La Policia

Coming from North America my preconceived notion of what the police would be like here was something fearsome. I imagined them taking kickbacks and bribes, turning a blind eye towards crime, prone to arrest wealthy looking foreigners for the sake of a payout. Although I haven't talked about it at length with many Argentinians it seems that I was pretty far off.
For the most part police corruption is far more clandestine than I had previously thought and doesn't seem to extend to the run-of-the-mill cops on the beat. In fact, there seems to be such an ingrained distrust of the police and authority figures in general that legislation has been passed that severely limits the power of the police force.
For example, our first Saturday night here Graham and I went out for a lovely stroll after dinner, the air was still thick from the hottest summer in 30 years and there was a cool breeze cutting through it gifting us refreshing relief. The first pangs of excitement at being in a new, exotic country hadn't worn off yet and everything was still wonderful. When we got back to our door from the sultry walk I had a little trouble turning the key in the lock. It wouldn't budge and soon I was having a lot of trouble. Then Graham tried and it wasn't long before we were in serious trouble because it was only our fifth day there, we spoke absolutely nada Spanish and all our money, identification and phones were in the apartment that we were now horrifyingly locked out of.
My heart started to palpitate as it does when I find myself in high stress situations so I went to sit on the stairs before I passed out at the thought of sleeping outdoors until Monday. Graham kept it together a little bit better than I did so I tried to pull myself up to his level but luckily a girl our age came bouncing down the stairs, and low and behold, she was American and she was studying at the University in the city and spoke fluent Spanish and would take us over to the police station herself to explain our predicament for us.
I was so grateful to her in those moments that I think I came off as a little creepy in my effusiveness, but she seriously saved us from what could've been a pretty ugly episode.
So at the station she chit chatted to the policia and he went behind his desk and retrieved a piece of paper and wrote a number on it and we were on our way. Our translator explained that he had given her the number of a locksmith that is apparently on call at all hours of the day and week because the police have no legal authority to open up anyone's door. Not even if they wanted to. I can't believe this is true but she swore that it's what he said.
I didn't really think about it again until a couple of days ago when Graham and I were sitting out on the sidewalk at a pub. There were a couple of policemen stationed at the corner we were sitting on and they seemed to be pretty chummy with the staff, yakking it up. My back was turned to them and as I was talking to Graham I noticed his face go slack-jawed so I whipped around to see what he was looking at. One of the bus boys had grabbed the baton out of the policeman's belt and was pretending to beat him over the head with it; it was outrageous! We were prepared to witness a big rumble go down but nothing happened. It was like watching the jock beating up the nerd in school because the policeman just stood there and didn't make a move to take back his baton or anything. Later on I saw the same bus boy walking by the policeman, throw his arms out wide, walk up very close to him and stick his face in the cop's and make little sideways movements with his head as if to say, "What?! What?!", like gangsters and crackers do when they want to fight. And still, not even a quick punch to nose could be elicited from this cop.
That's when I began to think that maybe that girl from our lock-out night had been right. In America if you even give so much as a sideways glance at a cop that he doesn't like the look of you're immediately questioned. Imagined what would happen if you or I grabbed the baton off a cop and pretended to beat him with it!
The only possible conclusion to draw is that there has been a serious depletion of police powers which in comparison to their counterparts around the world must leave them feeling pretty emasculated. Something about this feels so charming to me and I hope to document this phenomenon further. Stay tuned.