Coincidences

I remember watching a documentary about my country's police force. A cop was responding to a report of a mugging. He was late, so he tried to do patrols around the general area perps usually frequented on the off-chance he might find the criminal. By a stroke of luck he found the criminal, who bolted. Mr. Cop gave chase, all the way into shanties - think like the old Kowloon Walled City, but wide instead of tall - in the dead of night.

Now, Mr. Cop might be a lot of things but he has my respect for being brave enough to go into the dark where knives and drug addicts and professional criminals and cop-haters abound, at night without backup other than a cameraman. 

What he was not though, was possessing of mighty endurance. He had to stop and the perp disappeared around a corner. For a while, it seemed like a clean getaway. But lo! Our intrepid authority figure spied lounging against a wall, a man who could have been in his twenties or forties. Mr. Cop put a hand on him, asking who he was, where he lived. The man was calm, even after our policeman put the handcuffs on him. It seems like our hero has caught his man.

I remember distinctly, wondering why the "perp" wasn't even breathing hard or sweating after an extended chase. He didn't have anything on his hands, no jewels or money or weapons. He had already outrun the cop, why then would he suddenly decide to stop and pretend he was a bystander, in his own turf? 

Mr. Cop had a cameraman shadowing him; he elected to chase after a criminal; he couldn't have ended the adventure empty-handed. The bystander was convenient. Most likely, he was wanted for something or was about to be wanted for something - that's usually the way things go with people from the slums. The poor sap was there. That was all our cop needed.