Robocop acquitted

Bob Dylan wrote two songs in the early ‘60s. Actually, Bob Dylan wrote a lot of songs in the early ‘60s, but there’s two in particular I have in mind while writing this.

One is a plaintive dirge called Percy’s Song about a friend of his who crashes a car causing the deaths of our others. Though Dylan pleads with the judge, he ends up with a ninety-nine year sentence. Each verse in the song ends with the haunting refrain, ‘turn, turn to the rain and the wind’. Joan Baez does a beautiful version in Don’t Look Back.

The other is the angrier Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. Based on a newspaper story Zimmerman read, it concerns a black waitress killed inexplicably by a wealthy tobacco heir, who ends up with a six-month sentence. The most striking line is when the judge reminds us that ‘the ladder of law has no top and no bottom’ recounted by Bob in the rasping, sarcastic voice that never survived his motorcycle crash.

Those of us in whose minds Dylan’s lyrics blaze like burning coals can’t help but remember them as we read of the outcome of the Donal Corcoran case. Corcoran was the giant, cold-eyed garda who, by his own admission, used ‘excessive force’ when dealing with some students who were doing nothing more than dancing in the street at the Reclaim the Streets rally two years ago.

Nice of him to be so honest, you might think, though he was filmed bludgeoning three students over the head by both RTE and TV3, so he’s not in much of a position to deny it.

Instead his defence rested on notion that he was acting in self-defence. Which, as his victims were three teenage students and he’s a 6’4 inch hulk seems a bit specious to me. Especially as the gardai against protection against assault that the rest of us would only receive in some fantastic Platonic polis. As you probably know, there’s dozens of violent criminals roaming around the streets after walking on a suspended sentence while you can theoretically be put in jail just for telling a guard to go fuck himself.

So Corcoran could have just the students do their worst, which probably wouldn't have been all that bad, really, and watch them go down. Instead he gave them a lifeline by clubbing them over the head several times and then dragging them into a paddy wagon.

At least that’s what the evidence of eyewitnesses, press and TV photographers suggests. However the jury in the trial yesterday were warned not to be swayed by such evidence. Why ever not, one is left to wonder, particularly as they seem to have received no reciprocal warning not to take Corcoran’s word at face value. Instead they were asked to put themselves in the mind of the ‘alleged’ assailant.

This puzzled me somewhat, as I always thought they handed in their grey matter when they started their course at Templemore. Perhaps they asked Garda Corcoran to give them a few well-aimed strikes at their frontal lobes so they could get inside his disproportionately small head, to which he would have been only too happy to oblige, I would have thought.

What other explanation could there be for their willingness to believe that Corcoran genuinely believed that he was in danger and that he’s been racked with guilt these last two years? If you believe that... well, are you free for the two remaining trials?

It could also be, of course, that the idea that our brave boys in blue might lie to cover their asses might be a bit much for some people to take. We might be able to accept that the guards are a bit slow on the uptake and just that little bit stand-offish when it comes to dealing with serious criminals, but the idea that they might lie to us is a bit much. After all, if this were true, then they could get any of us that they’d taken a bit of a disliking to just by fabricating some evidence. That’s a terrifying thought, n’est ce pas?

That’s the sort of thing that might stop the clamour from the plain people of Ireland for more cops on the streets.

What motivates this clamour? We already have the second highest amount of cops in the OECD, per capita, so many that they can’t afford cop cars for them all and some of them have to make do with bikes.

I think it may be that many people believe that if there were more cops, there might be less serious crime, which on the face of it is a reasonable enough proposition.

The truth, of course, is that more police would lead to more immigrants and more users of recreational drugs being bullied, while the heroin dealers would still live in their mansions and thugs would roam the streets as usual.

It would lead to more police at events like Reclaim the streets, which in turn would lead to more violence.

But when someone tried to point this out on the Late, Late Show, he was shouted down by the mob, led by that blustering, incoherent demagogue, Eoghan Harris.

So when Michael McDowell orders 2000 more culchie-sized blue uniforms, he’ll be able to claim quite legitimately that he’s doing the will of the people.

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fear, bury the rag deep in your face, now’s the time for your tears.

After two desk-bound years, Corcoran has returned to his job as an ethnic liaison officer. Bad news for those of us who want a more multicultural society, but some succour for those who regret that there’s no Irish National party to vote for.