Christmas In Review

Well, my Christmas shifts have come and gone.
Fun they were not, and I have a sneaking suspicion that my division wasn't too dissimalar to Stressed Cop's.

During my Christmas Day shift alone, I did or dealt with the following:

I went to a serious sexual assault, assisted with a short pursuit, was involved in three foot chases, kicked down a door, had a Christmas hug from three Ambulance girls, got involved in a large scale fight resulting in Officers calling for Urgent Assistance, handcuffed my reluctant partner during said fight, went to and chased off a number of gang fights, got kicked out of refs breaks twice, stopped and searched a few ne'er do wells and played thumbsy wars with an Ambulance Crew to decide a course of action for our call...

The thumbsy was probably my favourite moment. Not least because during said thumbsy war, our Section Sergeant arrived in time to witness my defeat at the hands of a five foot three petite Ambulance Girl. And then sigh before walking away from me muttering. I'm sure he misses me on our rest days.

I have to admit to a slight feeling of ennui before arriving at work on Christmas Day. In fact, I was pissed off and dreading it. My previous shameful post, an exercise in feeling sorry for myself, may well have indicated that.

The shift was all I expected and more. It was full of crap from parade onwards. What was great however, was the morale. A shift that none of us wanted to be parading for, understaffed and overworked - but determined to have a laugh. This went also for all the other emergency service and shift workers I met through the shift.

So thank you boys and girls for helping make my Christmas Day actually bearable. Please don't take it personally though when I say that I'd prefer not to spend it with you next year.

Feeder

Over the past few days I've not been sleeping, and trying to work out why. As an actual, real life diagnosed insomniac with the meds to prove it, this isn't in itself unusual. It's something that happens regularly. However I've found that trying to work out what might be bothering me or keeping me awake can help.

Like exploring a cavity in a painful tooth, this isn't always pleasant and can throw up surprises you didn't want and weren't expecting.

One of the things I ended up thinking about was a call I took a few years ago.
It had been a long summer and even fans of the heat like me were looking forward to shorter days, cooler temperatures, and longer tempers. At forty minutes to going home time, a call came out for a child being assaulted by their parent.

This by itself is not an unusual call - most of them turn out to be not an assault at all, but in fact a parent (rightfully) chastising a misbehaving child.

Not this one though.
As we made our way towards the call, sighing inwardly at how we thought it would turn out, the control room called up with more info. A second call had come in from a member of public that the child was bleeding and being thrown about. Our controller paused, then said "Area, this looks like a bad one."

A detailed description of the adult was given, and sure enough as we TOA'd (Time Of Arrival) at the scene, a male grabbed a young toddler some distance away and started waddling away. Me and my partner, Dan, stepped out and broke out into a jog to catch up. As we did, the male started running - with a two year old in his hands, he wasn't going anywhere.

Other units were already running at this point, but I called up and updated on the male making off. As we ran across the car park, sweating already in the humid heat, two more marked Police vehicles arrived on blues and stopped, doors slamming as the officers moved to head off the male.
All this whilst being watched with blank expressions by groups of people - at least, the ones that weren't out and out eye fucking us.

The male ran into a block of flats, one of many on our sink estates with no security or key fob to get into the communal areas. As he ran in, he dumped the toddler on the ground - why not, he was only being slowed down carrying the child.

We didn't see this, not until we ran into the building. We were still some distance off, but not far enough to not notice the reaction of the local residents.
Seeing us running, and seeing now where we were going, groups of our local gang members and druggies were drifting into the building and melting away at speed.

As me and Dan hit the door and went into the building, we were in time to see the last four or five melt away into the shadows of the stairwell. I'd estimate perhaps twenty five people had headed away from us. They'd seen the Old Bill were here, and decided that perhaps their outstanding warrants/pocket full of drugs/illegal weapons/house full of counterfeit goods should remain theirs for the day and so had made their exit sharpish.

Every one of them, without hesitation - and every one of them passing the crumpled form of a beaten, bleeding, bloodied body of a two year old boy dumped unceremoniously on the stained concrete floor. Lit by the yellowed but still working strip lights, it was impossible to miss the child lying there. Left in the middle of the corridor, the residents had obviously stepped over him in their rush to keep their gear secure.

I knelt by the child, and sent Dan forwards: "Go. Go, get the fucker!" As more coppers filtered past, I checked for signs of life. Breathing, movement, and open eyes filled with tears and terror. And blood everywhere.

Yes, we caught the suspect. He tried to hide and on being approached by Police Officers used street furniture as missiles before being very definitely arrested.
I wasn't involved in any of that; instead I had abandoned any pretence of professionalism or duty and had insisted on riding in the ambulance, had insisted on cradling the child all the way there and holding on until the nurses at the A&E managed to convince me to let go.

The only thing that really stayed with me from this call was the response of the people on the estate. Not one of them stopped to check the child, and instead chose to cut and run. After suffering an assault from his stepfather, the child had had to endure a lesson in London Estate politics, and lay broken and bloodied on the floor, watching as adult after adult abandoned him and left him to his private pain.

I only post this now, as two of the other officers involved have left the job for good, and the other main participant doesn't even own an internets, let alone use one.

Incidentally, I worked out what was keeping me awake. I reckon it could well have been the beer I'd been drinking during the day after all...

Babycakes

True Story: I helped deliver a baby once.
Well, kind of.

I was on patrol with an older and much wiser colleague, John, and we were well into the night duty. It was the time of night when the pubs and clubs had shut, and on the roads were mainly night duty workers and naughty people.

Sensible people sleep at that time of night.

We were travelling along a dual carriageway on the edge of our district, when a car went past us travelling at speed. We did a quick turn at a gap in the central reservation and went after it, but it had long gone and after we'd passed a junction we knew we weren't going to find it, so my colleague killed the blue lights and settled down to a steady fifty miles per hour.

As we were wondering along listening to the radio chatter and talking shop gossip, we noticed a car parked on the side of the road with it's hazards going. John slowed the car down and we noticed the interior light was on, and two people in the back seat.

Spotting the chance to shout at a couple who had obviously let their romantic intentions overcome them, we parked in front of the car and walked back to it, giggling like schoolboys.

We have an area used for "dogging" in our division, and I've stumbled upon sex in strange places before, but I'd never seen it at the side of a dual carriageway.

As we arrived at the car we realised that all was not as it had seemed. The noises we had heard coming from the car were not in fact cries of passion, but the shouts of a woman in labour.

Having learnt from past situations involving stressful medical situations, I got straight on the radio asking for an ambo to attend, leaving my oppo to "assess" the situation.
There was a young woman on the back seat, a panic striken husband, and lots of messyness. I grabbed the Police car keys from my colleagues belt and ran back to the car, activated the strobes and rear reds, and reversed back to behind the couple's car, parking in a fend off position.

As I ran less enthusiastically back to John, my eyes took in the scene with increasing horror. I have no children, but I was sure that this was not someone who had plenty of time. The baby was obviously coming soon, but I had no idea what to do. John was muttering calming words at the woman, and I remembered he had two children. This was encouraging. They obviously taught methods for assisting labour to Dads.

I leant in to gain from his expertise, and whispered under the woman's shouts: "What do you want me to do John? LAS is on the way."
John: "Christ knows, I've got no idea. I was in Northern Ireland when my first was born, and on duty when the second one was."
Me: "Oh dear. Is it supposed to look like that?"
John: "I told you. I. Don't. Know."
Me: "Jesus John, that's disgusting. That can't be natural."
John: "Shut UP, Area."

I retired with my pride intact, and asked a few questions of the Dad, how far along the mum was, expected date, any allergies or complications - anything that might assist the ambo crew when they turned up.

As I did, John called up again: "I think it's coming now!"
I looked for the ambulance and realised that he was probably not referring to that, and crouched next to him. The Dad had clambered into the front seat and was having his hand crushed by his wife, and John was doing his best to monitor the situation, but aside from the joking we were both savagely aware that our medical knowledge in this area was sorely lacking.

I was unbelievably relieved to see an ambulance turn up, and John and myself stepped back sharpish as the crew set up and started treating the mother. Lots of painkillers I hoped.

The baby was born some minutes later, at the side of the road, after the arrival of an LAS Fast responder unit as well, lit by the flicker of blue and red strobe lights and the occasional headlights of passing cars. The baby screamed immediately, and as the ambulance pulled away the fast response lass explained they were taking them back on blues more for the mother than the baby, as she had lost some blood.

We locked up the car, and cleared the scene. We were both laughing and joking, a good result and an example of feeling like a real Policemanofficer, although no detection was forthcoming for it.

If this was a film, we'd have been instrumental in helping the child grow up, had the baby named after us, and made friends with the couple.
In reality, we left the keys in hospital, were told the baby and mum were fine, and went to the next call. I never even found out the sex of the baby. The next night the car was gone from the road, and so was the evidence of the medical gear and mess that was made.

It did acheive one thing though - it completely put me off the idea of childbirth, and all that miracle of life rubbish. It was bloody horrible.

I was right when I was speaking to John at the side of the road.

It's just not natural.

TSG

This was a comment posted by "Taffy" in response to my post, Kitchen Nightmare. I think it deserves a post of it's own.

Before reading it, please remember that it is friendly rivalry - "Taffy" is in fact a pan-London officer, and like me he has had to call on the TSG (and needed their help badly) more than once. For non-met readers, the Territorial Support Group are the Met's "Hard Boys" - they travel in public order buses and are called out to large scale public order situations, and to assist Boroughs that need their help with situations that are too large for their team officers to handle. They also do a lot of proactive preventative patrols, and, yes, they always wear their flat caps at all times.

My Guvnor likes them for this.

They are also the only non-firearms officers in the Met to currently carry taser. Hence the post.



Great, TSG have taser. Now all we need is for...

# Metcall to write up the request.
# Chief Insp IR to bounce it because it wasn't done properly, or doesn't reflect what the situation is.
# Metcall operator to ask someone what to do.
# Metcall operator to do it.
# Metcall supervisor to check.
# Chief Insp to authorise deployment.
# Pan London despatcher tries to raise Commissioners Reserve.
# Pan London despatcher fails. After all, there is no R/T set in the gym.
# Chief Inspector rings TSG Inspector on the mobile, and leaves a message.
# TSG Inspector waits 5 minutes before calling back " Sorry Guv, dealing with a stop"

--------------
TSG Deployed
--------------

# Commissioners Reserve "regroup" (ie get dressed) and embus. Time scale depends on co-ordination of hand-sock movement. Carrier skippers check officers boot laces are tied, assisting where appropriate. Precious time at this stage is saved, however, as flat caps were never removed.

# TSG travel in convey to, say, Kingston. From Enfield.

# 45 mins later (lets be generous) TSG arrive at RVP. Local Inspector arrives, having stopped off en route to pick up an incident log and a probationer to use it. Delayed arrival at RVP due to detour to scene to check on welfare of 5 PC's holding naked man down, and to address missing headgear/necktie related issues.

# TSG carriers squabble over who gets to "unleash the fury".

# Two Alpha males from the victorious carrier are duly issued with the device.

# Batteries flat. Leaving do the night before. Second place carrier goes to the scene.

# Man tasered. Local residents see 27 officers leaving the scene, dragging a naked man behind. Photo sent to the Daily Mail.

# Enquiries made with local newsagents by said newspaper indicates man did indeed purchase said paper on saturdays. National outcry. Police brutality, and potentially racism, is the order of the day. This would never have happened under maggie, house prices in the neighbourhood take a nose dive.

Bank Holiday

A while back I was working a late turn major bank holiday, which is always nice for the bank balance if not so much for my excuse for a social life. As usual, the already short response teams had been hugely cut down in numbers to save money on overtime, and as usual we had alcohol induced fights and domestics happening all over the shop more frequently than we could effectively deal with.

It's on shifts like this that you start to appreciate the people you work with, and when you instinctively work harder and work smarter.

After a ridiculously busy shift, as it got darker and colder, and people's alcohol imbibing reached break point, things started getting really bent. Calls were coming out all over our area for fights and domestics, officers were rushing to one, "Area Search No Trace, where's the next one control?" Lower grade calls weren't even being assigned to officers as we were so short and the control room was desperately trying to keep the emergency calls in check. Every call was finished with us hustling out to the car to turn the blues and two tones on and blat back across the division for the next call. We took a call to a possible domestic - a male smashing up two women's car with a metal baseball bat. We were second unit on scene, and went off to do the area search for the guy who had just made off leaving two very shaken girls. As we were doing the search we were diverted to someone being attacked in her flat.

We started heading in that direction whilst keeping an eye out for the fella, as it was close by. As we did our van unit TOA'd at a pub fight nearby. My partner and me both turned the radio up as they gave their location - two female officers turning up without back up to a pub fight on bank holiday can get nasty. It shouldn't matter that they are females, but it does. They can take care of themselves, but both of us made a mental note of the location in case they called for assistance. Every unit was assigned to a call or off the road. We arrived at our call and found the house in darkness, all seemed quiet and neighbours told us they haven't seen anyone.

We come out of the block of flats and the radio was screaming, whilst we've been inside the block where our radios don't work it all went wrong. A stabbing was reported close to the baseball bat call and the pub fight, by males of the same description. The van unit attended leaving the now calmed down pub and called for urgent assistance. Another unit arrived on scene and also called for assistance.

I broke into a run towards the car and we leapt in and headed towards.

I arrive on scene I see a crowd of people, blood on the floor, lots of angry people shouting. Some are witnesses, some are victims, I assume some must be suspects, and some are just pissed and enjoy shouting at coppers.

We have six officers there against the large crowd. We TOA but don't cancel other units, there aren't enough on to guarantee help otherwise. I wade in and start trying to give first aid to a couple of bleeding, drunk and abusive girls, one of which is the girlfriend of the suspect. I am helped by a drunk neighbour who repeatedly tries to steal my radio "for a laugh." The main suspect for the stabbing has made off, but there is a lot of aggressive people around shouting. I leave the pushing and shoving to the other officers as I try to hold one of the girls still so the little that is left of her nose that is attached to her face remains in place. Maybe the doctors will be able to sew it back on, and stitch up her upper lip. They really do work wonders at the hospital, despite being overstretched, overworked and underpaid. She tells me to fuck off and that she hopes I die of cancer. I love my job.

London Ambulance Service turn up and start to clear away the injured and pissed, working their magic (I love the LAS).

There are now quite a few officers with us, but we are hugely outnumbered. Our Inspector gets on the radio and tells the control room we might need more units soon. The control room says there are none to send. Guvnor: "I appreciate that, but tell officers with prisoners to leave them at the nick. Officers with paperwork can leave that and come out, get people de-assigned and available." The control room comes back. "Yes guv, we appreciate that, but everyone is there. There is no one else to send."

This is when the call comes out for Urgent Assistance from the LAS a few roads away. This is probably the only thing that could get us away from the scene. As me and my partner were first aiding not crowd control, and ambo were on scene, we ran for it.

We turn up and the ambulance is surrounded by drunken angry young men, chief amongst them is the main suspect for the stabbings, and the baseball bat. Happy days, he's quickly arrested and we escort the Ambulance away. I look at my watch; it's fifteen minutes past my shift end time. I won't be off for hours. I hope CID, the CPS and whoever else gets involved make sure this bugger doesn't get bail and goes straight to court. I spend hours seizing his clothes and writing up my notes well, and the officers at the scene do the same, getting statements and seizing evidence and manning crime scenes.


He gets bail.



Four days later his girlfriend, the original victim, is killed by him.


I have to keep reminding myself I love this job sometimes.