Final grim statistic of the year

No sooner had I finished writing that I noticed this on the news!

Some scumbag has shot a Pc in Lancashire. Not going to be a good new year for Pc Katie Johnson, I hope she gets better soon.

I sincerely hope the office dwellers and armchair supervisors don't start going on about breaches of policy for turning up to a firearms incident whilst not a firearms response officer. Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone did.

Bit of a slip by the Acting Assistant Chief Constable too:

"It troubles me greatly that at a close confrontation level, someone is shooting not only a police officer but a female one who was clearly identified"

Its the "not only a police officer, but a female one" that caught my eye. Does that mean that it wouldn't have been as serious if it was a male officer shot? Or does he think that as she's a woman she shouldn't have to face such dangerous and naughty people, and it's doubly as tragic when she does?

What will Pc Bloggs think.

In all seriousness though, I hope Pc Johnson recovers without ill effect and the toilet-dweller responsible shoots himself in the groin.

Note- I feel suitably honoured to have been visited by Cuddles, the eponymous idiot commenter with a somewhat limited vocabulary. Normally I'd leave the comments there to allow everyone to see the irony of him adding to my hit counter (thank you, by the way), but at the moment I can't be bothered with it and so am deleting them.

Final post of the year... almost

As most are aware Pc Roberts died from a heart attack, but would he have experienced it if Mr Savage hadn't been such a violent person? We will never know. We salute him for willingly going to a situation which was fraught with danger in the first place.

I'm going to leave the expected charming comment there. If anything, I think it helps show the rest of the world the type of people we have to deal with.

I know I haven't exactly been a shining example of blogging effort the last couple of weeks, but a combination of applying 15 months in advance and being lucky in the pool system meant I have for the first time since the millenium got both christmas and new year off. So I've actually had a "normal" christmas, which has generally involved eating far too much and driving half the length of the country every other day seeing various relatives.

Tonight, I'm off to celebrate new year from somewhere other than the inside of a police car. I have been told that already no more leave will be authorised for the 2008 Christmas period! I'm off tonight with friends who don't feel the need to assault each other or their spouses or feel it is a good thing to become drunken heap on the pavement.

I hope all have a good celebration tonight in whatever form it takes, and I hope you don't have need to call 999 as you haven't got a great chance of getting through, and even less chance of someone turning up.

More cheery posts in 2008! Hopefully.

Sadness

My sympathies, sadness and anger are with the Met officers, but most of all with the family of the officer killed. (link)

Just a quick one

Just to say very briefly, and politically incorrectly, happy christmas all!

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.

Clarification

Well, the last post didn't cause that much controversy.... never mind.

A couple of things had arisen though- I had completely forgotten that our glorious government had made protesting within a mile of Parliament Square illegal. I didn't really think much about it before but now it has become something I was actually seriously contemplating doing it really winds me up! If the government don't like being told by their electing public that they're not popular, they'll just make it illegal for the public to tell them about it. They don't want to run the risk of actually being confronted by one of their constituents. Its much easier to dismiss a protest when it's something your secretary can deal with via the postbox. I would love to see what the Met would do though if a several hundred old bill turned up outside the Houses of Parliament. Probably bus in all their PCSO's to give everyone a PND.

Anyhoo I did note that one of the things the Fed is now advocating is a mass protest rally. I'll take the credit for that ;-)

Now that this situation is getting a fair bit of news coverage the comments pages on some of the rags are getting letters sent in. I can't remember which one (and I can't be bothered searching) but someone was saying how pathetic this all was over 0.6%. (someone commented on the last post in the same theme)

So, to clarify. For myself, and I think the most of us, this is really not about the money. We are relatively well paid, especially compared to the other emergency services. Although there are unique aspects to our job that don't apply to the others- but more on that another time, if there's the interst.

If the government had backdated the 2.5% to make it a proper 2.5%, I personally wouldn't be jumping up and down.

What is galling is the way the government have gone about this pay rise. They canned a long standing police pay rise mechanism linked into inflation, which was accepted by "us" in return for the right to strike. They then enter into "binding" arbitration which recommends a 2.5% rise. They then, having stalled the issue long enough, accept the 2.5% increase, but only implement it 4 months after it should have been so that the overall increase is 1.9%.

Underlying all this of course is the fact most of us are seriously hacked off with the target obsessions of this government which has a direct impact on the way street level officers go about their jobs. Which has been, for the most part, a negative impact. Most people have seen or heard a story about how some minor petty offence- e.g playground scraps-which in all honesty should be dealt with by words of advice was dealt with according to the letter of the law- which whilst not illegal is not exactly proportionate. But its the pressure from the senior management, under pressure from the government, to improve detection rates which causes this.

Its not about the money. Its about the government constantly interfering and imposing their will. Now I will counter this to acknowledge there is a need for a publicly elected body to be concerned with the manner in which the country is policed but the manner and the method through which this government has gone about it has been woeful, and this pay issue has just been the final straw.

Time to Listen

Right.

This pay decrease we're getting. The fed are writing "angry and frustrated" letters and suggest you do the same. They are apparently holding a meeting to discuss it. ACPO meanwhile are officially disappointed.

Is it just me, or is this mostly a lot of hot air and vigorous arm waving and jumping up and down? I'd like to be proved wrong, but I'm not confident.

I don't think the government really give two hoots about letters from the federation or the opinion of ACPO.

Parliament go onto their 3 week christmas break on the 18th December. (3 week break!) They come back on the 7th January according to here.

I'd like to stand outside at Parliament Square and meet them as they go home to whichever one of their homes they're off to. I think that if enough of us are there giving them abuse as they go off to ponder which christmas tipple to have they might just start to listen. Let them leave their decadent halls with the sounds of hundreds of angry police officers ringing in their ears.

I say hundreds. Here's something to test the "power" of the internet. Is this a good idea? How about we start something from the ground up? Lets be honest, this won't affect ACPO. Can you see them recommending any kind of protest?

So how about it? Parliament Square, 2pm, 18th December? I'm not advocating anything other than a show of numbers and perhaps some light-hearted banter with an MP. If too short notice, how about we meet them coming back on the 7th Jan?

Email me, leave a comment, tell your friends, suggest it to a fed rep! - lets see if there's anything in this. I somehow feel I don't want to trust this issue completely to those who represent us- no disrespect to the fed, they just haven't got the clout, and ACPO wouldn't dare risk their rank (come on and prove me wrong!)- I feel I need to do something myself. And this is what I came up with.

I am interested to see if this post will go with a whimper or a bang.

Two pennies

Every blog has been ranting about our pay award. 1.9%.

Now I don't think we as a rule a particularly badly paid especially when compared to some other emergency services. Can't say I particularly like a pay increase below inflation though, that's really a tad off.

I don't know the ins and outs of the whole history of police pay but as far as I can tell some time ago an agreement was reached with the incumbent government that in return for the right to strike we would be guaranteed a certain pay increase each year. Quite what the mechanisms were regarding that I have no idea but the point is this government has reneged on that agreement.

MPs have such a cushy life which is what really makes this sting. Take a look at Coppers Blog for the best comparison of MPs claiming expenses for everything left right and centre. I have to buy my own torches, batteries and belt kit as the job issue ones are invariably poor quality. MPs can even claim a cycling to work allowance! At their rate, I'll have a pound a day thank you very much. Not much, but it'll buy me and the wife a takeaway at the end of each month. Oh except we don't have a cycling allowance.

I would've accepted 2.5%. What has really wound me up is the way the Jacqui "I live in an awfully nice area" Smith has said she accepts the 2.5% recommendation but won't backdate it to when it should have been implemented, making it a reality of 1.9%. Its underhand, sneaky and frankly I'd like to..... (I've been pondering what to say, and I still can't think of anything postable)

Here's the reality for me. I parade 6 officers to cover an urban / suburban population of approx 70,000. I spent 9 hours of my last shift writing a report regarding one individual person. On night shift there are dozens of spare car park spaces but come the morning every one is filled by someone, but who I never know as they're never with me on response work. Safer Neighbourhood teams have been set up with people taken from response teams to do the work response teams don't have enough time and resources to look at. The ethos of management revolves solely around perfomance indicators (and inextricably linked- whether the Superintendents get their bonus). "Support" Squads are set up with fat overtime budgets to target specific crimes (which are always but ALWAYS linked to performance indicators and bonuses) whilst team inspectors can only authorise overtime when it is completely unavoidable (i.e. arrest). They face discipline if it is overbudget and yet if there is an underspend the money is taken away from them to feed another support squad.

I knew there was a reason I didn't initially want to post about this. It winds me up just how messed up this system is. And the blame completely lies with the Labour Government as far as I'm concerned. I've not been in quite long enough to have worked under the Tories but this lot are obsessed with target culture and imposing a financial reward and sanction scheme on a job that essentially cannot be measured effectively with any statistical means. And those aspects which can be measured cannot give an accurate reflection of what they are meant to. 4 out of 5 crimes aren't investigated? So we are expected to put out witness appeals for every car window smashed as John Random forgot to put his TomTom away? There is often a reason why crimes are not investigated beyond their initial investigation. We don't have the resources to stand there at the following day asking people if they were present yesterday, to pore over hours of CCTV on the offchance a suspect may have been captured. I've known people get furiously angry for us not checking 8 hours of CCTV when they found their car window had been smashed in a car park. No suspect description, not known if he was a he or a she or in a car of their own, utterly unrealistic proposition. But my goodness she went mad at me for not doing it.

This post has gone on long enough, apologies.

PCSO uniform revisited.

This Guardian comment is free PCSO Steve business has jolted my creaky memory.

A while ago I posted a poll about whether PCSO's uniform should be more distinct from police officers. I never got round to talking about it.

The poll result is now parked right down the bottom of the page, underneath the youtube videos. The results are clear in what I freely admit is completely unscientific research (not that that would stop any media outlet presenting it as fact)- the overwhelming majority - 75%- say that a PCSO's uniform should be changed so it is less like a police officers. 67% say it should be completely different.

It would seem most people aren't fooled by the illusion the government wanted to create. If they see a uniform walking past, they want to know it is a police officer. Not someone whose training stipulates to simply stand by and observe someone getting a hiding or drowning, as their instruction is to call a police officer down to deal with it.

I think people would rather see the police officer in the first place. I know I would.

However, I am most curious to see that the remaining 25% would like to see the line blurred further between PCSO and PC- to make it so you only know the difference when you're standing next to them asking them about it.

I am interested to hear why.

Note (4th Dec)- in an unusual turn around of the usual order of things, the only PCSO blogger I know of has been resurrected! Link removed from graveyard accordingly. Check out the view from that side of the fence here. Good to see him back

Memories revisited

Went past that accident yesterday. The furrow marks on the grass are filling in, and the grass is already making a comeback. The trunk is still a scorched black with scars cutting deep into the wood near the base. Some sad flowers hang limply where they've been tied to the tree.

It's quite a different scene in daylight. The skidmarks have been worn away now by the traffic and rain.

I never mentioned that on the night in question the governor asked me to take a car away from response work - i.e. don't take calls- to specifically target the Dream Factories latest performance indicator.

We were "underperforming" because a while ago someone invented a new code to go on certain paperwork returns, and then made our returns on this new code a performance indicator. Because we weren't told about said new code, (well, it might have been published on the intranet site or even a forcewide email, but I don't count either of those as real communication) our return was zero. Oh dear. Someone didn't like that (probably the person who thought of the new code), sent word to Ivory Towers and so the governor got a rocket.

I did ponder the governor's request on the way to the accident, travelling in a blue light convoy behind the car who was supposed to be doing it.

Did we meet any performance indicators dealing with a fatal road accident? Nope. A bad day at the office for the governor.

PCSO Steve?

Was floating round the guardian unlimited comment is free website as I occasionally do and nearly fell off my chair when I noted PCSO Steve is a contributor! Whether or not the guardian's PCSO Steve is the one and the same as the Met's PCSO Steve is a different story, and whether the Met PCSO Steve is aware someone has nicked his name is one for the Met's Professional Should-Have-Better-Things-To-Do-With-My-Time Unit to investigate.

I ought to clarify he is an author, not a commenteer like myself.

The age old post that I have regarding PCSO uniform- that continues to attract hits from google searches- is the subject of his most recent post.

He comments, in apparent contradiction to what happens when police officers go beyond their training and call of duty (reference Totally Un PC), that PCSOs often get commendations for such. That and they are the centre of neighbourhood policing.... hum...

Thought you might like to know. I will keep an eye out!

For my previous musings on the rights and wrongs of PCSO's, click on the "PCSO's" label on the sidebar, or click here

Too late for a lecture

I look at the scene. We couldn't get close enough to be sure anyone was in it until the fire brigade had been at it for a while damping it down. But even with the heat and the force of the crash, there's still an unmistakable outline in the charred, melted cabin.

I look back down the road . I've heard the accounts from the witnesses who don't know whether to be angry or sad, and just stand there continually rubbing their eyes and running their hands across their head. His friend is just up the road, customised car with aftermarket alloys now sat quietly by the side verge. He saw what happened in his mirror and turned round, but too late to help. There are small pools on the carriageway from where he's thrown up.

I can picture the last moments. What was a bit of "fun", a quiet road with no-one else seemingly around. A friend in the car next to you, having a bit of a race up the road to see who's got the faster car off from the roundabout. You've got dads car, you know its a good one. You've had a good night, no drinking involved, you never do that. You're feeling good. Can't lose.

Except that that gentle curving bend isn't so gentle when you get up to speed. That traffic island you didn't see round the bend is coming up quick, bloody quick. But the road is wet. Suddenly at this speed with heavy panicked braking and slipperiness the road camber plays a crucial part. You're on the wrong side of the road. That slight slope engineered into the tarmac is now a deadly factor in the laws of friction and physics.

The back end's gone. This suddenly isn't fun any more. You're off the tarmac. Onto wet, slippy grass. Don't matter what you do with the steering wheel now.

You look up and have just enough time to take one last sharp breath in as you realise that its all gone so terribly, terribly wrong.

Not a single panel of the car is left untwisted or buckled. Parts of the car are spread over dozens maybe hundreds of yards. The fuel tank is split open and with a disintegrating red hot engine all around the spark is soon a consuming fire.

A single branch, barely a big twig, is knocked off the tree. In a weeks time, the only clue to the tragedy will be the blackened bark. Come a few months, only those who were there and those who have lost will know the horror that tree has seen.

I walk over to the smouldering wreck. I want to reach in and shake him, shout at him not to do it, don't race, as though I can go back through time and change what has happened. But I know I can't. The governor is here barking out orders. I wander back down the road to make sure all the cordons and logs are in place, witness details are registered, make sure people have got warm clothes as they're going to be there a long time. I start thinking where I can go and get some hot drinks for the troops later. They'll need them.

There's nothing we can do for the driver. The ambulance crews find something to do looking after the shell shocked witnesses. Its now a case of preserving every piece of scattered metal and plastic, each furrowed track on the verge, waiting for the time when every piece will be documented, logged, and meticulously photographed.

I want to take the mental image I have, somehow transfer it to paper and show it to the next one stopped for driving like an idiot, who thinks it acceptable nay encouragable to show off, to drive a car to its limit, and who surrounds himself with people who think likewise. Somehow make him understand that the driver of this one thought exactly the same thing 10 seconds before his final inglorious end.

Shock!

Now that I've got over the personal indignation that the overpaid football muppets couldn't qualify for a pub 5 a side tournament I'm actually quite glad, as it means I am now much more likely to have a less rioutous time next year. (But as an aside, I can't quite believe they are now getting paid up to another £150K each for failing to qualify- as far as I'm concerned you should not be paid to play for your country)

Anyhoo I noticed a while ago something that made me raise an eyebrow. The NPIA has issued an edict that local diversity is to be discouraged. The fact we have different ways of saying things across the country is downright dangerous.


Regional variations in how to say things like "yes" are to be stamped out because too many lives have been sacrificed, apparently. I joke you not, quote unquote from a Cambridge University Linguist. It also takes up too much time, according to the NPIA....

I've never seen anything as a result of this 25 grand either. Probably spent it all on lunchtime conferences buying a rent a quote to justify spending the 25 grand.

Overpaid and underachieving.

No, not ACPO.

Footballers. Some of them earn more in a week than I can look for in 4 years. And they are sufficiently incompetent as a group to fail to get to the European Championships.

Steve Mclaren? Yeh lets sack him. I'll bet he's really upset, being paid £2.5 million. I'm so in the wrong job. Be completely hopeless, still rake it in and get paid a fortune when you get fired.

Except I'd want to knock em all out.

Another good job

A job from a while back, on one of the rare occasions I was free of paperwork and able to go out and get stuck in. Not a job of any great spectacle, but a fairly interesting one I thought.

It was a fairly routine night shift and I was leaving the petrol station when a call came out across the radio about an RTC, road traffic collision.

Any RTC that comes in at 3am the instant thought is: this could be serious. This time of night people tend not to crash their cars unless they're drunk or stolen.

I start running along, as does the other (sole remaining) response car. As I'm going, another update comes in that the occupants have made off towards the road I'm currently running down, blue lights reflecting back at me off the street signs. Well, at least it isn't a serious one. But why make off?

We take the left turn into the road the crash is on. Clock middle aged bloke walking along the pavement. We're still some distance off the RTC so we leave him and keep heading towards where it is when someone jumps out between two cars waving at us. The RTC is still nowhere in sight and my operator is about to tell him where to go (again- early in the morning, people quite often tend to talk drunken nonsense at us) when he breathlessly tells us middle aged chap we just saw, now just approaching the junction was in the car that crashed. He's followed him from the crash and is waving so animatedly he throws his phone 10 metres down the road. I see the other cars blue lights approaching and shout instructions down the radio.

One detained, just a touch tiddly. As in not actually able to stand up straight for more than about a second, complete with a swaying routine as though there's a snake charmer playing just the right tunes in his head.

Someone else has turned up to the crash scene. Theres a large head shaped hole in the passenger side of the windscreen. By now other calls have filtered through the 999 system and the passenger of the car was seen to head off covered in blood, again towards us.

We only have seen the one person here but I look down on the floor and sure enough theres a blood trail, a fresh spot every few metres. I call for the assistance of a furry land shark as he's going to do a much better job of following the blood trail down dark alleys than me floundering with a torch.

People at the scene have found some paperwork which seems to confirm boozy middle aged bloke detained, not sober enough to be able to think about giving a false name, was in the car. He can't be the passenger as he would have rather large cuts on his sweaty forehead, and the blood trail is on the opposite side of the road. Combine that with the first witness and he is coming with us to answer questions about drink drive and failing to stop at the scene of an accident.

He proceeds to get a bit lairy because we won't let him go to the toilet. Sorry old fruit, you've been nicked for a drink drive offence. What you've got in your bladder could be evidence.

I heard he decided to not wait until custody and released his pressure whilst inside the back of the van. Which pleased the driver no end.

The dog van is now here and we're searching for the passenger. Our concern now is mostly welfare as by all accounts he's wandering round with a chunk of his head missing. We don't want to wait for a call in the morning from an alarmed resident finding a collapsed or worse dead man in his front garden.

Hairy canine follows blood to a path leading to 4 flats. Not sure which exactly which one our injured chap could be in though. We don't have a great deal of choice and start knocking on all of them. I was most impressed that people answered their doors at 4am. Not sure if I would. Anyway 3 of the 4 residents stumble bleary-eyed to the door.

Which leaves one.

Again, not a great deal of choice in the matter. One size 11 key later and we're in. And find chap lying in his bed with a mess of dried blood all over his head and covering his bed. One quick request to the ambulance people and we try to rouse him. Well, he got roused all right.

Talk about not being pleased to see us! I think anti-police would sum it up in a mild manner, especially after I told him I unfortunately had to kick his door in. Needless to say, he refused to tall us how he got this cut to his head and he advised the ambulance crews of his feelings for them with a range of adjectives that tended to start with the letter f.

Once he's signed the ambulance disclaimer we get his details and tell him we'll be in contact when he's sober.

As I somewhat doubt he would be the type to give a full and honest account of the events leading up to the injury causing incident (namely his even more pissed mate, in a car of dubious legality of ownership, drove straight into a parked car at about 35 mph) I now head off to find the original callers to get statements from them to put the arrested driver with now presumably quite uncomfortable trousers in the driver seat.

We return to the nick (via a coffee from the one 24hr place we have) to collate it all the statements, accident reports, damage reports etc for the morning shift to take on the case. The driver blew high 90s on the breath machine but needs to be interviewed about the failing to stop and that can't be done till he's sober. Which'll take about 10 hours, in the doctors estimate. Theres also questions about his legitimacy of driving the car.

The chap in the flat made me laugh. You've been seen to stagger away from a car crash where you've nearly put your head through the windscreen, but you have nothing but abuse for the people concerned enough for your health to track you down. Oh well.

Quiet Life

Apologies for the lack of posts recently about actual jobs I've been out and about to. I've been anchored to the custody desk for a while with only the odd day out.

Custody can be ok. I generally prefer as a rule being out and about but there is an awful lot of responsibility on your shoulders as a custody skipper and getting it right isn't always straightforward and it can be an utterly exhuasting job.

The video below isn't anyone I know. But it illustrates it isn't always a safe, calm environment....

Clueless Politician Alert- Again

But this time its the police minister!

Tony asks: Do you think I'm a muppet?

Police tell him that we're focusing on government imposed targets at the expense of not being able to focus properly on more serious crime.

Response of police minister? Not to state how he is concerned at these statements being made across the country and how its the result of a 6 month review by the federation; not how he feels he should examine these claims to see if there is any substance.


Instead, we get "'I respect their views; I just think they over-egg and exaggerate to make a point, sometimes to the detriment of the members, and that's not in their own interests"


What? I got that quote from the Metro's coverage of the "Tonight" programme (haven't actually watched it to confirm he said it) but if it is, isn't that just a completely arrogant statement? Look, Tony. Bloggers, Panorama, Tonight, The Federation- we're all consistently saying the same thing. But you brush it off as though we're making it up and completely fail to grasp the point you think we're "over-egging".


Minister for Police? What a joke. Minister for Imposing Political Will On Police and Turning A Deaf Ear to Officers slightly more accurate, if a mouthful.

Clueless Politician Alert

"Everybody is worried about the rise in gun crime and violence in this country at the moment, and the destruction these weapons cause is terrible"

What is this referring to? A debate regarding the reactivation of deactivated guns? The latest set of statistics regarding youth crime? A speech about the import of eastern european weapons?

No. The mayor doesn't want rifles on a rememberance day parade.

The only saving grace is that the other councillors of Chepstow have their heads screwed on right in at least this respect and told her where to go.

Click to see the article here.

A song dedication

It's a touch naughty, but I can't resist it: Here's one for you, Mr Blair:



For those looking for a more sensible viewpoint from me, I've started posting things over at the guardians "comment is free" website.

One thing that has annoyed me from the multitude of postings on that article is the way nearly everyone labels the police as "the police", i.e. a collective of autonomous zombies unable to question anything for themselves and unwitting slaves of government and chief police.

I hope this blog and others remind people that actually, we're not hardwired blank faced drones. We question policy just as much, and sometime more so, and get just as frustrated when things go wrong.

I get really frustrated when I see some of the ignorance of how the police really works- one of the comments is that we will now shoot anyone we reasonably suspect of being a suicide bomber and we are revelling in this shoot to kill policy.

No, no, no and No.

Media Monkeys

Regular readers here- should there be any!- will know that it is not unusual I get a bit irate about the media and the way things regarding the police are reported.

We rely on the media a great deal for information regarding things outside our own day to day lives and people most of the time tend to take what they read as fact, give or take the odd pinch of salt, depending on which paper you read. You assume journalists are objective and neutral.

Well I was not too impressed with the Guardian on Saturday. Blaring headline shouting "Embattled Blair faces new armed police allegations".

Except when you read through it, he's not. The two brothers from Forest Gate have popped up again. Apparently those horrible armed bullies from SO19 said rude things to them. The way it is reported would suggest they were deliberately targeted by them. Until you read at the end it was because there was a report that a firearm had been seen and two imitation firearms were recovered. The SO19 officers it would seem didn't even know it was the two brothers until they were already stopped.

And then there's the bit which really made me question why the Guardian reported this at all, let alone across the front page. They aren't making a complaint. This is quite crucial! The Guardian completely fails to address the question why. Why aren't they complaining? They've got the lawyer, the public profile, any complaint they make will be properly addressed, trust me (instant referral to IPCC methinks! Can't see me or the duty officer trying to deal with this locally). To me, there's something missing.

I wonder how much their lawyer charged the two brothers (on legal aid?) an awful lot of money to write a snooty letter to the commissioner saying how armed officers are "flagrantly and flamboyantly endangering the citizens of london".

Whatever. I'd like this lawyer to spend a shift away from her million pound house (well, its got to be hasn't it) in a nice neighbourhood with regular let alone armed police, as she clearly has got no idea, or is breathtakingly arrogant.

Only the Telegraph mentioned the officer fighting for her life after being run over by a suspect trying to escape. Best wishes to DC Corbett.

I've got to admit, I normally find the guardian a touch more reliable than the others, but this article has got me questioning what agenda they've got.