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.

Things That Have Annoyed Me Recently (Part 2)

After a few days off, I came back to work to discover a multitude of emails, the vast majority of which did not concern me.

I particularly liked two, which had been sent by different people to "All Response Team Officers."

The first one read something along the lines of:

"Would all response team officers remember to park their cars "arse end" in to the walls, so that if an urgent call comes out, or an officer requesting assistance, officers are actually available to get there.
Critical time has been lost trying to negotiate getting the response vehicles out of the yard, and having an officer injured because of it is obviously unacceptable and has the potential for discipline issues."

Fair point. Next email:

"All response officers please note. Response cars MUST be parked face in to the walls at all times when parked in the yard - this not only reduces noise to people working in the Police Station, but also prevents the completely unnecessary problem of the exhaust fumes being blown in through windows when officers rev their engines.
This IS being monitored and disciplinary action will be considered against drivers who do not comply."

Laugh? I nearly started.


Please vote on which email I should obey - one officer on my relief has tried parking sideways against the wall, but he was in a long wheelbase public order carrier, which took up five spaces.