School Playtime

There was I, navigating the small rat-runs of an estate on our patch and trying not to crash the police car. My Sergeant had given me strict instructions: “try not to crash the police car.” I was doing my best, as I hate it when I get the disappointed look from him.

I heaved the car around a corner and saw a male that I recognised. My colleague also recognised him, that much was obvious, as he said “it’s that bugger again!” and immediately leapt out of the car.

It’s not uncommon for people to get out of the car when I’m driving, but I felt it safe to assume that there was actually a reason for my colleague’s hasty departure rather than sheer blind terror.

There was. The radio crackled into life: “BX, chasing suspects on foot, he’s wanted for a GBH that occurred last week…” I floored the accelerator and counted to five as the knackered out turbo vainly fought against the forces of gravity to try and haul the car forward (note to self, when accelerating from 5MPH in a hurry, change down from third gear).

I passed the miscreant and my colleague, pulled up and jumped out to join the chase. The suspect ran down an alley and we followed, my colleague keeping up a commentary. “Control, he’s going down Pickney Avenue, towards… oh no, it’s Sampson Community School.” Having learnt my lesson in the last foot chase about trying to sigh and run at the same time, I controlled my urge, but in my head I let out a long exasperated sigh.

Most coppers identify with teachers, as the poor buggers deal with our “clients” all day every day, whereas we get days seeing new suspects, hence why Mr Chalk is on my sidebar. However, every patch has an “anti” school – anti police, anti cars, anti parents, anti social services, anti rules… Not usually down to the teachers, but there is often an angry headteacher tucked away somewhere living her life vicariously through her young charges. As in this case. We had recently been told to ask permission from the head before going into the school, as our senior officers had received an ear bashing from her when police officers had taken a few moments of rest by chatting to the kids in the playground (and no doubt causing chaos whilst doing it).

I knew we were going to go into the school. And I was pretty sure the suspect wouldn’t stop so we could ask the headteacher’s permission. The suspect leapt the gates at the side of the school and my colleague balked at the challenge and ran to the front of the school. I like to destroy my uniform trousers every now and then as it means I can actually get a new pair, so I jumped/clambered after him. The suspect ran into the school grounds, and I took over the breathless commentary: “jumped the wall…running towards Tweedy Street Entrance…Male IC1…” I could hear two tones on the radio, mirrored in sound by two tones on the nearby streets, of units getting closer. My colleague headed off the suspect and the suspect turned directly into the school entrance.

Uh oh.

I squeezed what little stamina I had left and put everything into getting hold of him. Whilst chasing outside I had felt fairly confident, I knew the estate very well and there were units closing on us who would be there in minutes. Inside the school, with a violent suspect, and children… not a situation I wanted to be in.

The suspect turned into what turned out to be a classroom, followed closely by two slightly desperate coppers. He stopped, nowhere to go, my colleague had his asp out, “Stay there, don’t move, DON’T MOVE!” someone shouted. I realised it was me and I was holding down my transmit button on the radio still, my hand shaking.

That was because my hand had assessed the situation quicker than my brain could – I suddenly noticed a queue of young primary school children to my left lined up against the wall, either ending or starting a lesson. The suspect started to move, I was between him and the children, I didn’t know which one of us he was going for but wasn’t going to wait to find out. I pushed him back, radio still in my hand. He grabbed my wrist, tried to hit me and I fell on top of him.

What happened next is still slightly hazy. I continued barking (ignored) commands at the suspect, combined with shouting at the teacher to “get everyone out of here NOW!” My colleague was joining in, the suspect wasn’t in the mood to stop fighting.

You know the metal framed plastic chairs we all dread sitting on? You know the little dinky ones in primary schools? One of my lasting memories of that incident was seeing these chairs fly about the room as we scrabbled to keep the guy still and get him cuffed.

My other lasting memory? Thinking “this is a career killer” whilst still fighting.

Two other officers ran in, God alone knows how they found us, we cuffed the suspect and held him on the floor and tried to get our breath back. As we lay there, gasping for breath, in the middle of the chaos we had created in the classroom, the heroic head teacher entered. “I have an agreement with your borough commander you know, you are supposed to ask my permission before entering school grounds. I will be mentioning this.”

I know it was wrong. I really tried not to. But, lying on the floor, in the midst of upturned mini tables and chairs, with a line of engrossed children watching open mouthed, a suspect cuffed and wriggling and a colleague wiping blood from his nose, I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing directly at the head teacher - I actually had tears streaming down my face.

I was still giggling as the van pulled up and we loaded the suspect in. And when the lovely young teacher apologised for the head’s behaviour: “She’s been going through menopause for the last decade I think.”

And I even started again when the Inspector pulled me in to say that the head had complained about our conduct. My poor guvnor. I was trying to hold it in and snorting then bursting out laughing every few seconds. “Have you finished yet Area?”
“Yes sir.” (no)
“Are you sure?”
“Yes sir” (no)
“Ok then… she says here that you made a complete mess of the seating arrangement… Oh, pull yourself together for God’s sake Area…”
“Sorry sir” (I’m not)
“At least pretend to care about this”
“Snort, snort, giggle, sorry guv, giggle giggle”
“Oh bugger off Area, I don’t want to see an overtime state from this one." Long pause, whilst I try to keep a straight face and fail. “Thanks sir…snort…”

In fact, and I know this is sad, but I keep giggling as I'm writing this now.

Sorry.

(I'm not.)

Norn Iron

Inspector Gadget is a blog that I've been reading for a long time, it's a blog that keeps on giving.
The blogs on my sidebar I read on a regular basis, one of which is Belfast Peeler. It's a gripping read, not least as I have toyed with the idea of joining the RUC/PSNI in the past.

One of the best posts I've read by Belfast Peeler has just been posted - it struck me straight away, made me think of all the urgent assistances I've been to, HERE

It's a brilliantly written piece, but it's not quite there... not because of Belfast Peeler's inability to write, on the contrary; he gets closer than I can - but because it's next to impossible to really express in words the emotions and experiences that come with this job, especially in times like large urgent assistances. Read Belfast Peeler's blog, and in fact the other blogs on my sidebar. But the only way to really know is to experience it, for better or worse.

Official Secrets Act

There are so many incidents that I deal with that I want to blog about. The problem is keeping them as accurate as possible whilst not revealing real details and "showing out."

Obviously I change names, and in fact make a point of using names of people that are not on my team, and I'm quite ambiguous about my location. But I want to show the real incidents I deal with, or else I might as well just write a fiction book about policing. I also feel that I owe it to anyone who takes the time and effort to read this not to lie to them about things I've done.

The thing that I am finding difficult is finding incidents old enough to use. For instance, I dealt with a very blog worthy incident yesterday... but as it is so recent and unique if I blog it now and someone involved reads it, they will be pretty easily able to work out who I am and what the incident was. I don't want that as I want to a) protect my anonymity, and b) protect those involved. This is a problem, as although I have quite a few things to write about, the things that I really have in my head are the recent memories.

So my gap between posts is not through lack of inspiration - it's through trying to work out what I can safely write about.


Ideas and advice are welcome as always - the comments are the reason I keep blogging and keep checking this page.

Skippers and Magic

I feel it’s important to start this post by stating that I have huge respect for Sergeants in the Police Force. As someone who has created work for them on many, many occasions, I genuinely think it may well be the most difficult job in the Police. This post is not knocking Sergeants as a whole.

However…

There is a Sergeant I meet regularly who just doesn’t “get” me. We’re both adults, we don’t hate each other, but he definitely doesn’t understand my attempts at a sense of humour and I don’t always agree with his decisions or supervising style. For “Job” readers – think “Towbar” and “evidence gathering” and “High Potential Development Scheme.”

For non-job readers; in a few very short years Chief Inspectors will be calling him “Sir,” and he will need to collect scalps to get there at that speed.

Unfortunately he seems to have me in his sights at the moment. A while back I was trundling back into the nick near the end of night duty and he saw me climb out of the van in the yard. He noticed I wasn’t wearing my protective vest, and decided to mention it to me, whilst shouting, in the middle of our divisional HQ. I did the “yes Sarge, sorry Sarge” bit, knowing that if I explained why I wasn’t wearing it, he would have continued unabated. For anyone interested, I had spent three hours sitting in a primary school waiting for Scenes of Crimes Officers and various interested parties to attend, and then taken a statement from a very elderly and tired old lady related to the incident – neither of the incidents needing a vest in my opinion, but technically I had no leg to stand on. He is correct, I should wear a vest at all times.

Fast forward two weeks, and I took a call to some naughty boys being naughty in a public place. Very warm, mid summer, and I ran round the back to cut off the naughty boys as I arrived on scene as I knew the area, leaving my crew mates in the nice air conditioned Police Vehicle. Of course, on seeing the aforementioned Police Vehicle the naughty boys made off, and we had a little chase.

Suffice to say it was more successful than my last but one post, with less mud etc. The incident was dealt with, and we headed back to the Police Vehicle. We were twenty minutes past our shift handover time, I’d ran twice and it was muggy, our batteries were dying, there was no way we were dealing with any more calls, so I took my vest off as we drove back to the nick to try and cool down and deal with the sweating..

Mistake.

I’m no good at punchlines, so I’m sure you can guess who was standing in the yard as we drove in.

I got out warily. I knew that this was not going to be a chat about my welfare.
Pissed Sergeant: “Area, a word, right now.”
Area: “Sarge?”
PS: “You’re not wearing your vest.”
Area: “No.”
PS: “You weren’t wearing it out on the street, I saw you driving in.”
Area: “No Sarge."
PS: “What do you think you’re playing at? I’ve told you before.”
Area: “ I have to warn you Sarge, I am the Wizard Hazakaboo from the Planet Printocknablatee, and if you continue to threaten me I will perform a spell that will make you into the size of a dormouse.”
PS: “…”

I swear to you, he actually stood with his mouth open like they do in the movies, and then walked away without saying anything.

The next day, one of my regular Sergeants approached me. He kicked the tyres of the station van and stared up at the sky nonchalantly.
Regular Sergeant: “Apparently Pissed Sergeant had a word with you yesterday…”
Area: “Yes Sarge.”
RS: “He said you weren’t wearing your vest.”
Area: “No Sarge.”
RS: “Apparently you said you were a wizard?”
Area: “Yes Sarge.”
RS: “And threatened to turn him into a weasel or something?”
Area: “A dormouse Sarge.”
RS: “Ah ha, a dormouse, very good.”
Pause, whilst the kicking sped up. The Sergeant started to fiddle with the windscreen wipers.
RS: “You do realise you were probably the only officer on the relief not wearing a vest at that moment, don’t you?”
Area: “I’m also the only Wizard on the relief Sarge.”
Longer pause…
RS: “Do you know, I thought you’d say that. Please leave Pissed Sergeant alone, he always complains of headaches after talking to you.”

Result.

Coffee and Chases

To continue from my previous posts…

I think I need to explain something about them. I love pursuits in principle, fast cars and bad guys is a winning combination for me. The problem is that I have been in a couple of serious accidents in my time in and out of work, and I really don’t want to have to have the ambo crew and trumpton drag me out with neck braces on a stretcher again if I can help it.

The other, probably more major problem is that I think I was off on a bad start with pursuits.

My first ever pursuit was when I was very fresh faced and just weeks into playing about on the streets. I was in the area car (for non police readers – the fastest car and best trained driver the borough/department/team has, usually a BMW 5 series or similar) with a long service PC.

We had stopped in the petrol station and I had done the excited probationer thing of staring blankly about whilst trying to catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the garage doors. Mark, the area car driver, had done the usual thing of mentioning coffee numerous times and how thirsty he was and looking pointedly at me. The sharper of you may have worked out what I should have been doing, but it took me a less subtle hint. “The coffees aren’t getting themselves probby.” That did the job.

As I was walking back to the car with a paper cup of steaming hot coffee for Mark and a hot chocolate for me, he was on the radio. I slipped into the car seat and the Mark looked at me. “That car parked in front of us was nicked via a burglary. A nice arrest coming up for you my son.” I looked ahead and saw a navy blue Skoda, which at that moment drove off the forecourt and sped away. My first pursuit. I was so excited.

We were off at speed, and Mark shouted us up on the radio. I couldn’t reach the mike due to the drinks, couldn’t do anything as both hands were tied up. “Open the window, so I can chuck the cups!” I shouted.
“Not a chance, the drinks are hot!” came the reply. We took a corner sharply and Mark threw the mike down to take the corner and then scrabbled about for it as we straightened up. “Open the window so I can chuck the cups for God’s sake, I can do the commentary then!” I yelled. Mark kept driving and kept the potted commentary going, pausing only to shout back at me “I’m not wasting the coffee.”

The commentary came in dribs and drabs from Mark as he drove – eventually another unit stopped the car ahead of us and we roared up. Mark leapt out and ran to the bandit vehicle, as he did I could see the crew of the other Police car smashing the windows of the stolen car with their asps to get in. I couldn’t open our car door. I couldn’t do anything. I still had the coffees in my hands. I was almost crying with frustration as another unit pulled up, boxed me in and ran to join the fun.

As they hauled back the suspects and the police officers started to disperse, Mark wondered back to the car chatting to a Sergeant. Sergeant says: “Why were you doing the commentary? I thought you were double crewed?”
Mark “Yeah, my operator had just bought hot drinks and was too stingy to throw them.” Sergeant (whilst looking at me with disgust): “Bloody probationers.”


Me and pursuits were never going to get on with each other after that.

By the way, I am still sans my own internet, hence the delay in posts. I've written a few now and will post them when I get access, please keep the comments coming!

Fail to stop... Foot Pursuit

Previously, on The Bill…

Area had spotted likely lads in a car.

The car had not stopped for him.

Area had tried to keep his calm whilst the chase continued.

The likely lads had bailed out.

The story continues…


I leapt out of the car, adrenalin properly kicking in. I actually quite enjoy foot pursuits sometimes, as I’m relatively fit (compared to some coppers), and am reasonable at running.
It’s also one of the times I feel like a proper policeman, a running uniformed Police Officer actually gets noticed and people get out of the way for them.

Unfortunately I knew this could be a problem. It was night time and I was in an area I didn’t know. I started to run after the driver, and shouted up on the radio. Our poor borough controllers, who had not been aware of the chase as I was chasing on the mainset were treated to an overexcited PC shouting “Chasing suspects on foot, I think it’s Dowling Woods, I went shooting here once I think.” I’m never one to miss a chance to talk about inanities.

Our control came back, “Er… received. That’s not on our ground is it? …(long pause on an open carrier)… Er, the controller thinks it may not be even on Met ground.”

Great. Just what I didn’t want to hear. You can’t sigh when running at full pelt, but I made a valiant attempt at it and started coughing.

So… Scary chase? Check. No back up? Check. Out of our area? Check. Unsure of precise location? Check. Possibly out of my force area? Check. As long as my radio holds out, I should at least be able to keep containment until dogs or local units arrive.

You can see the punchline coming, can’t you?

The radio in my hand tailed out into a fuzz of static and silence – the old met radios weren’t designed to be used off borough. I had no way of stopping and changing channel, wasn’t even sure if I had the best channels in the set or what would be the closest met district. The suspect stopped and turned to look as he ducked under a tree. I threw my radio at him.

Possibly not the best move of the night, even I will admit.

The suspect ducked under the tree and I stumbled after him – I couldn’t work out how it had managed to be a dry day yet my boots and trousers were getting covered in mud. My arse, realising that it had been kept out of the action so far, decided to join in and went down to have a look at the mud as I clambered down an incline. Twice. At least I was vaguely camouflaged, being now semi covered in mud. I fumbled on my belt as I ran, and then the real humiliation started – I had to call 999 on my mobile phone. And explain that I was lost. With no radio. And yes, I am on duty, not off duty.

Dramatically, the suspect fell over an unseen obstacle in front of me, and as the woman on the end of the line was still talking I hung up and jumped on top of him. He didn’t even try and fight, and I cuffed him feeling pretty pleased with myself. I went to pick up my radio to inform them I had one detained, then realised I hadn’t got my radio. Sigh. Back to the mobile phone and the wonderful 999 system. I explained the situation, and they found the linked CADs (calls created), then came the killer. “Do you still need units to assist?” Er, no, not exactly. “Are there suspects outstanding?” No idea, I’ve got mine. “Why have you called back?” Er, I’m lost. I can’t find my car…

The final insult? Getting back to the vehicles, minus radio, phone out of battery, missing parts of ripped uniform covered in mud from head to toe after my chase, my frequent falls and the subsequent dramatic leap on to the suspect.

And being made to sit in the back of the cage with the prisoner in the station van as no one would let me in the car with them.

The things I do for this blog.

Fail To Stop

I have been told by my friends that this blog is not exciting enough, and that it is too far removed from The Bill. Unfortunately, I have to agree, although the Bank Holiday post was as close to an ending from The Bill as I could manage, all wrapped up in half an hour. It’s been a while since I’ve watched the Bill but I can’t remember them sitting on the phone for hours for CPS advice to charge/bail.

On a more exciting note, I had a pursuit a while back.

Most Police Officers have pursuits on a semi-regular basis, although in city areas especially most end very quickly – either the bad guy disappears or bails, or the chase is called off by the control room or (less often) by the chasing unit.

I was trundling along one of our local rat runs on a night duty, and I spotted a likely looking vehicle. To non police officers who might wonder what I mean by that, the only way I can describe it is this: the kind of car you wouldn’t want to cross the road in front of.

It had three occupants who all did their best to avoid my gaze, and I pointed it out to my partner Dan who was driving. He had also noticed them and swung our police car round to get behind them. I called up on the radio for a check on the registration, and found myself in a queue - as always. We have computers in the car for doing checks, but they don’t give us all the information that the control room can over the radio. I started doing the check on the computer whilst waiting, partly to get the result and partly to get the registration number noted; although I wasn’t expecting a chase I have forgotten a car’s registration number before whilst chasing it and found it very embarrassing indeed.

As I did this I realised that we were getting a lot of attention from the occupants of the car. Me and Dan shared a look, and I called up on the radio for the check to be done on the hurry up. I said to Dan, “I think he’s going to go. Do you reckon you can keep up?” Dan gave me the look so many people do over time, and said “Eat me.” It’s his way of showing he cares. As I laughed, the car in front sped up. Dan hit the blues. The car didn’t stop.

I called up “Control from BX22, active message.” The Active Message phrase is supposed to get people’s attention, to let them know that it’s not just the usual waffle and to shut up and let ME speak – I usually only use it for ambulance messages and pursuits.

The control room gave me the go ahead, and I gave the details: “Vehicle failing to stop, high street towards the centre, red Ford Escort, three up.” I gave the details of the registration and then moved to the mainset. In London if you have a pursuit or other major situation you get off your borough radio channels and start using the “channel north” or “channel south” radios fitted into your cars. I called up and started the pursuit, and heard other units start to call up.

One of the things you learn is to keep your cool whilst chasing, otherwise the chase is called off. It takes a certain type of mind set to cling on to the door handle whilst doing 90MPH round a bend then pick up a microphone and say “er, control from BX22… yeah, he’s done a left left into Letsby Avenue, no pedestrians, left at the end of the road, stand by for road name,” when in fact what you want to say is “I need the toilet. Like, now. Perhaps we should stop at a service station?”

As you may have guessed I’m not big on pursuits.

The car we were chasing jumped on to a large A-road and continued to Fail To Stop. Luckily it was a small underpowered vehicle, as every really fast car in the Met seemed to be on the other side of London. The driver was starting to panic, and swerved off the A–road into a small rural type road. We were well into another borough and although I had kept the commentary going in the slowest, most sardonic voice I could manage, every unit I heard on the radio was calling up with hopelessly inadequate ETAs. I knew we could carry on chasing, as I can read road signs as well as anyone else. I just hoped we wouldn’t get a foot chase as I had no idea where I was in relation to anywhere I’d been before.

The car stopped.

The occupants bailed out.

We had a foot chase on our hands. Oh dear…



In the spirit of The Bill - To Be Continued…

Man VS Technology

Just to say, sorry for the lack of posts - I have been hit with a double whammy of no internet and also a laptop that has decided that Hari Kari is the only option, so I am writing this on a borrowed computer on another internet connection. Avoid Sky internet!

Rest assured that as yet the Professional Standards people have not found me. Also rest assured that I have not spent my time reading the latest Harry Potter book. I have been working as always, and filing away incidents for your delectation.

Unless a regular "Job" contributor can point me in the direction of one, I have started writing a translation sheet for non job readers. Any suggestions/queries are welcome, it should be posted within a week (if Sky decide I am worthy of an internet connection again).

Free Hugs

I just wanted to say Happy Free Hugs Day - for that is what it is today. In fact, it is International Free Hugs Day

More here

So if you see these fine people around, give them a hug. In this video a couple of members of the police family joined in - lets see if we can have a more practical approach to all these "reassurance patrols" that we are currently doing. I'm sure that a good hug would reassure more people in London than seeing a distant Hi-Viz jacket. We need more people like this in the world. In fact, why not try hugging a senior officer, in the hope that they will take the experience and maybe think better of street monkeys?

Oh yes, I forgot, we can't. It's a weekend. Senior management don't exist then.

Enjoy anyway! I know, I'm a Hippy at heart really. And your point is...?




EDIT - after a couple of comments I've changed the template to something that is hopefully more pleasing on the eye to read. Thanks to Negative Result for help in tidying the links.