Power!

One of my fleeting moments of power and influence.

It was 0800hours and a few of us had been called in on a rest day for a pre-planned operation, to dress up in plain clothes and go out looking for wanted offenders.
We had obeyed by turning up in the obligatory "plain clothes copper" uniform of DM booths, jeans, and North Face jacket with buzz cuts for the blokes.

Of course, the robbery squad were too busy to deal with any robbery prisoners. Same for the burglary squad, and the domestic violence unit are always snowed under with their prisoners.
So all three had requested that we didn't go out looking for any of their circulated suspects.

Instead, we were briefed to go out looking for SERCO breaches. Most met officers will know these - when people who have been electronically tagged breach their conditions, SERCO automatically send a fax to the force with the time of the breach, and arrest enquiries are (eventually) made.

The sergeant had called in sick. The DI looked at me - "Area, you're Acting Sergeant for this. I need a return of work on my desk before you head off. Cheers."

I leafed despondently through the dockets - I had one for a breach of curfew by four minutes. Hmmm.
Another one for a breach of curfew that happened on the day of his court date - the suspect had been at home since then, but had obviously got home late from court and therefore technically breached his curfew conditions by being outside the curfew hours. Not unreasonable when court finished at 1700 and curfew started at 1800.
A third breach of curfew by twenty minutes where the suspect's mother had phoned and stated he was ill and in hospital. This has actually happened some weeks ago, and since then the suspect had gone to court for trial and been found not guilty.

In all, we had one docket with a 'real' arrest.
The robbery, burglary, and CID dockets had been sprited away by the guvnor from CID.

I had six officers and three unmarked cars. I quickly came up with a plan: "OK, lets see if we can nick this bugger and be back for breakfast."
Sure enough, the suspect from our one good docket had been evicted, and the house was boarded up.
I sent the other cars out to verbally warn the breaches of curfew, then at 1000 hours with nothing left to do, we RVP'd at the nick for a late breakfast.

With the "return of work" threat ringing in my ears, I decided to be creative, and we went out hunting. Two officers on plain clothes patrol in one of our busier town centres, and the rest of us targeting our hot spots and seeing if we could turn over some gang members.

At 1930 hours we headed back to the nick - loads of searches, a number of drug seizures, two shoplifters, an arrest for PWITS (Posession with intent to supply) and one for a wanted male who had decided to kick one of the unmarked cars in a drunken haze.

I dismissed the PCs with me, and headed up to report our success to the DI.

Next day, I had an email waiting in my inbox (as did the officers with me) asking in the strongest possible terms for an explanation - apparently there was great upset at my decision not to arrest the SERCO breaches I mentioned above. "Verbally warned" was not the result they were looking for. Our self created arrests didn't count as part of their targets for their dockets...

Serves them right for putting me in charge.

Luton et Al

PC Pinkstone has also posted on this, as a Luton lad he feels "disappointed."

I'm as "disappointed" as anyone. But it also neatly answers a question that most coppers get asked on a semi-regular basis: "What's the worst thing you've dealt with?"

I'd say THIS kind of job is definitely up there.

Dead people, bloodied fights, violence - they are not pleasant but they are what you joined to do. Protecting people like these protestors against members of the public who are probably feeling emotions similar to you is frankly not what I joined to do.

I personally have huge respect for the armed forces of this country. The Police as a whole has a good relationship with the forces, and many many coppers are ex-services.
To have to protect a sickening group like the one shown in the video above is what is difficult about the job.

I've watched it a few times now, and my eye keeps getting drawn to an elderly man in a grey anorak and pie hat who appears to challenge the protestors. I appreciate I'm stereotyping here, but he doesn't look like the type for violence. Instead, he looks a lot like someone's Grandfather who is so upset and angered by what he sees he feels he has to react.










Rock and a hard place for the coppers there. Whilst on duty I've been to military parades, rememberance dos and funerals of local soldiers killed on multiple occasions, and the pride at those events clashes completely with the shameful actions of the protestors in Luton.

Stuff

Whilst walking around Leicester Square last night, watching the crowds doing their thing at the James Bond Premiere, a thought struck me.



Why?

Why the hell would fully grown men and women queue up for literally hours and hours for the chance to see a glimpse of the back of a minor Royal or an actor from a film?

I mean, it's not even as though they get to see the bloody film.

All they get to see is a group of yellow clad PCs getting progressively more bored, cold and grumpy, stood on a fixed point in hi-viz hell waiting for a question that doesn't start "Can you tell me where I can find..."

There has to be a sane reason why so many people do it, please can someone tell me it?



By the way, I have been trawling the blogosphere, and have discovered (or re-discovered) Police and Law Enforcement blogs in abundance. I am slowly updating my linky sidebar. Any that you know of, please let me know.
I have also noticed that although I have found many for the UK, US and Canada, I've found none for either Australia or for the Guards in Eire. Does anyone know of any?

Things That Have Annoyed Me Recently (Part 1)

As per the title. Yesterday I was driving around during the day, dealing with the usual calls and rubbish and dreaming of international rockstardom.


It was a lovely day, sunny with a hint of early Autumn cool - perfect weather for foot patrol. By some miracle the I-Immediate calls had tailed off for a while, and by an even greater miracle, our control room had given me a brief respite from sending crappy "non" calls to my MDT (Mobile Data Terminl - on board computer).

I parked the car up in one of the town centres we cover, and decided it was too good an opportunity to miss. "Come on mate, grab your hat" I said to my oppo, and withstanding his bemused looks followed by an almost sullen acceptance, climbed out of the car for a bit of foot patrol.

It was wonderful; no MDT bleeping at me, no rattle of a knackered diesel engine fighting against the constrains of gravity, no mainset blatting away with circulations in the background. The sun was out and I had my hat on, and everything was, for just this moment, OK with the world. I walked through one of our markets and chatted to a couple of stall holders, had a photo taken with a very lost tourist, let a couple of children try on my hat. Basically, for a short time I felt like a proper Policeman again.

Then the radio crackled - "999BX from BX, receiving?"
Area: "Go ahead."
BX: "I've sent a call down to your MDT a couple of times, and you're not accepting it. It's an S call from CID to pick up some CCTV. Why aren't you accepting it?"
Area: "I'm not in the car BX."
BX: "Received... why not? Do you want me to create a CAD?"
Area: "Negative, I'm just doing some foot patrol."
BX: "Er... received. We had you posted to a car."
*Sigh*
Area: "Yes, that's correct, I'm in a car - I've just popped out to do some foot patrol."
BX: "999 from BX, that's received, you need to stay by your car so we can send you calls over."
Area: "..."

A pause, as I walked back to the car to accept the call. The Radio crackled again. "999 from BX1"
Area: "Go ahead Sir"
Inspector: "Come and see me when you get a minute please."

Long story short, I was later given a rollocking by the Duty Officer for not being with the car and going out on foot patrol. Surely that is what the radio is for?
I'm fully aware that my job is to respond to calls for assistance, but surely proactive patrolling is part of it as well? And getting out on foot and meeting the public is as nice for me as it is for the public sometimes.

Ho hum. Thanks Guvnor. That'll teach the probationer with me never to do anything as stupid as to get out of the car and actually talk to people he meets again.