Babcock? Present!

Breaking news: albeit entirely expected, the coroners court has found that the officers who shot Mark Saunders were justified.
Good to see the result, and it appears the AFOs involved spoke honestly and openly about the situation they faced. I hope the Saunders family can start to move on with their lives now, and put the incident behind them.
I also hope that the firearms officers involved can do the same, despite the stresses they've obviously been under since the incident.

In other news- ok, in my life - there has been a long and so far unexplained absence since my last significant post.

DUring the past few months (and before the last post I made) I have been subject to a false complaint from someone I had dealt with at work. Sadly, the complaint was serious enough to be dealt with by our Department for Professional Standards rather than dealt with on Division.
I've now been given the all clear after the long and uncomfortable wait and the investigation.

I obviously can't talk about the details of the complaint, but my job and mortgage comes first, so during the investigation blogging came to a screeching halt. Apart from the slightly drunk post about The Bill of course.

Suffice to say that during the complaint, I was fully supported by both my senior management, and by my immediate management in my current team and my last.
No one backpedalled desperately on finding out I had a complaint, no one refused to associate themselves with me, and no jobs were put at risk or dropped as it was easier than dealing with the fact I had a complaint against me.
No opportunities to apply for promotion or transfer were denied to me through having a malicious complaint ongoing, and I was fully supported all the way and wholeheartedly by the senior officers who I talked to.
And of course, at the end of the complaint after being informed that the complaint was foundless, I was then naturally told that the complainant would be spoken to regarding their repeated attempts to muddy the waters around an ongoing case and make scurrilous accusations.

Some of the above paragraph may not be entirely accurate.

Keep Cool

That was the good news, as provided by an anonymous commenter. Thank you.


Now, go look HERE at Gadget's blog.
Most of the time I avoid any type of political comment on the Police. Gadget, Copperfield, Nightjack and many others have that covered in a more eloquent way than I could ever hope to do. In fact, you'll be pleased to know that due in part to my dimness, and also in part to my being knackered, it took me three attempts to spell "eloquent" just then.

However, Gadget's post above just infuriates me. A particularly brave officer is injured and the Chief Constable unable to comment as he is a serving officer.
As a serving Police Officer myself, there's obviously no way I'd suggest that people should email into the Police Force mentioned and take the Chief to task for what I see as pretty appalling behaviour on his part.

It's just what I'd do if I wasn't in the job.
But I am.
So I won't.

Watch the video again, it'll make you feel better.

Whose Street? Our Street!

PC Area in his brand new hi-viz. NOT asleep, despite what his colleagues may say.


So - stories from G20, in no particular order.

A couple of people obviously read internet blogs, or at least the books that follow. I heard two officers (not from my carrier luckily) discussing how they'd try and spot Inspector Gadget.
And MCM.
And ASNT...

In my carrier we ran a competition on the second day for spotting the best bit of graffiti. The only rule was that the graffiti had to be on a Police vehicle. Lots of them had been damaged the day before, and so still had spray paint on.
Our favourite was one of the armoured warthogs with "PIGS" sprayed tastefully below the Police sign on the bonnet. Spot on.

Scary moment when I got hit by something, and looked at my arm to notice that I was bleeding, and bleeding heavily through my boiler suit.
Then a relieved moment as I realised that it was just tomato that the protestors had thrown.

Lots of interesting moments dealing with the less pleasant people, but you've all seen that on TV and probably are bored to death of seeing and hearing about public order contingents charging and being charged, so I'll leave that out.

The best moments by far for me were on the second day, at the Excel centre. More specifically, at the Operation Feeding and Deployment section.

A particular thank you to the level II serial headed by a female Sergeant that had most of my carrier lusting after her, and what appeared to be an all female crew in the carrier.
I of course kept it professional, but there was a lot of excitement from some of the more boisterous members of my team, and mutterings of transfers to the South London Borough where the carrier had come from.

Watching the TSG serials sleeping in the grass, after being on duty for 36 hours and still being kept on. One fella was talking in his sleep as the sun came out from the mist, and it was a genuinely bizarre sight seeing him muttering, surrounding by snoring public order officers lying next to a runway lined with coppers in beat duty helmets.














The view from the 'front line.' I wish I could also describe the smells.


Anyway - down to the important things (after the attractive level II skipper and her carrier obviously). Time to give thanks.

First - to the level three public order officers who helped us out. I'm very aware that you lot did the shitty posts without the praise, and we just got sent round to finish the fights you were in.

Second - To the catering crew at the op feeding centre. Lest anyone forgets, they were doing the same (if not more) hours as us, and getting paid a hell of a lot less than us.
They were also doing a bloody good job of cooking something resembling food, whilst at the same time giving a smile to each copper, albeit sometimes weary. At one point, I accepted a burger from a catering woman and made some joke about the hours, and she replied "fourteen hours and we're staying on till everyone is gone."

Third - to all the non-Met officers that turned up. Sorry for the stickers. And also for the incident with the food fight (that never happened).

Fourth - to the London Fire Brigade. Specifically the Silvertown LFB Station. If anyone knows the lads there, say thanks again for me. The station was pointed out by a couple of level three officers on foot patrol to our carrier, and we (like many that had gone before) made liberal use of their toilets, TV room, warmth and company. They went beyond their obligations and frankly showed us how it should be done.


All this amongst our struggles with the militants. It's not my place as a street monkey to say this, but I will anyway. I think that actually our tactics were sound, and most if not all of us did a bloody good job. I also think that the majority of genuine protestors were at the very most only an annoyance, and frequently friendly, intelligent and often entertaining.
Equally, the small minority that were determined to use force and attack everyone that stood in their way were shameful. They were the reason that the genuine protestors were held back and shepherded about, they were the reason that negative press was given, they were the reason for injuries on both sides, and they were yet another nail in the coffin for legitimate, lawful, peaceful protest.

As a very small example, I spent some time in the impromptu climate camp in the city of london. Despite my appearance in body armour, public order flame proof overalls and assorted kit, I had a good time. I chatted to lots of the people there, and agreed with many points of view. I didn't see criminality there to the extent that I had to take action, and was treated with respect. I was even told a few times that the protestors there were impressed with the Police action.
Some were surprised to learn that actually, coppers were also human and also that some of us weren't too impressed with the idea of our pensions, tax, savings and future earnings being pissed away by the people that were supposed to know how the economy worked.
When the decision was taken to close the climate camp - after over twelve hours - the vast majority left willingly and peacefully. It was (yet again) a small minority that prompted ugly scenes, and left a bad taste.

I was at the front line and saw officers injured, and despicable acts of violence.
But the violent lot were not the 'real' protestors, they were just rent-a-thug mobs. In my opinion, they did almost as much damage to the movements they professed to support as they did to the lines of Police that they attacked.

Things That Have Annoyed Me Recently (part 3)

Recently, in Custody.
I had arrested a woman in her late forties who had been rather silly - she was not known to Police before and basically had been caught doing something that she knew was wrong in a moment of stupidity.


We all deal with this kind of person occasionally, someone who has thus far led relatively blameless lives and suddenly they come to the attention of Police.

No, before you ask, this was not a figures arrest. In fact, there was no detection involved in this one...

We had brought her in, and the woman was obviously terrified. Unlike our usual, regular customers she felt shame at being arrested and obviously didn't want to be with us.
She also told the Custody Sergeant she suffered from claustrophobia.

Now, as any copper will no doubt attest, a huge amount of the clientelle we get in our cells will claim they have claustrophobia, or any other condition they can think of to get released, bailed, or just to wind up the coppers.

This woman was obviously not playing the system, so after a brief chat with the Custody Sergeant (and an even briefer trip to the cell door, discovering she quietly having palpatations) we brought her out of the cell and sat her on one of the metal seats opposite the Sergeant's desk, where the Skippers could keep an eye on her.

I was writing my arrest notes when our borough commander walked in, on one of his rare trips to see the troops in custody. As he went up to annoy the custody sergeants, I thought it prudent to make myself busy so decided to get the kettle on and brew up for the Sergeants.

For those of you not in the job, Custody Sergeants run on tea. Without tea on a fifteen minute cycle they will not, and in fact can not function.
FACT.

I made a list of who was drinking what, and as I went past the huddled, shivering nervous woman I had arrested, I took pity and said "Tea love?"
She shook her head, and I contined on to the kitchen area.
Follwed by the Borough Commander.

Great.

Expecting a chat about the borough's "basket of ten," or possibly a bollocking for taking the prisoner out of the cell, I was surprised at the topic of conversation he chose.

A ten minute lecture on the inappropriateness of calling a female prisoner "love."
A promise that this would be mentioned to my team inspector.
And a threat that if said prisoner made a complaint against me, the borough commander would have no choice but to give evidence on her behalf due to the blatant and flagrantly open way I had chosen to use this "wholly inappropriate term in a public, CCTV recorded arena."

He then disappeared off - one of the Custody Sergeants told me later that as I was boiling the kettle (and boiling up inside) our wonderful leader went up to said suspect and offered her his apologies.

As I came back with the teas, the boss was gone from the custody area. I sat down next to the woman, and gave her a tea - yes, she had said no, but she needed a little kindness.
"You OK love?"
She smiled wanly as she took the cup.
"I'm OK, thanks for this. But who was the idiot in the hat who came in?"

'Nuff said.

Management Talk

It's disconcerting when Officers above the rank of Inspector go out and about on the streets. It's strange enough when Inspectors go out.
Of course, when senior officers to go out for one of their annual walk abouts on the street, things are never as they seem.

Just as the Queen is said to believe the world smells of fresh paint, the same kind of thing applies for our senior officers. Whenever they turn up to parade, we have by some miracle scratched together enough officers in the parade room to make it look as though we are acheiving minumum numbers on the streets. Even if that means taking officers off other, already over stretched teams.

They then usually commandeer the area car, and float about taking no calls and dealing with nothing they come across.

Inspectors are stuck in the middle of this - there are more and less proactive Inspectors. We recently had one covering as duty officer, who not only turned up to parade, but booked out a car and actually went out; and took calls! This in itself is unusual, but not unheard of. Our regular Inspector very occasionally takes calles, but on arrival will call a PC down to the scene to do the paperwork/take the crime report/make the arrest/do the accident book.

This substitute Inspector even dealt with the calls though - one day he even brought an arrest in. I've only ever seen an Inspector produce a prisoner to custody once before, so it got the team talking.

In fact, we've had him a few times recently, and ended up being a bit spoilt. Much as we like our current Guvnor, having a boss that goes and gets his hands dirty occasionally is very invigorating for the troops.
I have even seen the odd glimpse of morale on team.


One of our area car drivers is running bets on how long it will take before something comes along to help destroy this.

As the old saying goes "Are the men happy Sergeant?"
"Yes sir"
"Then stop their mail and cancel their leave."

Scrambled Egg

In Custody. Dealing with an arrest too boring to give the details of.

It was office hours, so there was a chance I may be able to hand over the arrest to a specialist investigation team - or failing that, a poor frustrated probationer who has been ordered to work on the Prisoner Processing Team.

It also meant that there were members of the Senior Management Team on duty. This means they can walk up to you whilst you are trying to negotiate with a drunken prisoner for his draw strings from his tracksuit bottoms, and ask you what you think of the current "divisional priorities." Or even ask you what they are.

I was attempting to write my notes, when an officer with silver and gold spread liberally on his shoulders approached me. A space cleared around me, as other coppers made good their escape. The custody sergeant started to type frantically and buried his head towards the computer screen.

I was on my own.

Senior Officer: "Hello there, er... what have you got in today?"
Area: "An arrest sir."
SO: "Ah good, with a detection I hope?"
Area: "No sir, I'm afraid not."
SO: "Ok, well there is a push on them at the moment, we are all being measured on our personal performance when it comes to getting arrests and detections."
(WE are not being measured on our personal performance for that. I am being measured on my personal performance.)
SO: "What's that on your shirt, on the radio loop?"
Area: "A tie pin sir, a charity one."
SO: "Well, that may be so, but you shouldn't wear it - any personal statement like that can cause offence to other groups."
Area: "It's an NSPCC tie pin sir - who will it cause offence to? Paedophiles? I thought we wanted to make their lives uncomfortable?"
Custody Sergeant (in emergency live saving mode): "Er, Area, can you get your prisoner out of the cell, I need to talk to him urgently. Now, Area."

The tie pin has gone now, but not for the guvnor - I broke it in a fight with a drunken wife of a man we'd arrested for beating her up, a week later.