Ah, the joys of the "Bomb Car." I have no idea if our County Mounty Cousins have this pleasure, but I'm sure my Met Colleagues will know what I am talking about.
For the uninitiated, depending on the terrorist threat at the time each borough will put out a bomb car, with list of vulnerable or critical sites to visit, in a random order over the course of a tour of duty. The bomb car is not available for calls unless related to their core task - eg unexploded bombs or threats etc.
Don't worry though - they give us a bag with a loudhailer and two rolls of tape, so in the case of a terrorist attack we are fully prepared. And our hi-viz jackets of course.
The lovely thing about the callsign is that not only are you given a break from the endless calls, you also actually get a chance to be proactive, something that really never happens usually except for between the hours of 0300hours and 0500hours. When, of course, there is a huge amount of people about to stop...
So we wander around the borough, stopping random cars and people for anti-terror checks. Funnily, most members of public are very supportive when we tell them why we are stopping them (and sometimes searching them), to deter terrorism is a popular aim through most of society.
There is usually an embarrassing moment though, when Mr and Mrs nice who you have stopped in their Ford Mondeo ask the crucial question: "If it turned out we were strapped up with explosives, what would you do?"
Er...
Well, we've got this bag you see...
Our sites have to remain secret of course, but there are obvious targets and not so obvious ones. I always like to pop over to the Army barracks and tell the guys standing with SA80s that we are here to protect them from terrorists. If they fail to show the appropriate level of respect, I often get out the bomb car bag. The rolls of tape do it every time.
I can see it in their eyes, the squaddies wishing we had been there with our loudhailer and rolls of tape to help them out when they were in Iraq.
So I had a successful set of bomb car duties. No terrorists found, but a couple of self generated arrests, a decent amount of traffic process (no insurance and no D/L) and a chance to put the hat on and actually do some foot patrol.
Anyway, back to the domestics now...
As a side note, Twinings emailed me about his post on Burma. Check it out and leave a comment - and does anyone know if someone has started one of those government petition things about it yet?
For the uninitiated, depending on the terrorist threat at the time each borough will put out a bomb car, with list of vulnerable or critical sites to visit, in a random order over the course of a tour of duty. The bomb car is not available for calls unless related to their core task - eg unexploded bombs or threats etc.
Don't worry though - they give us a bag with a loudhailer and two rolls of tape, so in the case of a terrorist attack we are fully prepared. And our hi-viz jackets of course.
The lovely thing about the callsign is that not only are you given a break from the endless calls, you also actually get a chance to be proactive, something that really never happens usually except for between the hours of 0300hours and 0500hours. When, of course, there is a huge amount of people about to stop...
So we wander around the borough, stopping random cars and people for anti-terror checks. Funnily, most members of public are very supportive when we tell them why we are stopping them (and sometimes searching them), to deter terrorism is a popular aim through most of society.
There is usually an embarrassing moment though, when Mr and Mrs nice who you have stopped in their Ford Mondeo ask the crucial question: "If it turned out we were strapped up with explosives, what would you do?"
Er...
Well, we've got this bag you see...
Our sites have to remain secret of course, but there are obvious targets and not so obvious ones. I always like to pop over to the Army barracks and tell the guys standing with SA80s that we are here to protect them from terrorists. If they fail to show the appropriate level of respect, I often get out the bomb car bag. The rolls of tape do it every time.
I can see it in their eyes, the squaddies wishing we had been there with our loudhailer and rolls of tape to help them out when they were in Iraq.
So I had a successful set of bomb car duties. No terrorists found, but a couple of self generated arrests, a decent amount of traffic process (no insurance and no D/L) and a chance to put the hat on and actually do some foot patrol.
Anyway, back to the domestics now...
As a side note, Twinings emailed me about his post on Burma. Check it out and leave a comment - and does anyone know if someone has started one of those government petition things about it yet?
