A City That Cares….

We know pretty well that newsmen create some of the news these days wittingly or unwittingly. The intense competition to be there first for “breaking news” by print and television journalists sometimes results in news that is their own creation. I never thought that policemen ever faced such competition. Now, according to recent news reports, the policemen in Dubai started to create their own crimes.

Take a look at a story published yesterday in the Gulf News “CID man gets suspended jail term for firing at car” (http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/08/22/10148332.html ). Apparently, a Dubai court sentenced a suspended jail term to a 25-year-old “Yemeni policeman” (it must be a citizen of Yemen working for Dubai Police, not a policeman from Yemen) who fired five bullets and endangered the lives of a young unmarried U.A.E. National couple. The court also found the couple guilty of having sex in a tinted car and sentenced them also a suspended jail term. Another policeman also was handed a suspended jail term for chasing them and blocking their car.

How did the police man notice the couple having an intimate private moment in a tinted car? UAE law stipulates that films with 70 per cent or higher visible light transmission (VLT) may only be used in car windows. Not in these cars. No way. If you live in Dubai, you will notice that most of the cars on the roads have films with less than 1% VLT – they are almost opaque. Probably they did the act in a desolate place, and the policeman’s suspicion was aroused by movements of a stationary car caused by the passionate act of the couple. Who wouldn’t be? Can’t you see an opportunity here? I could see a great marketing potential for a safe AVS in addition to the ABS standard in such cars – an Anti Vibration System that locks a vehicles’s suspension system when needed. An AVS that is guaranteed to arrest any external manifestation of vibration even at the height of intense passion by its occupiers.

P.S. None of our friends, neither the policemen nor the couple, will spend time in prison. They are free as long as each individual will not commit another crime during the term of their suspended sentence. Can there be anything more impressive– a court finds both parties (on either side of the law) guilty, and then serve all parties suspended jail terms. This can happen only in a city that cares.