What has happened to the Police force that used to have the world's highest arrest rate?

Text: WATANABE Kenji (Japan)

I commute to my company by motor bike. The other night a truck driving in front of me hit a pedestrian on the left side of the road. To my surprise, the driver didn't stop. I chased the truck, but the driver kept going, even driving through red lights. I chased it also ignoring the signals, but couldn't catch up. Finally the driver had to stop at the intersection of a main street. As I did not have a notebook, I tried hard to memorize the number plate. When I returned to where the pedestrian was hit, I found him crouching down and bleeding from the head so I called the police and an ambulance.

After an ambulance took the victim away, two policemen arrived in a patrol car. One of the policemen said arrogantly, "You were the one who witnessed the accident? Write your name in this paper." I was angry because I was being treated almost like a criminal although I was concerned about the victim. I returned home. An hour later I returned to the scene of the accident where I saw the victim's possessions lying scattered and circled with chalk. It was unbelievable so I called up the police. The policeman reluctantly said, "It costs money to investigate the victim's possessions. He was not badly injured. We cannot do much more as we do not have much money for investigation work."

I could not tolerate the policeman's attitude so I called his supervisor, but was told he could not come to the phone as he was sleeping. The following day I called the Metropolitan Police Department and explained what had happened. The next day the police chief came to see me and apologize but I had exhausted my anger by that time.

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