, Guyanese, Surinamese meander from one bar to the next. Inside, old and young couples dance under dappled light in dark bars and lone men eye up groups of women like hungry dogs. Rum, Heineken, Guiness and Desperados are bought and drunk, from behind the counter or from tired Dominican grannies in backstreet houses.
Edge and Chez Fédé (known universally as 'shitty bar') are two joints popular among the young of Cayenne's neighbourhoods, playing booming dancehall (endless PULLUPS). The air is heavy with smoke from cigarettes and joints, you enter confronting the gaze of revellers lined back to the wall on either side of the room, dancing alone or backstyle, gently or vigorously. As long as the place is full there's atmosphere - joyous and tense. Fights can, and do, break out at any time on a Friday or Saturday night down la Crique. In the midst of the first row of bars, along the canal itself, where scooters buzz past and fancy cars cruising for something illicit drag by, a large open space, in the evening filled with vehicles, dealers, men. This is where things blow up, when they do. As it ''heats up'', some people will leave, some will crowd around whatever action is erupting, others standing back waiting for it to cool down again.

I heard that in most of France, Gendarmes work in the countryside and Police in the towns- here, Gendarmes organise check points along main roads, pulling you over to check your papers, your vehicle's insurance or your immigration status. Me, a white girl, I don't have much to worry about, all I've had from them is some sleazy chat up lines and been on my way, even without the correct paperwork. Friends have had their rides confiscated.

Gendarmes have periods of checkpointing; it must be some quota imposed by bureaucrats. End of April, end of December, round the 27th of some months. Sometimes it's not just routine, sometimes you sense there's a motive and a profiling to the whole game; perhaps the trail of some criminal.

One sunday afternoon, on the way back from the beach with some youth from my neighbourhood, one guy spots a checkpoint ahead and we turn fast into backroads. The sky is clear deep blue, dry season, we zip through suburban streets, two to a scooter, drinking, high spirits among us. There's no doubt we'd get searched if we passed the cops, and all the scooters are illegal in some way or other- lack of insurance, paperwork, over the limit, stolen. We emerge onto the main road, checkpoint behind us, passing through to get more beers before heading back the street outside our houses.


The BAC are one of the meanest police forces around.
THEY're the wild west.
The first time I met the BAC, I was driving with a friend towards the bars, late saturday night. Suddenly there's an SUV besides us, a squeel of sirens, and wound down windows with guns pointed.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
-to the bars

And that's all. Then they're gone. The BAC deal with serious criminality but mainly they seem to deal in shows of force.

Early evening. Two cops walk up my road, Rene Jadfard, on the borderline of the calm and the 'chaud' districts of Cayenne. They're plain clothes, two huge, hench, rectangular white men, shoulders together, guns in pockets...They don't go unremarked.
The young people in this neighbourhood, mostly under 25, mostly unqualified, mostly first generation or immigrants, are unfazed. Several of them, the ones I see most often, work informally from their yards or apartments as tattooists, piercers and small time drug runners. Mornings, afternoons, evenings, sometimes through til dawn: sitting on steps or plastic chairs on the wide pavement, drinking everpopular Cayenne drinks: Rum, Heineken, Guiness; sharing joints and cigarettes. Boys talk nonsense, bravado and girls, girls talk girl talk.
The two cops walk past, robots to their mission, youths hang, normal.

Sometimes other cops will come hassle here: they know that there's always some vagabonds around they can work some tension out on. They roll up in their car, search all the guys, remind them of their failings, leave them to their business. The guys are resigned - there's no point putting up a fight, just comply and the cops won't even take your weed from you. It's such an old routine, Babylon know what they will get; the kids know it won't change anything. More than one amongst them here are illegal, but they've been here long enough that they're not going to get deported- so this old piece of theatre is played out, once again, on a slow hot afternoon.


2 comments:

  1. Great to hear about your escapades, and very well written. Really gripping to read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers man, appreciate you taking an interest. Peace and love! x

      Delete