WHEN I was 18 years old I started my first job at a company called General Lubricants. It was on Retirement Road, which sounds tame enough. But, in truth, that was less than three minutes’ drive from Arnett Gardens, the political stronghold commonly called Jungle.

The staff was made up of a set of tough guys, but they were basically good people. There were many characters there with a history of political activism. The 1970s civil war had ended less than five years before.

The owner was a strong-minded, somewhat mystical personality called John Causwell. He himself had been involved in the political arena before and had an interesting past. He was in his late 40s but seemed older. He commanded respect from the workforce and the wider community, including the surrounding political garrisons.

I was Causwell’s collector and bookkeeper. I had done the collection part before, for my father’s business while growing up. I was already a trained fighter and could bench press my own body weight. I felt invincible. Forty years later, I laugh at how deluded I was.

The job, because of the collection aspect of it and the shady characters we sold our lubricants to, often involved conflicts. One such conflict, which I will now detail, involved a man called Butter.

He was the don of Ambrook Lane at the time. He had taken our goods on credit and refused to pay for them. He sold tyres at a commercial outlet. I went to the location and took away tyres he had for sale in lieu of his debt. He was not there, which made my seizure much easier.

Well, about two hours later, this ‘cruff’ turned up at our office with blood in his eyes, upset about the tyres that he wanted returned. There was no talk about the debt he owed us, though. He was trying to assault me, and I was preparing to knock this weed-smoking, fat, short, 40-odd-year-old’s teeth down his throat.

My co-workers were unusually quiet during this encounter. So much for their tough guy act that they exhibited every other day. Mr Causwell heard the ruckus and intervened. Butter, oddly enough, simmered quite quickly in Mr Causwell’s presence. They went into the office and worked it out and Butter left, scowling at me.

He died a few years later at the hand of a man like him.

I related the incident to my father that night. He was, as you know if you are a regular reader of this column, a front-line police officer assigned to the Special Operations Squad. He was a ‘real badman police’.

I asked him what could make a man Butter’s age and in need of physical conditioning believe he could fight me. I still remember my father’s answer today. He said, “A man like that will not fight you fist for fist. He is just going to push a knife into you or pull a gun and shoot you. That is how men who have been imprisoned or lived lives with extremely violent experiences behave.”

I asked, “How then should I fight them?” He replied, “Avoid conflict. But if it starts, kill as quickly as you can.”

This put things into perspective, somewhat. I also asked why Butter had simmered down so quickly once Mr Causwell got involved. My father replied, “Because a man like that knows a man like Causwell can make one call and summon many men like him in minutes.”

I understood clearly what he meant.

Fast-forward two years. I was now 20 years old and no longer working at General Lubricants but as a full-time bad debt collector and bailiff. I was seizing a car from a policeman who had rented it but had not returned it. He was a Special Squad guy as well, but not from Operations Squad. I located the car at the officer’s home.

As I told the policeman what my intention was, he walked towards the car, got in, and before I realised what was happening, he drove off. I gave chase but couldn’t catch him. I discussed the incident with my father later that night, expressing my frustration at the subsequent loss of income. I told him that if I had been quicker I could have grabbed the officer.

My father, who knew the cop, said to me: “Never do that. A man like that won’t fight you; he will just push you off, draw his gun, and shoot you.”

I thought, there is that ‘a man like that’ again. In my bewilderment I expressed confusion about why a policeman would behave in that manner. My father replied: “Anyone exposed to extreme violence over a prolonged period will behave like that.”

Well, I knew my father had been exposed to extreme violence so I wondered silently, would he behave like that? Would he kill in a moment of provocation?

I didn’t advance the discussion.

I have had a lifetime of exposure, since then, to a significant amount of violence. This has ranged from shoot-outs to getting shot, getting attacked by mobs, to jail riots. I have always tried to monitor my character so that I don’t become what I beheld and didn’t think much of. I have engaged in self-examination often. I have asked myself, “Am I the type of man who would resort to extreme violence in response to a moment of minor provocation? Would I choose to use a weapon to fight someone who has none, without even trying to use my fists?”

I would like to think that I am different because I am actually trained, to a significant level, in unarmed combat as a martial arts practitioner. So, I am confident I can fight my way out of most situations.

That being said, had I engaged Butter in a fist fight that day he would certainly have just rammed a knife into me. I have seen how animals like Butter fight in prisons, and at 18 I was not prepared for that.

So, the question is: If I were faced with that very same conflict with Butter now, how would I handle it? Well, Mr Butter would not now be allowed to get close enough to grab me. I am armed; that gun would be coming out very quickly, and he would be warned not to come any closer. If he decided to disobey my instructions and put me in fear for my life, then I would take all necessary steps to use that firearm within the full limits of the law.

So, I would suggest to all of you out there who carry firearms not to allow the Butters of this world to get close enough to use their knives on you or to disarm you.

We have many men like Butter in our society, but they are a minority. They are created by prisons, gang life, and brutal family lives whilst growing up. Many other young men in the inner city who lack the hostility of the Butters of this world fall victim to their brutality. In a perfect world we would eliminate them from our society and drop them on some devil’s island. But we can’t.

That doesn’t make it okay for good people to champion their rights. It also doesn’t mean that we should become just like them. It is important that as lawmen we ensure that we don’t become the demons we battle. As civilians, you need to be aware of the true nature of your enemies. Even more importantly, your children also need to know.

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