Suspicion of theft
Have you ever been pulled over by the police to have a box of Bible handbooks inspected? I have.
It must have been about 1980 or so. The students had finished classes and exams. We teachers had meetings and then went home early. I stopped by a bookstore to pick up a set of Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible to give each graduate as a gift. I put them in the trunk of our Dodge Dart. On the way home, I turned on 112th street and then onto the frontage road along the highway.
As I approached the big slough, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a police car make the same turn. I drove along, glancing alternatively at the mirror and my speedometer: 50 km/hour. I turned left on 104th Avenue to go home and the police car followed. Something was up: I hadn’t broken any traffic laws.
I crossed the railway tracks and another slough and was at the helicopter company building about one hundred yards from home when the police car put on its flashing lights. I pulled over, obedient but puzzled. The policeman asked to see my driver’s license and registration. I started to reach into the glove compartment, and the policeman got a little excited. “Sir,” he said, “ver-r-r-r-y slowly, now. Why are you reaching into the glove compartment?” I told him that was where my wallet was. He watched as I ver-r-r-y slowly opened the glove compartment.
He asked me to get out of the car and stand facing the car. I don’t remember whether I had to place my hands on top of the car or not. The cop looked at my license, typed into his computer and looked at me again.
Just then, I noticed a cloud of dust on the dyke next to our house. A cop car came tearing down the dyke, turned onto our road and stopped right in front of my car, blocking me in.
I was completely puzzled.
The policeman said, “Sir, would you open the trunk of your vehicle?” I did, and all that was in there was a box with Bible handbooks inside. “What’s in the box, sir?” he asked guardedly, and said I should ver-r-r-y slowly open the box and show him. I did.
“Those are Bible handbooks we are giving to the Christian school graduates tonight.” Hmmm. The policeman told me that they were investigating a New Westminster bank robbery and that the thieves were driving a dark green Dodge Dart and had headed across the bridge into Surrey. He had identified my car on Highway 10. “Where do you live, sir?” I told him “right there” and pointed to Betsey, who was standing on the back porch about 100 yards away.
By this time, the officer in the cop car blocking the road in front of me came up. He identified himself as the Chief of the Delta Police Department. I said something about asking Ray Oliver, the policeman I had done some pigeon shooting with in late winter, for a character reference. So the police chief did that on his car radio.
He came back and said, “Ray said he’d trust this guy with his wife. I think we have a case of mistaken identity; it was someone else’s Dodge Dart that was the getaway car. Sorry for the inconvenience, sir.”
I went home and explained all this to my puzzled wife, Betsey.
And that’s how I can proudly (?) say that I was once pulled over by the cops on suspicion of bank robbery. And it is all true.
