The first time I’ve ever called the Police

Steve and I were driving along Tripoli Road on the way home from Pakuranga (Steve's written his account of what happened). A dark blue station wagon was parked on the side of the road (as were many other cars). Only, as we passed this one, it began to speed away. We had to swerve across the centre line to avoid hitting it.

It didn't slow down and fall in behind us either, as most cars do when they accidentally pull out like that, but kept speeding up and eventually overtook us on the inside.

After it was in front of us, the passenger door opens with what looks like a woman trying to jump out (or maybe being pushed out). Then she gets back inside (or is pulled back?), the door closes and the car speeds away again.

Unfortunately, a van pulls out between us and them and proceeds to go at 5kms an hour as it slows to park in front of the shops. "Fucking get out of the way," we yell at it. After it had pulled off, Steve sped up so we could see what was up with the car. It was weaving a little bit over the road.

Then it slows and the door opens again as the woman seems to try to get out again. Maybe she's being abducted? The driver takes off again turning down a side road, and I told Steve to follow it. SOmething was clearly wrong, and we still don't have the licence plate number.
At this point we don't know what's going on though -- Steve is worred that the guy will see us following and be pissed off. I'm thinking someone maybe they're drunk and definitely shouldn't be driving, so I call *555 on my cellphone but can barely hear the operator and eventually get disconnected. We followed him on to Riverside Ave. Steve fishes around in his pants for his phone while I hold the wheel. Fortunately it's a straight road with little trafic.

The car heads north and then suddenly screeches to a stop in a cloud of smoke, blocking the road. We duck down a side road and stop in a cul de sac. I'm busy try to call 555 on Steve's phone but it took me a while to figure out the keylock. I ask Steve if he wants to call, but he says for me to do it. I finally get the phone unlocked, while Steve turns the car around and we slowly drive past them on Riverside as I reconnect to 555 and start telling the operator the latest story, giving him the car numberplate.

At this point, the woman is out of the car and walking/running away from the car.
The operator asks if she's wearing pajamas. I say I think so, Steve says that its a brown top. The operator says they had a report of a guy hitting a woman in pyjamas in Tripoli road, presumably before they pulled out in front of us. We turn the corner to go around the block.

The operator asks what the street name is. What road is this? I ask Steve (should have known it was a pointless question). "Fucked if I know, he yells, we're at the intersection of some fucking road and some other fucking road". I swear the operator actually laughed.

Anyway, even though Steve was shouting and swearing, he did a great job of following the guy without crashing or losing him.

I see the street signs and tell the operator where we are, and I continually narrate what we saw and where we are as we go back around the block. Steve adds details that I didn't see while I was trying to get through to the operator, including that the woman was crying. I tell both Steve and the operator that we should go back around and see if she's OK. We get back into Riverside drive and see the woman walking down the road with some other guy, who has his arms around her shoulders.

She seems to be stumbling. The car is gone from where it was blocking the road before. I narrate all this to the police operator and then I spot the car, it is across the road from where the woman is walking south. She is walking southbound on the western footpath, and the guy is slowly creeping his car southbound on the eastern side of the road. She's still walking/stumbling with some guy, meanwhile it looks like the car was stalking her. Every now and then the driver leans out the window towards her, but we can't hear what he says, if anything.

"She's fucking in distress", Steve is yelling beside me. "You need to fucking get a car here now".

By this stage, there are two other cars who are watching this as well, and their drivers/passengers are probably on the phone to the police control centre as well. The police operator tells me that they have got multiple reports of it now.

I'm still narrating everything I see to the operator. Then, the man who was escorting the woman turns back, and she continues on. Immediately, the car pulls across into a driveway in front of her, and the guy jumps out and grabs her. She twists out of his grip and tries to run away. He chases her and catches her in the middle of the road. I'm narrating all this to the operator as it happens.

Steve is yelling his head off: "Holy fuck, he's chasing her, he's hurting her. She's in mortal danger. You need to fucking get a fucking police car here right this fucking minute or he'll fucking kill her. Where the fuck are all the police, what the fuck are they doing? Fucking get a police car here right now. Why don't they fucking do something?"

Throughout this I'm still trying to calmly narrate everything to the operator, and answer his questions about what's happening. I keep whacking Steve and telling him to shut up, calm down, the police are coming, they've sent a car, shut up, that isn't helping.

Steve is now yelling, 'Why don't they fucking come help her, he's hitting her, he's going to kill her'.

During most of this, the girl and the guy were on the road, arguing, he kept trying to grab her arm, and she kept twisting away. He wasn't actually punching her or kicking her and she didn't seem to be in imminent danger of harm. He was either trying to abduct her, or it was a "domestic". Hence, I was still happy to stay in the car and wait for the police to deal with it.

At one point, though, they guy grabs her and nearly drags her (on her feet) all the way back to the car. I narrate this to the operator and ask if we should intervene.

Meanwhile, Steve is even more vocally yelling about how she is in mortal danger and the police need to get there right this minute.

The operator is saying things to me like 'tell him to be quiet', 'tell him to calm down', 'there's more history behind this' and then says 'put me on to him'. He tells Steve that there is a car on the way, and then Steve hands the phone back to me.

When the phone comes back to me the operator says that he advises we don't get involved but that he can't tell us what to do. At this point, the girl has now managed to twist free again, and is across the road from where the car is parked. The guy and the woman are now standing under a tree the side of the road - he has his arms around her. There are a couple of people now standing around who came out of neighbouring houses.

I'm feeling helpless, and bad for just watching, but I'm not all that keen on physically intervening myself. They guy could most certainly kick my ass. But if he tries to force her into the car again, or starts actually hurting her, I think I would get out and do something. I think that with the other drivers and neighbours there now we could stop him.

Luckily, it doesn't come to that because at this point, the police car arrives. Steve flashes the lights and they pull up and the two cops jump out and go over to the couple. After a very brief encounter, one officer puts the woman's hands behind her back. He doesn't cuff her, but marches her over to the police car and talks to her. The other officer is talking to the guy.

One of the three cars that was there watching drives off. The other pulls up behind the cops and presumably asks if they need him for anything. The cop shakes his head and motions him to leave, so we do likewise.

After we take a roundabout route back home, we see the cop car again, empty.

Whatever happened, I'm guessing it either wasn't a big deal, or nobody wanted to press charges.

But still, if I saw the same circumstances again, I'd call the police again. And I think I might take a self-defense class sometime soon.