On route to violence

PC (Ex-PCSO, not WPC) Bloggs has sent me an email questioning the emotions that go through your head en route to a violent shout. I was going to send an email reply but I'd thought I'd share it with the world.

A word of warning though- in doing so I am breaking two of my rules of blogging- i.e. don't post after a shandy or two, and don't blog when you've been awake over 20 hours. Oh well. So forgive me if this goes a little sideways here and there.

And now, right on cue, Scrappycat (one of two small beasties I own that treat the Simon residence as a hotel) has decided to lie down right in front of the screen, so I'm having to crane my head one way then the other to see what I've written.

Anyhoo in response to the question. In the manner of a true politician I'd have to ask what kind of "violent" shout it is. Usually, the response is apathy. More often than not, a call which comes out as depicting violence is nothing of the sort by the time we get there. Blue lights and sirens invariably have an amazing fight stopping (and run provoking) effect by the time we are out of the car. Most of the time the uniform does have an effect and will stop the majority of street type fights.

Domestic violence jobs are by far the most dangerous. More often than not, there is very little information to go by and the fact that it is the first call to the address can mean absolutely nothing in terms of what has and is going on behind the door. Two colleagues had a nightmare experience at one a few years back- one got knocked out and the other only saved herself from asphyxiation by managing to wrestle an arm free and squeezing and twisting his balls with every ounce of strength she had. (I have yet to see this technique in the Home Office Approved Restraints manual)

In short, there are very few situations we know we are going to where we know there is going to be violence. I've learned not to try and second guess whats happened at a call because no two are ever the same. I just worry about a) where the call is and b) getting there without stacking it. Then think about what I've got to do with the job when I get there.

The exception though is the emergency activation button when an officer presses their little red button. This invariably means "I need help now" and anyone who has access to a car with a fleet number will be on their toes.

But what goes through my head? Well, actually pretty much the same thing. Where do I go, and don't crash. The only difference now is I have no mechanical sympathy for the car and rag seven bells of hell out of it to get there. I'm mature enough (!!!!!!!!!) to not feel the need to drive like a tool to every call whether shoplifter or domestic- but I leave the minimum in reserve for the urgent assistance shout. The adrenaline tends to get going on this kind of call too, especially depending on what the officer in trouble manages to transmit across the radio, and there is a definite buildup of tension as you get nearer the scene. I can best equate it to the build up to kickoff in a rugby match- you know its about to get physical and you may well get bashed around but if you're going to be any use you keep your head and chose your moves carefully.

Right... that will do. Tis now well past my bedtime and I shall suffer if I don't get moving. PCSO Bloggs, I hope this has been of use!

Unwind

I tell you what, no matter how manic the day, an oversize mug of tea and an unhealthily sized slab of chocolate don't half make things feel better. Well, particularly so when you're at home and the custody desk which has been the bane of your existence for the best part of the day is now several miles away.

There was at least a couple of times today when if I happened to have a lump hammer close by I would have mildly redecorated the suite with bits of computer and telephone. Had to get people to go to a completely different end of the building to print off bits of paper from the printer 3 feet behind me; people kept ringing up with the most inane, useless questions; people who were supposed to be on "help"lines were utterly useless (4 times I rung up about not being able to print, 3 times I was told it was being resolved.... it never was); solicitors got stroppy; prisoners wailed incessantly when I politely declined their requests to be released forthwith; my lunch sat sadly abandoned in my bag; people coming and asking for quick favours when "I get a minute", governors coming in and getting a bit stroppy when I don't know the precise latest up to the minute details on whichever prisoner he's taken an interest in.

I love custody! Really. And I am now asking myself the question why am I sat down in front of another screen? I'm off outside to wander aimlessly, and simply enjoy the fact I'm able to be outside wandering uselessly.

Moving on

I'll let the pay business slide for the moment. It seems for once the fed are actually being half-organised and might actually give us an opportunity to do something to show our displeasure beyond yet another email proforma telling us to write to an MP. We'll see what happens. The much vaunted power of the internet seems to have failed for me.

For as of course life goes on. I've been anchored to the custody desk, so for once with this freezing weather I'm not so fed up of the same 4 walls as usual. My sergeanting colleague wandered in the other day. He has now adopted a permanent expression of.... I can't quite describe it, but resigned acceptance about sums it up. He told me we're now down to 4 Pc's covering Suburbiaville, whose population and problems have not been reduced by a third to match the loss of the PC's. The governor won't be happy, as his statistics will have reduced by a third too. Never mind eh.

Which brings me on. Things I am likely not to see in a custody suite:

1) A PCSO. They're not allowed to arrest anyone.
2) A safer neighbourhood constable, unless they were really unlucky and were in the wrong place at the right time.
3) A safer neighbourhood sergeant. They're not even custody trained round my way.
4) Anyone under 16 who actually demonstrates some kind of regret or sorrow for being arrested.
5) Anyone in a suit before 0930am.
6) Anyone from SMT, unless someone has died.

Feel free to continue the list.

Custard Sergeant

Had the joys of being in custody recently.

Some skippers enjoy custody. I don't.

To be fair, I can understand why some enjoy it. It is a role where you know exactly what your job is, there is considerable responsibility, and you are the boss. Anything that happens in the custody suite happens with your consent. Immaterial of rank, you still get permission from the custody skipper if you want to do anything in the cell block.

To me, I hate the fact I'm staring at the same walls for the entire shift and sat at a desk 98% of the time. Its the precise thing I joined the police to get away from. Occasionally you get interesting prisoners- after all, no matter what the offence or offender everyone goes through the custody office- whether a first time shoplifter or a murderer still covered in his victims blood having been chased all over town. But most of the time I'm counting down the hours.

Anyway some time spent in there is inevitable.

Following on from earlier posts it isn't unknown for police officers to turn a blind eye to some drunken antics that could be recorded as crime- mostly low level stuff- the odd taking a leak in corner, squaring up and posturing business that is normally dealt with a word in your ear like.

One thing that is not ever knowingly ignored is drink drive. If that little light goes red on the roadside, you're coming in. No word of warning, park it and get a taxi, you're coming in.

Had a classic in the other weekend.

Posh girl leaving club with her utterly inebriated boyfriend who turned out not to be her husband. Get in their bling shiny 4x4 and promptly reverse it straight into the taxi rank. Taxi men and club manager aren't the happiest with this and manage to stop her and call us.

Two PCs turn up. She messes about with the breathalyser until on the last chance (i.e. "if you don't do this properly this time, you're arrested for failing to provide) and surprise surprise the machine thinks for all of half a second before going straight to red.

She gets brought in before me. At this stage for her its all just such a terrible inconvenience. I start off the myriad forms with the same questions repeated about 6 times. These forms have been developed as a result of various people getting their high paid lawyers to blag them off a drink drive as a result of some poxy technicality like they had mouthwash in the preceding hour- anything to just make the breath machine not 100% accurate and so inadmissible, even if they were completely bladdered and were 3 times over the limit.

Anyway, I surmise this plunging neckline in front of me is going to have a high paid lawyer so I make extra sure everything is precisely by the book.

And she's more than double the limit. Oh dear oh dear.

This is where the fun begins. I have to wait for her to be sober so I can charge her with the offence. Police doctor advises 3 maybe 4 hours. This has the added benefit of ensuring she isn't released still too drunk to drive. Hopefully the Range Rover will have a nice clamp on it by the time she gets out.

I tell Posh Totty she's spending time in the cell to sober up, knowing precisely what reaction it will get. I am not disappointed. Cue one hysterical crying fit "I caaaaaaaaaaaan't go in the cell, pleeeeeeeeease". Unfortunately for her I am not one for bending to her every whim unlike what she is probably used to, and one of the female detention officers escorts the streaked mascara to the cell "with pleasure, sarge".

Am I wrong for taking some kind of guilty amusement out of this??

Business as usual

Well a nice couple of days off and welcomed back to Suburbiaville to the all to familiar soundtrack of the wheel coming off. What a day.

Had one of those rare and unusual things starting the day off- an ordinary member of the public prepared to intervene in something going on (note- I appreciate that most readers of this who aren't officers are decent people who would step in. But in some areas of town it is rare enough to have someone who'll call 999 let alone see a passing police car, get its attention, direct them to the suspect and hang around to give a statement) which resulted in the most deserved arrest of a domestic bully "brave" enough to give his girl (half his size) a hiding in public.

Things went a bit loopy from then on. I got the shields out of the back of the car twice. Rape kit once. There were people with knives going for officers. Going at themselves. Going at their girlfriends dog. People wandering away from supposedly secure mental health facilities.

I had a shouting match over the phone with a DC who was doing his absolute best to ensure the latest pile of grief I had the unfortunate task of being initially in charge of did not end up on his desk. Spectacular efforts to squeeze and slime their way out of something that is clearly within their quite specific remit.

Trying to find words of comfort to a young mother whose husband has just smashed bits of their door and window out trying to get inside to them. And I don't mean for heroic reasons.

At the end of the shift I was pacing up and down the old control room bouncing ideas and plans off the other skipper trying to figure out a plan to deal with yet another job- an usually convoluted and twisted one this time- one of the ones that no matter what our final plan would be someone in an office somewhere will pick up on it and say our performance was inadequate and we failed to comply with x y and z. I was talking to the next shifts skipper and I had got barely 30 seconds into when he was saying "oooh don't like that, you didn't do anything about that?". I was about to go and explain how with the information and resources -i.e. myself and one other car- we had at the time that was really not our priority. Then I thought I would just tell him to go and take a long walk off a short pier (possibly rephrased a touch), but finally I kept my temper in (it was a long, long hot day) and restrained myself to agreeing that with hindsight I might've done something different.

I'm quite glad Mrs Simon doesn't ever hear me in the locker room. I might have said a few choice words about various people in Suburbiaville and various officers who staff various offices and choose to implement their policy when it suits them.

On a different note. My thanks to those who commented on the previous post. I always appreciate people leaving comments but those ones particularly so. I'm not planning on promotion any time soon. When I did the sergeant's exam I passed with a score that would've done for the governor's too but put the exam in front of me now I reckon I'd fail it. I don't need to have it all memorised, I have reference books and legal database to hand!

But yeah I do enjoy skippering. At the end of the day above I went down a local watering hole on the way home with another couple of PC's who were late finishing. A beer never tasted so good. Had a good moan about pretty much everything you could think of, which helped let off some steam. Didn't have to burden Mrs S with quite so much of it!

But that will do. Off to bed, more of the same (I don't hope) tomorrow morning..............

Morale & Morality

As I said below, the last few shifts, things have been completely hectic. And I mean hectic. A few highlights of some of the things my lot have had to deal with:
- Burst water mains (like need to close a 3 lane trunk road burst water main)
- Child kidnap
- Sexual assault
- Missing children
- Deceased people
- GBH
- several ABH's
- several robberies and thefts
- drink drivers
- burglaries
- firearms incidents
- several domestics, some of which involving one or more of the above
About the only thing we haven't had is a serious RTA. It was particularly busy on night shift. Usually, calls start tailing off in the early hours, 3-4am or so. Not the last few shifts. Calls kept on coming right through till 6am.

Things are made worse because of the lack of numbers on response team. Across the whole division we had perhaps fifteen cars on. The problem is, as nearly every police blogger says, we can't just turn up at a call and deal with it in 15 minutes and move onto the next one. Oh no. If someone has been assaulted, then people need to be arrested, crime reports created, witness statements taken. As per posts below this takes hours, especially if someone has been arrested.

I can't really comment on why my team is persistently running at minimum strength. Here's the paradox. Neighbourhood Policing Teams have been introduced in my area. Now whilst they can focus on things that 999 teams usually don't, that is offset by the fact they are invariably staffed by officers abstracted from 999 teams- or officers who were supposed to go to 999 teams. Which means the 999 teams are left short. Has my service's ability to respond to 999 calls been diminished by safer neighbourhood teams?

One thing for certain is the boys and girls on my team at the end of these shifts, are shattered. This is where the concept of police morale comes in.

Police officers by and large want to do their job. Even when they're griefy and time consuming, as usually jobs like this don't come along too often, and most days you can finish on time or thereabouts. But recently this has become the exception, not the norm. Numbers are few enough so that most days its likely you'll be late off.

Now for the non-police readers you may say so what. But remember that we have families too, and we have lives outside this job that are invariably affected enough with the shift patterns we have.

The end result is these calls that come out towards the end of the shift- the ones which you know will take ages to sort out and are likely to result in arrest (you can always bank on a minimum of 4hrs work when someone is arrested) then you can see the faces fall. They don't want to go. This is a bad sign. That is what low police morale is.

So when morale goes, the officers morality tends to go too. What I mean by this is their sense of pride and wanting to do the job goes. They start not caring about what calls come in. On one of the last shifts, one of my lads came in to the nick with about an hour to go, dumped his bag and logbook to the floor and said in no uncertain terms whether he was going back out again. He still had a load of paperwork to do from the missing child (who had gone missing from a location way out of our sector, at the opposite end of the ground- but there was no one left down there) and had been late off twice in the last 4 days, with one of them being a really unpleasant sudden death.

Now if a call came out, I should tell him that he will be dealing with it. But would I? Not bleeding likely.