Law Enforcement pros tricked again

A policeman was wounded yesterday in another botched raid on a suspected gunrunning yakuza hideout (apartment). Yokohama's finest went to the apartment without a warrant and knocked on the door asking to enter. The thugs declined by sending a guy outside who locked the door in front of the officers' faces. Being unprepared for such stubbornness, the cops with no warrant did not get out the battering ram to take the door down. Like the warrant, they did not have one, so they tried to pry the door open (with what? A plastic spoon?)

Being sharper than when they let Ms. Hawker's killer escape, the specialists then---and only then---decided to send someone to the rear of the apartment to cut off escape. Sometime during this one of the thugs shockingly fired a shot wounding an inspector in the arm. After a discussion and a 30-minute investigation, they decided that the apartment occupants might possibly be criminals despite the fact that they did not appear to be foreigners. (OK, I made the sentence last up, hoping it was not true.)

The guy outside with the cops cleverly escaped (possibly during the confusion over criminals who were not foreigners). After waiting for backup to arrive which then fully surrounded the apartment on the wild theory that perhaps the crooks might try to escape or something, they stormed the apartment----to find nobody there!!

I wish this were a joke, but alas: Japan Times Online HERE.

Guess I can understand why the police prefer to go after British garbage rule violators. It is much safer for the hapless fellows, and garbage thugs generally don't confuse the poor cops by resisting or escaping.