We would like you to focus on......

Was round visiting the folks in Countytown the other day.


Countytown is a fairly decent respectable sort of place. My parents live in a decent area, happily living a much quieter existence since their offspring cleared off and got places of their own. (An aside- I am immensely grateful I was able to buy my place when I could a few years back. I couldn't afford my own place now. How anyone is supposed to buy their own place these days without fabulously wealthy parents or a lottery win is beyond me)


Their particular corner of Countytown has its own residents association. I was leafing through their newsletter when I was over. In amongst the expected articles of middle class indignation "We really don't feel it necessary for people to park with wheels on the pavement" and preparation pleas for "Countytown in bloom" an article caught my eye.


They were appealing- again- for people to attend a local community meeting to meet their new neighbourhood community officer (PCSO) and tell him (or her of course, can't remember) of their concerns.


I say again, as for the last two meetings nobody had bothered to turn up.



This gave me a rueful smile. This part of Countytown is a reasonable place where people by and large work for a living, pay their taxes and probably vote in local elections. But their response to the governments grand hugely expensive scheme of neighbourhood police and "ownership" of local neighbourhood teams has fallen somewhat flat on its face in precisely the kind of area the government would want it to work (i.e. with people who vote and pay tax).


I must admit where I live there is a local residents association too. I'm not too fussed about joining it. To me it has imagines of Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet, darling) types filled with self importance and their own little empires. I of course may be quite wrong, but haven't really felt any great desire to prove myself wrong.


My views of my local police are fairly simple (I don't live and work in the same part of the force area, by the way). If I need police, then I call 999 and have a reasonable right to expect a reasonably quick response. When I don't need them, I'd trust the local lot to know for themselves what the real problems would be.


I say real problems. Back in Suburbiaville, I know of one the local SNT/NPT outfits in a nice part of town. Their "neighbourhood policing priority panel" or whatever the hell its called have set their Neighbourhood Team the priority of issuing parking tickets on the school run. When it was pointed out that actually the crime patterns indicated this that and the other, it was ignored in favour of the 15 minutes each day where the school run brigade dare to partially block Mrs Jones's driverway.


Most of the crime that happened was school kid robberies, and theft from builders vans. But because the members of the Neighbourhood Policing Panel (Hyacinth Bucket types and wannabe local politicians) weren't affected by these things which happened to other people, they didn't care. They wanted to be able to get out of their driveway unimpeded.


To me, its another example of how the practical application of a good theoretical idea (Neighbourhood Policing) simply does not work in reality.

Postings and pistols

Well I've been visited by the phantom police hater (hereon dubbed Cuddles, courtesy Busybizzie- brilliant name!) who's been doing the rounds on all the blogs with his particularly pleasant comments regarding Pc Henry.

I'm not going to delete them. I think it is better for all to see the kind of people who do exist in society. I appreciate this person is hiding behind a cloak of anonymity- being wary of hypocrisy here as I am aware that is precisely what I and 99% of police bloggers do, but at least we provide a consistent identifiable means of contact- but there are people like that in the real world who I meet who are quite prepared to tell me their true feelings. Perhaps moderated a touch as the inconvenience (not punishment or embarrasment) of a section 5 arrest may temper their language a bit.

I provide a contact email on the right too. I've been sent a couple of fairly colourful emails in the past. Perhaps I ought to publish them next time.

Moving on from the pond life I am amused by the fact that it is rare that a police blog gets updated at the weekend. This is mostly because either a) we're at work b) if we're not at work, its that rare thing of a weekend off and as such time will not be wasted sat at home computer.

Took this off someone recently- off someone who thought he'd use it to relieve someone else of any spare cash and jewellry they happened to have on them:


Well, I rephrase. I didn't take it off him. Someone with a rather large police issue sub-machine gun took it off him. How I would love to have seen his face when the armed response boys surprised him walking down the street. Not a clever criminal, as he wore quite distinctive clothing.

Its actually a type of air pistol. But would you know that if I didn't tell you?

Just a Moment

Picked up an album hadn't listened to for a while. Just had one of those moments where you get completely lost for four minutes, leaning against the doorpost, surrounded by the music to the exclusion of all else, gazing out of the window at the wind and the rain.

It was one of those moments that despite all the crap that goes on in this world, could just forget it for those few minutes and be somewhere else.

The clue to the track is in the post title, for those curious.

*sigh* I need to get ready to go to work.

I think I need to listen to more music.

100

Pc Henry's death is now slipping beneath the murky waters of the mainstream media level of interest. Soon to be, if not already, displaced by the big brother house, Victoria Beckham and the 453rd "investigation" into Diana's crash.

Won't ever be forgotten by most coppers I know. Anyone on response team will feel a particular resonance with his story, because in any force on any day there will be a call with parallel features. All will know, it could've been them turning up first on scene. Just last week we had a shout with a crazed male trying to force his way into his ex's house. When the officer gets there he pulls a knife from under his jacket and lunges for the officer. The officer gets out of the way without a contact, thankfully.
Crazy man is contained in a basement area (how I love police dogs straining at the lead, practically foaming at the mouth) but he only puts that knife down when the big red Tazer dot appears on his chest.

Do I think all officers should be armed? Short answer, No.

There are people who I barely trust with a driving course and a set of handcuffs, let alone the level of responsibility required for having a lethal weapon. The amount of effort required to get rid of a bad (incompetent, not criminal) copper is monumental, taking months or years to complete. A couple of occasions I've turfed people straight out of the custody suite because their arrests have been, well, completely unlawful. And I'm talking basic offences here, not a complex subsection paragraph amendment to a money laundering act. Could you trust someone with a gun who arrested someone "for S25 PACE" (pre SOCPA days here) because they had refused their details on a stop search?

I have been involved in full on scraps with people. On one occasion a colleague had his baton wrestled from him and was used against him. Every interaction with the public we would have to stand off. I would not get involved in physical contact with a gun strapped to my leg. It would require such a massive shift in the way we interact with the public, - a negative shift to my mind- requiring us to stand off, be more aggressive in giving commands, be more alienated.

Maybe armed officers who read this can enlighten me. I've never done firearms training and so am not really speaking from experience: but common sense tells me that you don't get physical with a sidearm strapped to you.

I'm not a traditionalist. I think we should police according to the requirements of the day, and not because people think that because its been done in a certain way for x years, it should remain that way. Like uniform. Daft, impractical, sweaty top hats that are only kept because they give tourists something to take photos of. "You British Bobby? Wowee!"

So I'm not against arming all police with firearms for reasons of traditionalism or sentamentalism. I simply don't think it is necessary at the moment.

However, I do think our current armed response capability is inadequate. I know of some county forces who only have had 5 trained officers available in a shift. I fail to understand why Tazers are not made more available. I fail to see why only firearms trained officers are authorised to use them. (I am sure if I posed this question to SMT officers I'd recieve a veritable thickness of SOP's detailing why force policy is not. Actually, to be fair to our current Chief of Ops, he'd say he wants more and lay the blame squarely at the doors of the home office)

My (unscientifically proven or researched) opinion, from speaking to firearms trained colleagues, is that Tazer is in several circumstances safer than CS gas. No cross contamination. No problems using it in a contained area or inside a building. It is not a corrosive agent. It does not have a 20 minute recovery time. There is not a body of people who are immune to the effects of a tazer. Tazer incapicates people and prevents them fighting on. CS sometimes infuriates people and motivates them fighting on.

I don't think every officer should be Tazer equipped. (see above re driving courses.) But their availability should be more widespread: one per division / sector / area, maybe even issued to supervisors (ha!!!) but not confined to the armed response car covering the whole force area.

The one fortunate thing about the circumstance of Pc Henry's death was the time of the morning. The lack of traffic and early time of day meant the armed response car could be there quickly. If they were tied up dealing with something else, or were 12 miles away in rush hour, then the response team PC's on scene would've had to tackle him, especially if they thought he was likely to attack anyone else.

Thats my two pennies worth. Not the best of events providing motivation for my 100th post.

Pc Henry

Apologies to all. In the post below I miswrote Pc Henry's name as Pc Terry. This has now been amended.

I had a look at the front pages of the newspapers today, to see which newspapers gave what emphasis to what.

The Sun, Mirror, Express and the Mail (for once, going up in my estimation) all ran with Pc Henry's terrible story on the front page.

Out of the broadsheets, only the Telegraph ran the story.

The Guardian doesn't even mention the story on the front pages, running instead a story focusing on the failings of the police following an "honour" killing conviction. The Independent feels a potential cure for hay fever is more important. I can't recall what the Times showed, but their online edition doesn't have an obvious link, also instead focusing on the same story the guardian does. The BBC have dropped the story from their news site "front page" too.

Anyone with relatives in the forces will be shrugging their shoulders by now, saying "get used to it". I seem to recall that the 150th soldier was recently killed in Iraq. Army fatalities barely get a sidebar these days.

I'm not trying to make any point here, just trying to gauge just how many people care about this kind of thing. Is it just me, or was there an awful lot more coverage for Pc Beshinivsky's equally barbaric demise? Is it because she was shot? Or because she was a she, and newspapers are generally male dominated? I don't know.

Only the Express brought up the question of arming the police. I'll post my thoughts on this another time.

Perspectives

I was going to update this with another rant about something I was shown over the weekend. However it can wait. It simply isn't important compared.

An officer has been stabbed to death in Luton.

PC John Charles Henry

All my thoughts are with this officer's family. At 36 he more than likely is going to be leaving young kids behind. (Update later in the day..... this is now sadly confirmed. A baby girl and a wife)

Anyone in the police, response officers in particular, will be feeling a tightening across their chest.
For as we all know- there but for the grace of God go I.

Rest in peace, colleague.

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..............

Something else

I know most people who look here more often than not are observers of Inspector Gadgets blog. However, if you tend not to bother with the comments take the extra few minutes to take a look at this post and its subsequent comments.

The stories there from anonymous officers across the country are beyond anything I have the ability to write tonight. I'm in one of those tired and defeatist moods at the moment, where I look at the whole scene of policing and feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task we have. I was reading a report yesterday online (which I cannot now find the link for to save my life) talking about the decline in so many things within the police with the flipside of the vast resources allocated to the recruitment of PCSOs; how official job media outlets are so disproportionately biased in terms of coverage towards PCSO's (I saw recently PCSOs recommended for bravery for chasing a shoplifter- no weapons or anything, just bags of clothes-, to which I had not even the will to shake my head); and how anyone with the capacity to influence or even question this stall of resourcing to front line police is either blinkered or going with the flow.

I was speaking to another skipper the other day, talking of how I am actually motivated to move up through the ranks to try and make some kind of difference on this broader scale. But to get there, I'd have to jump through all the yes minister hoops and try and sound enthusiastic about things I really don't agree with. Crocodile Politics, I think I'll call it. Like crocodile tears. But with political views. But I think you'd figured that out.

Our glorious leaders

No sooner had I written the post below then I heard something on the news that made me mad. MPs are voting to exempt themselves from the freedom of information act. Lawmakers are amending the law to make themselves exempt from the law. Whatever their posturing about keeping their constituents letters private, I reckon they're more embarrassed about their lucrative sidelines and dodgy business deals.

Am I alone in thinking this pathetic.

Get a list of who voted here, send your wormy MP a letter....

Standing by

Apologies in advance. Will be a dearth of posts next couple of weeks, going to be a busy time with both work stuff and home life, net result of which will be I won't really be able to devote much time on here.

Have updated sidebar videos in the meantime for your enjoyment and wincing. I've retired the old ones to the very bottom of the page.

Bear with me!

Commendable behaviour

Normally I don't read the Daily Mail, as I tend to find it a somewhat middle-england championing, opinionated and hypocritical newspaper (where else would you find articles condemning size zero culture, but turn pages to find several articles on how to lose weight in femail.....) but there was one lying around on the bus today and I read it on the way home.

Something caught my eye as a tad disturbing. The Met have commissioned a report which has criticised their handling of homophobic attacks. Now don't get me wrong here. I'm all for introspection and improvement and if we, the police as a whole (not just the Met) aren't doing our jobs properly then it should be inspected, highlighted and acted on.

I have great problems with the fact the officers writing the report are to recieve commendations. This is a reflection of the appearance-obssessed priorities upper echelons of the police have. Write a report that criticises the service for not doing a good enough job to a particular section of the public, expect commendations and probably promotion. Whereas I on lowly response team send an officer home after he inhales a lot of smoke pulling someone away from a burning van. The only official feedback I get is a whinge for not doing the injury on duty form correctly.

Perhaps myself and all the other police bloggers should expect commendations for criticising the way the police is run, currently being trumpeted in the papers after being taken up by the federation. But I doubt it. Our team came under pressure recently as our arrest and disposal stats are lagging behind the other teams. I just shrug, point to the other statistic that we consistently turn up to more calls and quicker than the other teams, and wonder if the stat crunchers will ever realise there's an inverse link between the two. Personally, I think thats the way round it should be and thankfully so does the team boss.

I smell the blood of an Englishman

Finally, I have a working computer and phone line again, and have got some time do put something on here. The perpetual rain is doing a very effective job at persuading me to remain inside too.

There's been all sorts happening over the last weeks across the country. I might delve into them another time, but for now a couple of "highlights" from the month.

I was most upset the other night. For the first time I can remember I lost a foot chase. Why? Bleedin shoelaces came undone. At one point I considered just kicking the boot off but then I thought I'm running round stairwells at night in an unfamiliar estate, probably not best. I don't think I'd have seen it again. I said quite rude things to the offending shoelace as I was yanking it back together again. I nearly always double knot the things, I just forgot this time so of course sod's law kicks in.

A couple of weeks back I met Robert. Robert has one of those personality disorders that are determined untreatable and so he is kicked out of the hospitals to which we frequently send him under S136 Mental Health Act. Robert decided the other day to cut his wrists. Now we quite often get calls like this, and get there to find small cuts, not very deep. Robert was a tad different. With a stanley knife blade he had gouged right through his wrist. 3 times.
He was sat in his kitchen when we got there with his despairing friend. The kitchen was a reasonable size, with a white tiled floor. Blood covered every single tile. It was on the sideboards where he had sat. It was down the cupboards. A completely soaked towel was in the middle of the floor. Spots were on the wall from when he'd moved his arm. I've seen lots of blood before, but this was something else. You wouldn't have thought blood smells, but I tell you it does.

A single flourescent tube illuminated this scene, highlighting the contrast between red and white.

Robert was at his home. Robert did not want to go to hospital. We have no power to do anything. We only have powers to section people if they're in a public place. The old trick of arresting them to prevent a breach of the peace, followed by de-arresting them once outside and sectioning them instead isn't an option these days. We also have the issue that he doesn't even want to leave the kitchen. The floor is a wet slippy congealed nightmare. We do not want to fight this man. He's no small fry either. But there's no way we can leave him there. He's still conscious, blood steadily dripping through his hands, telling us it was an accident and he'll get it sorted in the morning.

We all know he'll be dead by the morning. The bandage he did let the ambulance service put on he has torn off.

So, we negotiate. We patiently build rapport and trust. His friend tries too, but nothing. He just sits on the sideboard, oblivious to the blood everywhere, telling us he's fine. Half an hour of patient persuasion leads nowhere. Eventually, Robert starts getting impatient and smashes a cup. The group of armoured PC's outside brace, wondering if I'm going to order them all in or order them all out.

A Pc comes in with a shield, telling him not to be so stupid in a manner you would tell off a child, which with all the circumstances seemed mighty surreal. But Robert responds, saying sorry. The gentle persuasion has failed and so its time to try the more forceful approach. Myself and the Pc tell him that he's coming to hospital right now. Hallelujah, Robert agrees. I quickly signal for everyone outside to quickly hide, knowing if he sees all the armour waiting it'd freak him out. We walk out and go down the several flights of stairs, everyone quietly following. Blood is still flowing down his hands, to the extent that as we turn and turn round the stairwells, there are spots and spots of blood all over the floor before we even get there.

Finally, three floors down Robert goes down in a heap, succumbing to the blood loss. I quickly grab his arm and get the ambulance service to put one, then two and finally three dressings on it. Robert starts coming round. Straight away he tries to fight us, swearing at us to leave him alone. I've had enough by now and am not in the mood for negotiation. I take a tight hold of his arm and shoulder, a Pc grabs the other side and we march him down the stairs, holding him as he collapses again. He's a hefty git and we can't carry him, we just wait for him to come round again, stop him fighting us, and march him on again.

Finally, we reach the bottom. He collapses once more as the ambulance driver runs off to get his rig. Once again, once he revives he flails out at us, seriously pissed off. We can't handcuff him because of his wrist. We hoik him into the ambulance. I throw my car keys at someone and we're off to the hospital on blues. I'm standing, holding his wrist up high to a) stop him hitting me with it and b) to stop him losing yet more blood. The other Pc is holding his other arm. The paramedic is trying do something, but we're all struggling with him and our balance as the ambulance dodges in and out of traffic

We get to the hospital and see the open mouthed reaction of the staff when we struggle in with him. We take him down to a cubicle from where he kicks off again. We end up pinning him to the ground. A doctor gets a sedative and administers it. Finally, he calms down. He goes to a mattress on the floor and lets the nurses start cleaning him up. The floor where he was pinned down looks like some something out of Dawn of the Dead. I take the chance to grab some water and take a look at myself.

I am covered in his blood. Top to bottom- boot, trouser, vest and shirt. Thoughts of HIV and Hepatitus cross my mind and I go and clear myself up, hoping that little nick on my arm has healed properly. The other skipper is going through all the details with the ambulance and hospital staff.

I feel justified in nominating someone not covered in his blood to do the write up. I head back to our nick, feeling quite nauseated now by the constant smell of blood from my own clothes.

Communication Issues

Apologies all, lack of posting resulting from telephone (did you know you can monitor your fault progress online? How flippin useful is that, I don't have a telephone line, I can't get online you bunch of halfwits) and computer issues (behaving rather oddly)....... should be sorted by end of week so I don't have to borrow friends internet connection.........

Summer vs Winter

I have decided blogging is more of a winter lark, really.

I did have things I was going to write on here today, but rather than cooping myself up when it is glorious sunshine outside and for once I am not at work or preparing to go to work, I think I'd rather be out there, even if it is cleaning the car or the annual puzzle as to whether the green thing in the garden is something I planted last year or is a weed.

Further updates when the weather has changed......

Some tales of gore from recent shifts, I can tell you. Will probably post about them soon.

Yellow Jackets Are the Solution

Been a mad day. Been flying around like a youth chasing the last hoodie on sale in the world. Frankly, I'm absolutely shattered and I am indeed asking myself the question just why am I on the internet when I should be in bed.
Job is bonkers all round. Our vehicle fleet is at a third strength at the moment, and we are begging other stations to lend us something to fill the gaps. Then I hear someone up in the ivory towers has noticed that crime goes up at weekends and has released a load of cash for officers to "volunteer" to do overtime patrols at the Urbantown booze hole drunken crime hotspots.

An utterly short-term solution. A substantial number of constables (and their grumbling- oh yes we're grumbling- sergeants) in yellow jackets wandering round in a bad mood will probably have an effect on the number of incidents, granted. The reported crime rate will fall and someone will have a big congratulatory slap on the back for coming to the shocking conclusion that more police officers on the streets mean less crime.

But why can't someone look beyond the immediate quick solution of yellow jackets and invest this money- which someone has found from somewhere- in the response teams, in their vehicle fleets and equipment, and even the CID and case handover teams, so they can do their jobs properly with a proper amount of officers with proper equipment. Give it time, and see if the crime will fall. I would argue that it would.

But all that will happen now is that when the crime rate has fallen and the chiefs and money gurus say well done and withdraw funding for the extra patrols, the muppets left to urbantown's drunken halfwits will be the response teams (probably when its our turn for weekend nights again). And so the crime rate will go up because we're understaffed with inadequate vehicles and have to spend most of our time dealing with our own enquiries as the handover teams are completely overwhelmed and can rarely take anything on.

And so the chiefs go back to the money gurus and plead for money to combat this "new" crime pattern blah blah etc etc and so ad infinitum.

I think I'm even too tired to be exasparated. I'm just like- whatEVER. I'm off to bed.

Not on the nine o'clock news

Well I am not pleased to announce I can now verify the Bloomberg report below.

Check out the MP's website here, the reports page here, or download the report directly here.

And it barely gets mentioned in the uk news sites.

Why do we bother with this job? Do we deserve to get set on every 20 minutes? Does anyone care as long as nothing happens to them?

Every 20 minutes.....

A UK police officer is assaulted. 5 out of 6 of us since 2002. Can include myself in there quite a few times over. There is at least one person with a conviction for assaulting me.

According to this report 70 officers a day across the UK are assaulted.

Why can I not find this report on any of the mainstream uk news sites? Is it not newsworthy? Is it not relevant? Why has a US website run this story before any of ours?

Morning

Having real difficulty getting out of nightshift bodyclock. Its like a three day hangover, not amusing.
For those who hadn't noticed I've fiddled about with the sidebar, have put on a few youtube vids about police pursuits. These are one of the most difficult things to call in the job. Yes they are exciting (hence their proliferation on youtube) but they are dangerous. In the UK even if its just the suspect who gets injured its the officer who was pursuing who gets questioned more. I've heard rumours (anyone know for sure?) that a suspect injured after crashing when he was chased has successfully sued the police- if they didn't chase him, he wouldn't be injured. That wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Police drivers should always be professional about these kind of things but the first one shows we're not always. in the second the driver is calm and controlled and it ends in a good result but was so close to mowing down a pedestrian.
The third shows another lucky escape, this time with a baby involved.
The fourth shows a very terminal end to a pursuit.

I'll try and keep it updated every so often with other examples. The aim is to get people to realise its not squealing tyres and blah but the decision not to pursue can often be a lot more difficult than deciding to.

Emotion of the day: Frustration

A number of reasons why.

Frustation at the lack of frontline resources. The last few days have been particularly busy and we have completely lacked the manpower to adequately answer calls. Took over an hour and a half to respond to one priority call, you know, the kind where we should be there within 12 minutes? I only know of that one because I booked in the resulting prisoner (and yes, it was a domestic)- there would have been plenty more calls where it took just as long to turn up, if at all. By the time someone becomes available and the control room ring the informant back the suspect is long gone (if there is one), its gone cold and there's nothing left but reports for assault or criminal damage or theft or whatever. And we're forced to put off sending a unit again because by now another urgent call has come out that takes priority, so the bewildered and shocked victim won't get to see a police officer until the following morning. Call that a good service?

I met some people in a local takeaway (No police canteen? Don't be silly. Its the weekend). Really nice folks, we were chatting away while Mrs Leng and her family beavered away in the kitchen getting our tea. They were a touch surprised when I told them just how few police cars covered their neighbourhood (and the surrounding ones). By that time, half the cars had prisoners in and we had the grand sum of 2 police vehicles covering a big area. No neighbourhood police teams on at this time of night I'm afraid. Just us, the slightly mad officers staffing the response teams at all hours (i.e. not just monday to friday) because for some strange reason they're committed to trying to make a difference for when someone has to call 999.

Frustration at humanity. In Urbanville centre, there is a well organised group of persons (having to hold my tongue here) who come to town to prey on the people out getting drunk and careless with their belongings. I lost count of the sheer volume of calls from people saying either they've seen someone pickpocketed or have lost something of their own.
Frustration at the justice system. It is nigh impossible to convict these pickpocket gangs. The person who takes your phone out of your pocket doesn't keep it. Within seconds it has changed hands 5 times. The victims are drunk. The witnesses are invariably drunk. I know it would be a completely futile exercise going to court. The person seen to have taken the item hardly ever (ever!) has the item on them. Poor witnesses, no evidence of item on suspect. CPS won't take long to decide there isn't enough evidence. I've come to the custody desk in the morning before and seen there are seven or eight (thirteen once!) people arrested for the original offence. But by the end of the day, all are out, NFA. Maybe once or twice one will be charged.
The only way to catch these guys is dedicated surveillance and dozens of police officers in plain clothes. But that costs money, needs an awesome amount of paperwork to justify the surveillance, and the crimes are low value, low impact. Got a better chance of voting in my own pay rise.
So week after week its the same story. Who said crime doesn't pay.

Frustration at the courts. A prolific scumbag (harsh words I know, but this one is an exception. I don't know his history, of how he's ended up the way he is. I just deal with the end result- i.e. a victim- again and again. And this bloke deserves the title Scumbag.) was sent to court a couple of months back with a raft of offences. But this bloke is clever, not a brain-addled drug addict. He turns up to court very remorseful, shaved and in smart clothes, calls the magistrate Sir, spins a yarn about his attempts to reform and always makes sure he has a few offences taken into consideration to demonstrate this. He got off with a 2 year suspended sentence last time for a raft of offences that should've got him 5 years.

So he's back out. Our burglary rate has gone in one direction. He likes nice cars this chap, and is breathtakingly arrogant in his driving after he's broken into your house and taken the keys. He knows our rules of pursuit and deliberately makes it as dangerous as he can so we have to call it off. He is good enough to rarely leave any forensic evidence at the scene but we all know its him. Driving around in one stolen motor to turn over someone else: person, house or business. The anger of my team is palpable. We're all hoping its us on for when the dice falls in our favour. Every so often, it does, and we'll have everyone available, and an insomniac who spots him at work screwing somewhere, and we'll have him. But in the meantime, we're as frustrated as hell.

I'm off down the gym.

Policy Review? Hurrah!

Reading through Constabulary Magazine the other day, one of the eponymous job publications that somehow turn up every so often in the nick.
Their headline news is the upcoming new strategy and review for the police announced by the government.
The federation are bit annoyed about not being told about this. Enter Jan Berry, chair of the Police Federation:

"If the aim of this review is to work with the Police Service to develop a shared vision, it doesn’t bode well that as the organisation representing 140,000 police officers throughout England and Wales that we heard about it through the media this morning.
We have been calling for an independent review of policing for the last seven years and noone has been listening. We’ve had five years of piecemeal reform of different parts of policing – none of which have brought any clarity. To announce yet another review will just add to the confusion that already exists"

I liked this bit, still Jan Berry.

"Broken promises to reduce bureaucracy, indecent focus on the quantity of detections rather than the quality of service, poor IT structures and the loss of officers’ discretion to act independently, have fundamentally damaged the trust between the public and the police and the police and the Government."

Compare this with the optimistic title of the governmnents review: "Building on Progress: Security, Crime and Justice"........

As I read on, I find myself reading Ken Jones, who for those who might like to know is President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (banner headline on website: THE VOICE OF THE SERVICE). You'd have thought that he might've taken a similar line to the Police Federation: who do after all represent most of us old bill in the country. But what's this?

"We welcome this policing review to which we have submitted ideas and highlighted challenges. Whilst we wait to see the detail, we are determined to continue to do all we can to reduce bureaucracy, build on neighbourhood policing and make the best use of our resources"

There's a bit of buttering up of the government now, in almost laughable senior police management-pep-speech:

"Neighbourhood policing has made massive progress inembedding local teams in communities. We have seen public confidence levels in policing rise, and we want to improve our partnership working to ensure that we have the support and commitment of all agencies"

Ah here's why the big fat compliment to the Government Neighbourhood Policing initiative! There's a tiny tiny hint of dissent against the goverment, but only a smidgen:

"We can do even more if there was less bureaucracy and fewer targets. If the review is able to ease these pressures ‘space’ will be made for us to customise what we deliver according to what people need in their neighbourhoods"

But to round off, a couple of sentences again in suitably appropriate upper-management police speak:

"We police with the consent of the people. We are always looking for ways to be more accessible and accountable but we need to make sure that the chain of accountability from street-level policing through to police chiefs, and authorities, is not broken"

Flippin eck.

Police federation (and most police bloggers say):- Government: You're crap, and have made our life more difficult, and we feel the public are more frustrated and less trusting of us than ever before. The 95% of us not on The Latest Greatest Thing (i.e. PCSOs or safer neighbourhoods) and have to deal with the dross, dirt and despair that goes on outside the community panel meetings and reassuarance patrols- like kids in police protection, domestics, mental health problems in the community, suicides, sudden deaths, missing persons, people hit by trains (check this link- how terrible is her story??? Come on, humanity!), boozed fuelled violence, rape, messy RTA's (shall I go on?)-are fed up, under resourced and demoralised.

ACPO President says: Neighbourhood policing is great, well done Government, brilliant idea. Review? Brilliant. You can tell us again that Neighbourhood policing is great. (Tiny voice:) a little less obsession with target culture for the 95% of officers not on neighbourhood teams would be nice too. PS did I say Neighbourhood policing was brilliant?

Read Ken Jones's response in full, you decide if I've quoted him fairly or not.
Read the "Building on Progress" review, if you can be bothered with its 104 pages. I read the first paragraph by some politician called Tony which said "We have been tough on crime and the causes of crime", at which point I gave it up as a useless exercise remembering this article by a certain Inspector.

I don't know why, but I'm looking forward to the comments on this one.

Irony: Life

I'm going to leave the whole PCSO / government / finance thing alone for the moment. They're not going anywhere. I've just read through the comments on my post, and over at TUPC, and well its all a tad depressing and frustrating really. I'll bang my drum on another time.

So instead I'm going to post about a time when I had to take a kid into police protection. This is something that I do far too often for my own liking. This happened several months ago, but I can still remember it.

I want to post about it just to remind myself (and in a different way, you the reader) of the realities of police work. I could go on and on about the politics of policing and at the end of the day will have made no headway at all. However, things like this baby do happen. Its easy for me to forget about, sat in my study with warm spring sunshine flooding in, just how depraved and wrong (I don't have sufficient adjectives to describe, really) some people in 21st century society are.

It was about 6am after a busy night shift. Normally, things are quiet by now and I was pootling back towards my nick. The initial call started routinely enough, as they often do. "Can a unit attend Block Street, a female in labour....." Well, okay, not that routinely. These calls get pinged straight to the ambulance service, you know, the medical people? Basic first aid I might have, delivering babies not one of my areas of expertise.

The radio operator is thinking the same thing and has paused with the transmission open while she reads through the script on the screen in front of her. When she starts speaking again her voice has a harder edge to it. "The unborn child is on the at-risk register".

Looking into it later I see there for once has been good communication between our Child Protection Team and the ambulance service. The CPT had asked the ambulances to flag the address so when they call for an ambulance, we know about it.

As "luck" would have I left Block Street all of 3 minutes ago. I'm going to have to go anyway by the sounds of things and spin the car round. I wait outside for the ambulance. I quickly fire a couple of questions and my mobile number for the control room to do checks to verify why this kid is at risk.

The ambulance rig arrives after a minute or so and we all go in. A late middle aged woman opens the door and beckons the crew in. She sees me and my colleague following and instantly her demeanour changes to hostile. "What the f*** are you doing here?" I reply something about how we always get called to these things if we're nearer. She seems to accept that and either way ignores us as she shows us where her daughter is. I look around the flat and note the broken furniture, filthy floors and walls, and the mattress covered with a single stained sheet with the pregnant girl on it. I don't get a chance to look at the kitchen. I can guess what it'll be like.

The ambulance crew confirm she needs to go to hospital like now. We leave the flat and I follow the rig to the hospital. I badger the control room on the way getting some history to this family. A bell rings with the info I hear in my earpiece. I've met this family before. I've sat in a different hospital whilst I was based somewhere else a good few years back, guarding a 2 month old baby from this same family. I wasn't told why then, just that this baby was forcibly taken into care and needed 24hr police protection from his own family.

It seems we're not waiting 2 months this time.

I get the night duty social worker to call me. Even knowing the above I still have to have solid reason to take this baby into police protection as soon as its born. He tells me that now the child has been born they have a full court file prepared and will have an emergency hearing first thing to legally and permanently take the child into their care. My role, as it turns out, is simple. If the family try to take the baby from the hospital before this court hearing, we have justification and power to take it into police protection. He gives me some of the circumstances.

I don't need to hear much.

By now, we're in the maternity ward. I get some strange looks off the midwives. I explain to them why we're here and confirm the layout of the ward and make sure the exits are covered. The baby, mother and grandmother are in a self contained room. I don't sit in and watch. I don't think I could look them in the eye.

I try not to think about the 3 year old killed in a road accident earlier in the day which I was told about at the shift start handover. We even went down the very same road where it happened en route to the hospital this time. Flowers are already attached to the remains of the railings, still with bits of police tape left flapping in the breeze. I begin to boil up at the terrible irony that earlier a child was taken from parents, and here I am doing the same thing, just this time from a family who don't deserve to have children. I wonder what the parents of the three year old would say to this lot.

The early turn skipper arrives. They're already up to date with whats going on, and having been able to research the relevant databases they know more than me. They'll make arrangements to take the baby to a different hospital, one the family don't know. One member of this family is dangerous enough that the duty officer is considering an armed guard.

The early turn sergeant tells me and the other night duty units to go. Its well beyond changeover time now. She's arranged for someone else to do the reports, for which I am most grateful. I go home in silence, a thousand unanswered questions in my mind.

Mentally unstable

For those with the time, read through the Observer's recent report on mental health. Summary: in-patient care - i.e. for those most vulnerable and dangerous- has been completely ignored by the government, who have channelled all the money into community based schemes instead. Any police officer anywhere will read that report with a sense of impending doom. I for one have lost count of how many people I've sectioned. At one stage, when I was a PC, it was literally one a month.

The short sightedness and short-termism of this government is frankly embarrassing. The whole debacle about PCSO's sums it up. Central london response teams have more PCSOs then PCs according to one commenter on TUPC. Someone please, please prove me wrong but as far as I can tell the only policies and initiatives this government can come up with are short term, poorly thought through, and are designed with the principle intention of making the government look and sound good to uneducated or unaware voters, and bollocks to what difference it really makes to the people who have to implement them.

Check this out. The government has allocated £315 MILLION pounds to recruit more and more PCSO's. 16,000 of them. The government is desperately trying to con people that Safer Neighbourhoods are "extra frontline resources" (they're not), equal "Public Reassuarance" (except if you dial 999, they won't be the ones turning up). And hows this for a quote, from the above link:

".... in some areas community support officers and employees of local authorities such as wardens will be best placed to deal with local problems.
But in other places - perhaps with more acute crime problems - police officers will be doing most of the work"

So where's theres crime.... oh, it'll still be the police officers dealing with it! Why oh why can we not have some investment in PC's? In response team officers? We shall forever be the poor men (and women) of policing. The first to be blamed when it goes wrong, but the first to be relied on when it goes belly up. The government will spend a third of a billion pounds on their latest greatest policing initiative but demand police and response team budgets are slimmed.

I can't stand politicians. I really can't.

Still about

Well things most certainly have been busy last fortnight or so. The couple of days off I did get round Easter were spent on a long-planned weekend away and a bit frantic finishing-decorating-jobs (which I still have little bits to do, darn it). One of the tell tale signs of working in this job is that your weekends are planned about 6 months in advance. I'm up to June already, seriously.

Quite a few things have raised my eyebrows workwise in the last 2 weeks. A prominent regional newspaper ran a front page headline on a job my team dealt with, which was so hilariously underinvestigated and inaccurate (the media report that is, not my teams job) I still find it hilarious. Its amazing just what crap "witnesses" say to hacks, and I'm like "I was there, that really didn't happen".
I find it equally astonishing a major incident at a major public building has barely made any news headlines. There was such a cluster of emergency vehicles of all types you probably could've picked all the strobes up from space, yet it warranted barely a paragraph on a news website (sorry, not giving the link, otherwise I might as well publish my photograph and warrant card!)

Anyway, for the time being here's a post I started last week, that I never got the chance to finish until now.

I was out and about fairly late at night- or is that early in the morning?- slowly pootling up the high street when I noticed the Citroen going in the opposite direction, headlights and foglights on, stuck right up the backside of another car, snaking about left and right. Some youngish bloke driving it.

I don't like the look this, I say to the Pc who's got the short straw of being paired up me on nights. I spin the car round and look down the road. He's floored it once he's past the speed camera and has pulled off an overtake just before one of the main junctions.

We're sooo having a word. He's stopped at the next red light further on, and I get behind him. Not sure if he's seen me yet. Checks show up nothing, registered keeper in the next county.

Lights change and we're off. And we're off. Flick all the switches and get the disco lights and noise on. He jumps the next red light, bumping the car off the curb as the tyres squeal round the tight left bend. I'm just about to shout at the Pc to put this up on the radio when I realise he's just turned into a small car park with no way out. Now I don't know if he always planned to stop there or whether he meant to go for it and just cocked it up. Either way, he's now stuck between a concrete wall and my grille which is about 3 inches away from his bumper (just in case he tries to force his way past, he can't get any momentum up to take me out).

The Pc jumps out and yells at the driver to get out of the car. Which he does, with an sullen "amIbovvered" attitude. I get out too and go to him.

"What the hell are you playing at?"
"What, I aint done nuthin"
"Nothing? What bit of red light and curb did you not notice? Not to mention your nice little overtake back on the high road"
"Yeah well it weren't red, I didn't see yous behind me"

I stop. I've noticed he's swaying. His words are bit slurry. I lean in and catch that all too familiar smell on his breath. I glance over at the car and see 3 young teenage girls looking out at me with a mixture of excitement and fright in their expressions.

I look at sullen attitude boy. You stupid, selfish prick.

I get the breath gadget out of the car.
"Had a drink tonight?"
"Yeah only shandy why"
Breathalyser procedure explained. "Blow here".

I look down at the gadget. I show him. "See this little red light? You've failed. You're under arrest".

Attitude boy suddenly goes through a complete facial expression change and becomes scared schoolboy. "I was only drinking shandy, I just went for a drive, oh god oh god". I hope my expression tells him how much sympathy I have. None. I know he's way over the limit, and he's come out to show off to 3 girls, friends of his family. A recipie for disaster. I know far too well how this story sometimes ends.

I get a colleague to come down to pick up the girls, take em to another nick. I'm not so stupid to leave them in a car park on the rough side of town on a Friday night. Attitude boy's wife is paying for a cab home for them.

Proper breathalyser back at the nick and he's over twice over the limit. The immensity of his stupidity is beginning to hit him now and he's crying down the phone to his wife. I spoke to her just after he was arrested and she accused me of making it up, he'd only been drinking shandy all night, he's not drunk, he can't be. I think I might have been a bit rude to her by the end of it. "Which part of lots of shandy means he's still pissed do you not understand?"

I know that in an evening I have probably made this man's work life and freedom a whole load more difficult. But driving a car is a privelege and a responsibility. Not a right.

!

Very busy, been a bit taken aback really. Will get a chance to update properly midweek, hopefully..... ta

Cops with Cameras

Anyone see that ITV show the other day? All dramatic music and shaky cameras. "And here is constable Jones, who is fitted with our cop cam".
Anyone else think it was, well, embarrassing? I can see what the guardian tv writer thought about it (The Laurel and Hardy show, for those who can't be bothered to follow the link).

Okay so there were the chaps down south somewhere who had the Theft Act warrant. So lets stand outside and ask really nicely if we can come in. "Please, pretty please, pretty please with a cherry, er ok now lets do the door" Unsurprisingly, the chap who was in there and most decidedly not answering the door is found outside on the balcony, and any decent evidence has by now dropped several stories to the ground. I think you had the justification to go straight through the door there my friends. You are allowed to.

South Wales take things seriously don't they? Unfortunately I just couldn't get over the immaculate spiked hair of the bloke explaining stuff. How long did that take to do?

The Plymouth lot had a good result with their drugs bust though, all excepting the final poxy 18 months sentences for what seemed like a lot of white powder.

Special mention to the Met though. Hello, here's a plain clothes unit in an identity crisis. Or maybe just plain lazy. We can't be bothered putting uniform on, so we'll just stick our stab vest on over our jeans and t-shirt and go along to our raid in a bleeding great marked police carrier. Subtle it was not. Also, anyone else note that in their office / briefing room - only populated with white officers- the big St Georges cross hanging on the window? Ok so that doesn't necessarily mean a thing but with the Met being a force struggling more than most with the institutionalised racism label, not very clever at all.

I don't think I'll bother watching the rest of the series, assuming there is more.

I was that enthralled with the programme I missed half of it doing more valuable things like getting cups of tea but there was hardly anything on response team work. Not surprising, really, as I don't think it makes good television, not without a whole load of editing. Most police work is unglamorous, tedious, time consuming and boring. Arrest procedures for a start.

Rightyo I better head off. Back in custody, the joys. Was out and about last week though, even arrested someone! More on that another time.

Full of the joys

Spent more time last evening with the other half than the total hours of the previous 6 days combined. Great company I'm sure I wasn't, unless you regard zombiefied stupor as a roaring time. Will update on here when I'm feeling vaguely human, and not in a persistent battle to stay awake............

Handbrake turns

I can hear the screeching tyres in Canary Wharf from here. The Independent has had a rethink and has decided that you know what, cannabis and all that is still dangerous and should be illegal.

Well, really.

Apparently the good old fashioned hash is fine, but these youngsters these days don't want to smoke what their parents did, and use skunk instead. They didn't think of that.

Essential reading

Just been browsing through the other blogs. Reading this post by TUPC was like running into a brick wall. I would urge you to read it, whatever you think of the police.

addenum, Friday 23rd March

Please also see Big Fella's post, likewise this one from Franky Fact. Forget the rhetoric and bullcrap peddled by chief officers and politicians. These are the guys who give you value for money for your tax. Even if the force badges are different, I'm proud to wear the same uniform as these guys

I don't get it

I think I like one or two other people in this wonderful job I didn't have a relaxing weekend at home this past weekend.

I don't know, I really don't have words to describe just how pathetic people get once they've had a few too many drinks.

Since joining this job, I've found I can't go out to town with my wife. I can't relax. I find myself looking at every bunch of teenaged or twentysomething lads (and girls) and identifying troublemakers. In Urbantown centre, it feels like they're round every corner, just waiting for you to look at their girlfriend or pint in the wrong way, itching for an excuse to macho it up for their mates.

Am I getting too old? Wasn't that long ago (I keep telling myself) that I thought going out to town and having several shandies was a great thing to do, and how traffic cones really were hilarious when you wear them and how grand a 3am kebab tastes. (Although I might add I never got into any fights.)

But now I just look at them and think they're pathetic, drunkenly trying to eat sausage and chips out of a yellow plastic carton, chewing like a 3 year old dropping half chewed chip down their ted baker shirts.

Sat in a carrier outside one nightclub. On one side, three chavs have had a barney with three squaddies dressed as schoolgirls. Half my crew are out shoving them away from each other with bored, fed up expressions. There's no point arresting them. The nearest cell space is miles away, we're only one of two carriers in Urbantown tonight and we need to stay available in case something really goes wrong. I've made the mistake of keeping a window open and I am enduring a completely nonsensical diatribe from some bladdered girl, who looks quite disgusted at my lack of reaction beyond nodding and saying yes (I honestly have no idea what she was talking about though) and stumbles off, before taking 5 minutes to negotiate her way over a pedestrian barrier.

We just watch, not even finding it funny.

The ambulances have it even worse. Some point around midnight we overhear that there's none left, we need to wait for one to finish dealing with their current job before one can get assigned.

I nearly lose my rag with some idiot just about capable of standing upright who has been chucked out of a bar, and calls 999 for us to get him back in to get his girlfriend (who is still having a fine time with her own friends). He makes a big display of writing my collar number and van registration onto his phone after I tell him "er, how about No". I'm not worried, I'll be astonished if he managed to write it right, apart from the fact I really don't have anything to worry about with regard to our service to this particular "customer". I do however resist the temptation to take his phone and drop kick it down the high street. Idiots like him taking up time on the 999 system could mean a delay for someone who really needs it.

A suitable collection of Friday Night Highlights here, courtesy ExtraSpecial (may his blog gather dust in peace) who originally posted it.

Cold Fury

Met someone yesterday. A completely broken soul, devoid of anything behind her eyes. Someone simply unable to lift their eyes off the floor and raise their voice above a whisper.

She's saying nothing at all but we've been around long enough to know what's just happened. I make some phone calls, do some research and discover the long, disturbing history.

The things that have happened to someone so vulnerable and defenceless. She is a victim in a sense that the word itself can never convey. And yet she still blames herself for what has happened, and what happens to her. It takes hours of patient talking and coaxing just to let a doctor see her injuries.

Someone who was supposed to protect her has done things so unspeakable. Is this supposed to be a civilised country?

A whole team of officers was willing to go halfway across the country if it meant they got the chance to arrest the person responsible.

Part of me is glad we didn't get the chance. I don't know if we'd have kept our tempers should we have met him.

I hope and pray this poor, broken wretch of a girl can somehow find the courage just to let us help her.

To clarify

Rightyo a couple of things leading on from the post below, and their comments.

Firstly, to the anonymous person who says I've been away from the street too long. Whatever. I've been back on response team for a while now, if you had cared to read through previous articles you'll see I've mentioned it once or twice. I have been deliberately vague about precisely when. The stuff I've had to deal with the in just the last two sets of shifts would, if I posted about it, fill several posts. Stabbings, statutory rape, attempted murder, vehicle chases, kids into police protection to name but a few.

The thing is, I tend not to post about them. I have to resist that temptation for reasons of self-preservation. I will do, but after a sufficient passage of time.

So what was my point in the post below. I posted my first impression, and as though I wasn't in the job. Would anyone challenge the fact that on first impression that video wasn't shocking? That it looks like he hits a prone female pretty damn hard when she's already restrained? That it looks like it is really not proportionate?

Effectively, the "What on Earth" post below is half finished. I did originally start to write about from a job perspective: about her level of violence (it looks to me as though she gave him a good whack, enough to knock his hat off- what happened to the assault police charge is yet another thread) methods of restraint taught (or more to the point, not), level of force (empty hand, CS, closed/open baton) etc, and how he would've called for assistance, to which every unit goes, dog van or otherwise.

But for some reason I decided not to carry on, delete what I had written in the second half and post. Why? I guess to see what would happen, to provoke something.

Dibble picked up on another thing I had in mind to provoke responses about- the way this was reported and I like the way he put it as a "self perpetuating media frenzy".

Whether he was justified or not, the reporting of this has whether you or I like it or not, been a negative thing for all of us. Police readers of this will look at the video, will probably believe how the officer accounts for it, and say what he has done is justified, even that they might do it themselves. A bloke tried to grab my balls once in a one-on-one fight I once had, at a domestic job where my colleague had her own problems with the female. And I tell you what, when I finally got a restraint on after rolling about on his driveway for however long it was, hell I made sure it was on if you know what I mean.

But Jo Public probably won't believe the officer. They'll say "well of course he'll say that", and make the exact same comments I did in the original post. And it makes such good news (said with a Bloggs level of sarcasm)- what with small little targeted victim and the bigoted white police bullies. Ali Dezai is predictably all over this case.

One thing I can't work out is- why has it taken until she's convicted of it until the video is released. This incident has to be from how long ago? Why the delay? All sorts of cynical answers spring to my mind.

So yeah. There you go. I guess I did because I know a lot more people read this than comment, and I wanted to know what it would take. Dibble can have a warm self-congratulatory glow for picking up on it.

Next item on the agenda. Recently murdered someone? Don't fancy life in jail? Well it just so happens the most senior judge in the country agrees with you!

What a load of crap.

What on earth

Please note this post should be read in conjuction with the "to clarify" post above, not read in isolation

Nearly choked on my tea when I saw the Guardian headline: male officer suspended after punching a woman 5 times.

I have got to admit I am quite speechless. Watch the video here, the incident occurring at 02:18:58, then much more noticeably at 02:19:44

Now I'm not going to comment on whether it was right or wrong, whether she is trying to grab his genitals or not, whether he was justified or not. I can't tell where he was hitting her, whether it was on her arm or not. The closer I look, the more it seems like it was her arm- which would corroborate with what he said about trying to get her to let go of him. But maybe I'm looking for that because thats what I'm hoping to see.

Make up your own mind. To be fair to the guardian they seem to be fairly objective and factual about the incident. But those facts are disturbing.

South Yorks seriously need to review their officer safety training if their policy is it takes 4 men and a dog to restrain all 9 stone and 5ft 6 of female.

Whether the subsequent enquiry proves his use of force as proportionate or not, the overall image presented by this incident has tarred every single one of us who wears the uniform. This particular moving picture speaks a thousand words. Read through the guardian comments section and you can see what the general consensus as to what those thousand words say.

I didn't even realise she was black until I read through the comments section.

Other bloggers take on this: only Bloggs so far.....

Slacker

Today, I'm feeling too lazy to actually think of anything myself, and will instead draw your attention to the following police blogger posts:

Busy Lizzie over at Panda tales has two tales of frustration: the first being diverted to a pile of thankless, pointless teenage woe whilst trying to catch burglars (really) and the second of how we just can't win of when we are obliged to do things we don't want.

Pc Bloggs has been watching and learning from the top on how to respond to questions.....

Big Fella wonders just what it will take before the system starts to reflect more weight in favour of the victims than criminals....

Franky has just realised the law has changed (only a year late mate ;-) )

Extra special just has too much time on his hands and is watching american TV!.....

Suppose I better go and do something myself now..........

Customers

Was banging on about PDR's in a post the other day. A question I meant to ask is thus:

A competency within the Integrated Competency Framework is "Community and Customer Focus". There are a number of behaviours associated with this, which is summarised as I need to "provide a high level of service to customers. Maintain contact with customers, works out what they need and responds to them"

On response team, who or what exactly is my customer? Is it the person who has called 999? Is it a victim? Is it anyone who pays taxes? Is it everyone? Is a suspect a customer? A burglar? A rapist?

If someone can actually explain this to me in a way that doesn't want to make me sledgehammer my own head, I'd be grateful. Or is it just stating the bleeding obvious? Does this blog contribute to myself maintaining contact with customers and trying to work out what they need? Ha ha I'll mention this if I ever get busted for doing this blog.....

"Sergeant, your blog has portrayed the police in a negative light, and is highly unprofessional. Give me your stripes".
"But guv, I feel it demonstrates how I focus on the needs and feelings of our customers and citizens, and provides an avenue of contact which may not be otherwise available, which is what the Home Office says is mighty fine evidence of how to be a good police officer."
"Damn it. Have some pips instead."

I tell you what. I have spent quite a while going through google trying to find a link to anything that explains just exactly what the "integrated competency framework" and its list of competencies is, and who actually wrote and designed it. (The best link I can find is here, and it doesn't really go into any depth whatsoever) I'd have thought the home office would want everyone to know what behaviours, responsibilities and competencies it thinks a good response team police officer needs. Or a firearms officer. Or a schools officer. I can only find links to every force under the sun saying "we have adopted the ICF and expect you to evidence the following if you want to work here / already work here / have accidentally driven through here" etc etc.

But it would seem the only way you can find out what they are is to subscribe to the Skills For Justice website, which apparently is designed only for police users.......... hmmmmmmmmmm

Passing the buck

On the western edge of Suburbiaville is a foster home run by Urbantown & District Local Authority. This is the place where kids with backgrounds that make you wince go to stay. (Talking of which, I had to take a girl away from her mother into protection recently, more on that another day).

Some of these kids tend to be a tad disrespectful of authority, which in moments of sanity I can understand, especially when you look at their individual histories. But what has got my wick this week is not the kids but the Authority policies which apply.

Mona is barely scraping 15. She has a curfew at the foster home, which means she has to be there by 10pm every night. As any parent of one of similar age may know, getting teenagers to abide by curfews is a touch challenging. Mona is no exception. Pretty much every weekend this year she has decided she'd rather be out somewhere else than the home and stays out late.

Pretty much every weekend this year she has been reported missing by staff. If she isn't in on her curfew time y'see, their "duty of care" is to call police. Except it isn't duty of care. Its passing the buck. Its what they have to do to prevent themselves from being criticised for not being concerned.

At the weekend, Mona goes out. She isn't in for curfew. Staff call police. Staff do nothing else. I read through the previous missing persons reports as I'm section sergeant and have to do risk assessments on all these missing bods. I read through how another Sergeant had a blazing row with the home staff, telling them that their duty of care does not completely dissolve once they've called us, they need to continue to make their own efforts to contact the "missing" person. You see, once they've called the police as per their policy, they "hand over" all investigative aspects to us. They don't even bother calling the missing kid, as it's no longer their problem. They can't even be bothered to make a phone call to speak to her.

Of course, we know as well as they do she isn't missing out at all. She's out getting bladdered with friends.

Every time Mona has been reported missing, she saunters in with likely a bit of a hangover the next afternoon.

Of course, once this happens a hapless response car has to be despatched to her to speak to her, with the hope she might tell us something about where she's been so next time we might save ourselves a bit of work and go pick her up straight away. She of course says absolutely nothing. Dont' forget that prior to this the original response car assigned to the missing person report has had to spend approx 4hrs off the road doing standard enquiries, e.g. checking with all of the regions A&E departments, custody suites, doing various computer traces.

This of course is a complete waste of their time, which the crew are only too aware of. This makes them angry at the kid and the foster home staff. And unfortunately they sometimes let them know (more by demeanour and attitude rather than anything which is said), which simply breeds further resentment on both sides.

When this landed on my desk "Here you go sarge, a great misper for you" I took an educated gamble and called the crew off all but the most basic routine checks. I classified as the lowest risk possible, spoke to the control room and scheduled it to be reassessed in the afternoon, after the time she usually comes back.

I say gamble. This is a story of the missing person who cries wolf. One day, she'll go out beyond her curfew and get herself in a world of trouble, whereupon I will probably be in a pile of big steaming poo for inappropriately classifying the risk level and halting the enquiries. But in a world of a severely reduced vehicle fleet and weekend football matches meaning a large chunk of my team are off elsewhere on public order duty, I have better things for the remaining response cars to do. Like go help search for the dangerous mentally ill person who's just escaped in Urbantown.

And yes, roughly 3pm Mona stumbles back, staying awake long enough to tell the attending officers to "f--- off" before going to sleep. Gamble pays off this time.

Time flies

Time flies. Apologies to all, haven't really had much chance to update on here. Also not a great deal to talk about, offices are a tad boring. Still, apparently on Monday I'll be back on response team, but I know the Training & Development unit boss (i.e. the overall boss of the Probationer Development bit I'm currently in) is arguing I should be staying where I am, as apparently I know what I'm doing, they still need someone to do the role I was doing, they still haven't got anyone to fill the position on a full time basis, and most unfortunately they now have my name. My team governor is being equally as adamant I was only ever let go on a temporary basis, they've already had one extension to the date I was initially given to return, and frankly they should sort themselves out and get something organised.

I will not be amused if I'm back for all of two weeks before big chiefs get involved and side with the TDU, as it'll take me roughly so long to catch up with "my" constables on team and get PDR's sorted out (see previous post), so meaning I'll just about be ready to go and get stuck in with things and I'll be off again.

Speaking to ex-and-soon-to-be-contemporary colleagues the vehicle situation is still diabolical. I heard that one Pc on the day a car returned had it for about 4 hours before kerbing it. Muppet.

The current policy of begging us to use the cheapest fuel available would now appear to be up the spout. I never took any notice of that anyway. Occasionally I am known when I'm really hacked off at penny pinching and lack of resources to go and find the most damned expensive ultimate / optimax fuel and fill it to the limit. Aren't I a petulant schoolboy!!!

Although there could be an interesting study there.... if the manafacturers claims are to be believed then using good quality fuel actually means more efficient engines, i.e. less pollution and less breakdown, and so may well be moreenvironmentally and economically efficient in the long term.... thats the argument I'll use anway!

Normal Service

Shall hopefully soon be resumed. Went back to my old parade site the other day and saw the vehicle fleet has been more than halved: an accident, a mechanical failure, a cockup by the workshop (petrol? diesel? uurrrrr). I couldn't be bothered reading what was wrong with the rest of them.

Everything has changed on my old team. Apparently my governor has got himself into hot water with senior management (I like to think he told them how it was) and is looking for an escape route out of team. I'll miss him. He was a Gadget-esque governor, and policed more by common sense rather than unflexible rigid adherence to SOP's.

I was away for a fortnight or so and came back to just short of 140 emails, of which I managed to delete roughly 125 without taking any further action whatsoever. I hate emails. They're a cheap way of telling everybody what the latest standard operating procedure (SOP) for reporting stolen toothbrushes is, or Suburbiatown Police Department is trialling a new pet come to notice reporting scheme which everyone must adhere to. Everyone can very quickly be told about the latest change in legislation or practice or procedure, and for when you forget about the latest hot sliced bread idea because of email tracking you can't get away with claiming you weren't told about it.

Problem is, when you have 140 emails after 2 weeks off you glaze over by roughly email number 9 and a very rough email triage system develops:
- delete immediately and forget;
- think that this ought to be kept / actioned, and then delete later having done nothing
- actually file it or action it.

The only good thing is that most people who aren't office based and use computers as assistants rather than the-universe-revolves-around-me work essentials, make sure they actually tell you stuff. (and then send an email!)

Changing subject: apparently, and I have it from powers higher than I, I shall be returning to response team imminently. Hum. Deja Vu. I think I might have said that somewhere before. Still waiting. I suppose with the vehicle situation as it is at the moment I won't have a car available anyway. But it's coming up to PDR (performance development review) time! Aagh. For the uninitiated, this is a great paperwork exercise that sounds fantastic on paper but in reality takes forever to do, uses a great deal of artistic licence in evidencing Integrated Competency Framework "behaviours" (as determined by a committee of policy makers who have probably never seen the inside of a police car yet decide precisely what a patrol constable must do in order to demonstrate competence in his job). PDR's would be great if I had a third the number of constables to report on, a third less commitments (you know, the little things that can happen on a 999 response team) and three times the hours in the day.

Maybe I could cope with another month on the Probationer Development wing after all.






Actually, no I couldn't.

Knee Jerk

Again I don't have the greatest amount of time, and am only skimming over the whole issue. But am I the only one who thinks that the government's response to the media furore over gun crime- i.e. reducing age where you recieve a mandatory 5 year sentence to 17- is little better than a knee jerk reaction, designed to please the crowd and completely fails to address the source of the problem?

You see, taking time to examine and address social deprivation, the lack of suitable role models, the lack of suitable diversion activity etc etc would take time and results wouldn't be seen until well after the next election, so no point in that says Mr Politician.

So lets just do something that seems "tough on crime", keeps the Daily Mail happy but in reality is likely to have little to no positive effect? It's not as though possessing a gun isn't already illegal, with a possible 10yr sentence available to judges. Going back to the whole prisons debate, how really is sending a 17 year old down for a minimum of 5 years (meaning likely: further education- nil. Job prospects- nil. Angriness at authority- maximum) going to help in the long term? The only argument in favour of reducing the minumum age for mandatory sentencing is "deterrent". What a pile of politico-turd. If anything, that's only going to increase the kudos of having a gun, and increase the likelihood of using it against police in order to escape.

IPCC

Apologies.... haven't been able to post much last couple of weeks, been very busy. Will be so for a little while yet. None of the busyness is really that interesting, mostly stuff that I've put off for ages and ages because it is tedious, and I've had to plan this time in advance as dedicated to sorting it out.

In the meantime, of course, keeping an ear to the newswire,The IPCC have been in the news. The IPCC have a little bit of a reputation amongst rank and file of being over-zealous in their approach to investigations and their recommendations for disciplining officers. However, reading through the just published Forest Gate report it seems quite fair and reasonable. I think their conclusions are quite fair, particularly the bit about planning for the eventuality that the intelligence is wrong. (I would love to know more about this case, as I could be sure there's a whole load more beneath the surface about this Forest Gate incident than the simplified innocents targeted and terrorised ethos I get from the guardian's report at least).

Addenum 6 hours later: it seems I spoke (posted?) too soon! My opinion is the polar opposite to the families concerned, who deride the report as a whitewash...... Should I be surprised? Or concerned?

Will be back to posting in a more normal fashion shortly..... meanwhile, I can recommend TUPC's blog for somewhat eye opening eyewitness accounts of the rough end of the job that don't get the media into a frenzy.

The Franky & Noddy Show

(Post post update: confused as to the title? see the comments....)

Well all this snow, so many people having days off.... well we in the police have got to go to work whatever the weather.


Unless you're on a rostered day off heheheheheheheh!!!!

I'm off outside to play. :-)

The First Whinge

Led to this link by Bloggs and SouthWest, and probably some others too, but once I read it I had to say something about it.

Its some chap at "The First Post" saying how we, the police, are lazy, scared and no good at stopping crime and are a whiney, inefficient, self-important bunch of dysfunctionals. All words taken from his text, believe me.

Personally, I think it would be much more accurate if you replaced the word "police" with "journalists"..........

But I feel I ought to add something in reply to Mr Foreman, who has quite clearly never actually gone out with a response team, (or done any kind of research at all for his article, it would seem- he is quite clearly unaware of David Copperfields writing for the same site) and realised that the front line police, who are the visible presence 90% of people see and deal with 90% of the time, are under-resourced, over-stretched and deemed an embarrasment to their senior officers for doing their jobs.

Just a subtle change in the wording to his article and I would pretty much agree with it in its entirety. Change the word "police" for "Senior Officers at the whim of Interfering Government Ministers", and it would ring true.

But by his use of the word police, he implies that myself and my colleagues actually want this absurd situation where we are perpetually deskbound, or dealing with extended enquiries. For example. One of my probationers is dealing with a shoplifting to the value of approx £30. So far, he has been working at a reasonable pace. He has so far spent approximately 14hrs dedicated to this single incident: arrest (including waiting for several hours for his legal aid solicitor), statements, collection of cctv, transferring cctv onto VHS format, interview, re-interview (we didn't have the cctv first time round. Not strictly necessary to reinterview, but it is good practice), crime report, CPS consultation. Upon his return from bail, should he return, he will be charged, necessitating full case papers. Should he not plead, then we will have a day at court. Should he be found guilty, he will probably be fined £50. Which he will steal to pay for. And so, for probably 20hrs work, or at least time during which he can't do anything else, i.e. waiting at court or for solicitors, we will have no result whatsoever.

Replicate that for every incident of assault, criminal damage and everything else that blights society and is it any wonder why there are either no police available to deal with these things, or the ones that turn up can barely disguise their dread at having to take it on.

The government in its infinite wisdom realised there was something up with police spending so much time at their desks. So instead of adopting an American system (here, I agree most wholeheartedly with Foreman) where civilian investigators deal with all the investigative side of matters, leaving police's role to identify the offences and arrest, and then leave it all in the hands of the investigators, (NB see comments here!) and so the cop gets back out on the street where he belongs; the government instead employs several thousand people who are specificially designated not to investigate anything! And the response police officer is now in an even worse situation as several officers are abstracted from response team to supervise and populate the newly created Neighbourhood Policing Teams. You know, the ones who aren't supposed to do any investigating.

So Mr Foreman, don't imply that I'm lazy and inefficient. I'm hacked off and bogged down.

Go take one of few bits of decent advice the government does have, even if it does have a fairly toe curling tagline, "Respect": Stop moaning. Get involved. Become a special (except I think you'd be too scared and lazy...?) or get involved in your local action groups. Blaming everything on us and absolving all responsibility from yourself is guess what.....? Lazy and No Good.

Temper, temper

Most of the time I can deal with people professionally and keep a modicum of politeness. However, should I have been the lucky man who had the joy of charging this woman, I doubt I would've kept my temper. Well, temper perhaps (not worth losing job for) but politeness? No.
I'm sure there's a sad history as to why this woman was addicted to drugs, but the degree of selfishness in taking her own two daughters with her on this joyride (ha! what a contradiction in terms) is simply beyond my vocabularly range

Food for thought

Corny title, I know (you'll see why)

Before I go on about an article I stumbled across- just to say thanks to the comment contributors to the 'Prisons' post below. I will come back to that, I just need some time to sit and think about just exactly what it is I feel about the whole thing.

On a different note: I've been stirred into action by this article.

Its about the two ambulancemen (diversity alert! I know I said ambulancemen, but in this case it's accurate, they are both men, before I incur the wrath of Pc Bloggs) who dared eat whilst on duty.

Well, thats a touch inaccurate I know, in the sense they weren't sacked for eating on duty. They were sacked for having a meal break at the expense of a 999 call. Having looked into this, I have found somewhat to my surprise that ambulance staff aren't paid for their meal breaks. Therefore they are not on duty for the time they have their meal breaks. Therefore they don't answer calls.

According to the BBC, however, North Yorkshire get paid an allowance to cover this eventuality.

Personally, I think sacking them is a response way beyond proportional. There have been many occasions, especially on night shifts, where I haven't had a meal break for the whole shift, especially when younger in service (on a crime scene all night with no relief), its one of those things you expect in the job. At the same time, when I do have something in, I am very reluctant to leave it. It probably doesn't help that over a third of calls to the ambulance service are a waste of their time anyway.

What would I do if I had one of my crews refusing to leave a meal break? No hard and fast rule, really. Depends on the circumstances of the call and what they have been dealing with beforehand. But if they had no good reason for refusing other than they had just ordered their hot food, I would certainly look in to discipline and neglect of duty. But not sack them (not that I could anyway, just hypothetically speaking)

I've tried looking at their website, but the ambulance services underwent another restructure last July and still haven't managed to sort their websites out other than saying "we don't exist any more". What is the point in all this restructuring exactly?

I'm hoping some of the growing band of paramedic bloggers might have a gander here. I'm a great fan of the ambulance service, even though I do think most of them are completely certifiable for doing a job that invariably has as much danger as ours with less kit (where I am, they haven't even got individual radios. I had one call where a paramedic had to call 999 for police from his mobile whilst fighting for his skin in a house. His colleague was GBH'd on that call, he just about survived by using a choke hold to pretty much put the lowlife into a hypoxia coma as opposed to the drug induced one he'd just been revived from)

So I hope the Yorkshire Ambulance chaps are successful in their appeal.