R.I.P common sense – Totallyun-PC

Copyright © Totallyun-PC – View this article and others HERE 

First published Friday 16th February 2007:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, as his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn’t always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Panadol, sun lotion or a sticky plaster to a student but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realise that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion, his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else Is To blame and I’m A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realised he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not join the majority and do nothing.

*the preceding blog is not mine, I didn’t make it up, and Google shows it has been reproduced thousands if not millions of times, but in the sad sad memory to all our friends and colleagues, and anyone else who has become a victim of our times…. I say blog it in memoriam to us all. 

 

Chasing Cars – Another Constable

Copyright © Another Constable – View this article and others HERE 

First published Sunday 28th January 2007:

Chasing Cars 

Not for the first time, one of our unmarked cars has been chased (albeit briefly) by one of our marked cars. Of course, when this happens, we all immediately wet ourselves laughing at the expense of the foolish driver that initiated a pursuit, for it to end 10 seconds later when the unmarked car realises it’s being chased and calls it off. Usually said pursuing driver is not a bit amused, and not only embarrassed for the moment, but unlikely to live it down any time soon.

These “pursuits” always start on nights, when we have plain clothes officers out on pro-active duties in unmarked vehicles. The plain clothes officers may see something down a side street (bloke lurking by car doors in dark clothing with hood up for example) and rapidly dart into the street to investigate. A common tactic to get closer to these people without announcing yourself might be to turn off the vehicle’s headlights (sidelights don’t give the game away nearly as much). Of course, to a nearby marked police car, it appears as though a bandit vehicle has suddenly gone “lights out” and shot off from the main road. Pursuit initiated!

Another snag is that the plain clothes officers will then generally be focussed on the person that has caught their eye and tend not to listen so keenly to their radios – and so are unlikely to hear the words “Scramble. Dark vehicle, lights out, towards Random Lane”. The giveaway usually comes 10 seconds later when blue stobes start lighting the world up behind them, and then they listen to the radio to find out what the blue lights are all about and hear that there is a chase on. They may even get all excited and drive quickly off in the direction that the pursuit sounds as though it is heading in the hope of tagging on the back. It’s usually then that they become acutely aware that it is indeed them that are being chased, put their own (discreet) blue lights and rear reds on and call a halt to the proceedings.

At that point, the pursuer has to cancel the pursuit over the air, and explain that they have in fact just started to chase plain clothes colleagues. It is then that the rest of the section fall about laughing.

More embarrassingly, our plain cars are no secret “sneaky beaky” vehicles. All the local nominals know our vehicles, and usually refer to them by “name” (our vehicles are usually named by the last 3 characters of the registration – Joe Bloggs might see you in uniform one day and say “I saw you in that snide JKZ last night). So, if all the local crooks know the vehicles, which are indeed used pretty much all day every day by one department or another, then it adds to the embarrassment of the pursuer that he didn’t recognise that the car was one of ours. Especially when he was probably driving it himself a couple of nights ago. I suppose he could argue that it was dark… and the car was in the distance… and that he only caught a glimpse of it… etc. The excuses fell on deaf ears, and indeed were drowned out by the continuous laughter of all of his colleagues

But now am found… – Belfast Peeler

Copyright © Belfast Peeler – View this article and others HERE 

First published Thursday 28th December 2007:

But now am found…

You might scarcely believe it but there are still one or two tasks that do not require a ridiculous amount of forms in order to do them. Yet.

One such duty is the “return home interview” carried out with young people who have turned up safe and well, to some degree or another, after having been reported missing. The aim is simple; to instil in said young person some idea of the impact their disappearance has had on their loved ones. So it is with the sternest composure I can gather that I enter the home of a girl, aged 13, who has come home 24 hours after leaving with mates. How do you impress on someone that age the immense foolishness and very real peril they place themselves in when they leave their safety in the hands of strangers?
Do I tell her the truth ? That I have seen and met people so vicious and callous it makes me ashamed to regard them as being the same species as me? That I’ve dealt with victims for whom being merely raped and beaten would have been a mercy? I don’t see how I can.

I don’t see how you could ever explain to anyone the gaping lack of humanity that is implied by people’s action and inaction every single day. I don’t believe it so why would someone else who has absolutely no frame of reference possibly consider the very least of what I could tell them as any more real than the bogey man.

Perhaps it would suffice to explain that whenever she wakes in the middle of the night and imagines there are monsters peering in at her from the darkness outside her window; there are, there really really are.

A gentle reminder… – The Sleepy Policeman

Copyright © The Sleepy Policeman – View this article and others HERE 

First published Monday 5th February 2007:

A gentle reminder…

This blog recently passed its one year anniversary. I was going to write a piece about a year of how I’ve found a way to pour my vitriol out into the public domain, but then I kind of forgot.

For what it’s worth I have thought about giving this thing up quite a few times and the anniversary semed as good a time as any to draw a discreet veil over things and retire to my modest mansion in Sleepy Hollow.

But then every now and then I see something that reminds me why I need this blog and how it is sometimes the only way I’ve got of stopping that twitch I get in my left eye when I want to destroy things and tread on kittens.

This is one of those times.

I rarely read newspapers. I like to get the news from a source that doesn’t try to make my mind up for me or make me feel like I’m reading an editorial by someone who was banging their fist on the table and foaming at the mouth while they wrote.

I especially never read The Daily Mail. I’m not one for stereotypes, but if I wanted to read that sort of stuff I’d buy a copy of Mein Kampf.

But tonight, as I wandered through Tesco’s, wondering what sad-bastard microwave meal-for-one tickled my fancy, I saw a copy of The Mail displayed as I passed the comic section.

The headline blared “Hour a day police officers”. Or something.

I gave into my baser instincts and had a look.

Today, The Mail is getting into a strop about police who go off work sick or injured and then return to work on reduced hours to ease themselves back into the normal routine. The Mail grabs some impressive-looking figure out of the air that has the word “million” in it and goes on to express moral outrage that officers on these reduced hours are paid the same amount as full-time officers, “at an average of £30,000”.

I refuse to post a link to The Mail on here, mainly for the same reasons as I would never post a link to the BNP website, so you’ll have to trust me on the content.

But let me make the following points to any eagle-eyed Mail “journalists” reading:

1 – I’ve been in the job almost 5 years and I’m one of the most experienced officers on my shift. I don’t earn anything near £30 grand a year, so I have no idea where you plucked that figure from.

2 – People go sick. If the offices of the Daily Mail are some illness-free utopia then good luck to you. But if that is the case then you clearly aren’t living in the real world, although I suspect that applies on many levels.

3 – Your article suggests that officers that return on reduced hours should not be paid the same as those officers on full-time. So what is your preferred option?

a) Officers return full time when they’re not ready for it, so they can make mistakes that your rag can then write more stories about?
b) Officers just stay on full time sick for longer?
c) Officers return to work, having been injured on duty, on reduced pay and are thus punished for getting injured doing their job?

I imagine it’s easy to write stories abou how lazy the police are when you’re sat on your arse in a comfy office in Wapping, where the only danger is from getting your tie caught in the shredder or drowning in your own sense of smugness and self-worth.

But I, like a lot of my colleagues, do a job where getting injured is part of a very real daily risk. And we do it so that people like you can sleep safe at night in your bed and write your articles dripping in outrage.

If you want to serve a year in uniform and then return to your nice office jobs then you get to write about people in that manner. Until then, you can stay sat in your office while we take the risks for you.

And if it’s alright with you, we’d quite like to get paid while we’re doing it.

PS: My eye’s stopped twitching now.

Chunky Monkey – Disgruntled

Copyright © Disgruntled – View this article and others HERE 

First published Friday 2nd February 2007:

Chunky Monkey

Fat face and I were crewed up a couple of days ago. The Sergeant smirked at me when he did this, not only was he aware I wasn’t entirely convinced of Fat Face’s abilities but the repugnant nature of the chunky one’s demeanour was something that repulsed me. When it was announced I would have to spend the entire shift with it my professionalism took over, although eye contact with Fat Face became slightly more difficult. My feelings struck from my features in disbelief.

Briefing over and I mooch over to a terminal, how the fuck am I going to get through the next few hours with it sitting next to me. I flick through the jobs on the queue… “Crap, crap, oooohh… that’s even worse”. Eventually I find a misper job with a 17 year old who has gone clubbing against his carer’s wishes. Right that’s easy, form, minimal enquiries with the usual numbers and then circulation – easy.

Fat Face wanders up, “When we going out? Let’s fight crime!” OK, it’s 2300 on a Tuesday, it’s raining and the only person I saw as I drove in was a milkman. “Yes, lets” I said reluctantly, “Let’s make a difference”.

Fat Face wanders off and I see my opportunity. I sneak from my terminal, grab a set of keys and off to the backyard. Freedom, maybe I can even get through tonight.

“Unit please, for an immediate response to an informant chasing a male who has his car radio”. Jesus, and I am the only unit available. I turn to see Fat Face running out the back door towards me, “Coming coming”. Sigh….

Cold car, fogged up, lights, sirens, cars not pulling out the way, split the traffic, arrive, area search and frankly not a sausage about.

Fat Face leaps out the car and engages with the informant. Name, DOB, address, location, all the usual. I peer at the broken window of the car, the object that broke it clearly visible, a stone, and the rough plastic which the suspects may have made contact with. “In all honesty I would be surprised if forensics could get any prints off of that surface, I don’t think it would hold”. Fat Face turns to me in front of the victim “Of course they could”. I stand up, puzzled “The surface isn’t smooth, it would be an outside chance, I’m being realistic” and I turn to the victim who is standing in front of us nodding to me. “No, I’m sure they could”.

My face turns to a blank and I’m wondering who the fuck Fat Face thinks they are. I bet the victim is really impressed with two officers effectively contradicting each other. I also bet that Fat Face with their literally weeks of experience would not know better than me with a number of years in. I coax the victim back into his house and let Fat Face take details, they are the unrealistic one, may as well let them take the job.

What if I just drove off and left them here, what if I were to say I saw someone running into the woods and let them run off with me sitting in the warm car. Damn, I’m turning into a vindictive so and so… but it feels good.

Fat Face eventually finishes the details after what seems a lifetime and I wander out to the car. I turn to them and say “Well after that I need a drink”. “Yeah I need a coffee too”.

That’s not what I was thinking of….

More stories to come as I recall them from my twisted, bitter mind. 

Should I arrest? – PC Bloggs

Copyright © PC Bloggs – View this article and others HERE 

First published Sunday 4th February 2007:

Should I arrest?

Last week a Blandmore resident watched two youths robbing a young kid of his mobile phone. He dialled 999 and confronted the youths, asking the call-taker, “Can I use force to detain them?” The call-taker said, “No. It would be an assault and illegal.” Oh dear.
Next week’s Panorama talks about whether you should fight back if you are the victim of crime, but more usually the question is whether to get involved in other people’s crimes, by trying to prevent it or capture the offender. Here is a checklist for whether or not to make the “citizen’s” arrest:

Can you pronounce the word “indictable”?

Do you know what the word “indictable” means?

Do you know what the word “offence” means?

Can you put the two together and understand it?

Can you make a list of “indictable offences”?

Can you remember all of this when you are on the stand in court?

If the answer to any of the above is “yes”, well done, you are ahead of most police officers and can now consider issues of your own personal safety and whether, when all is said and done, you really give a crap. If you do not, try Tony McNulty’s suggestion of “jumping up and down“. That will ensure that the baddie turns his attention away from his victim and onto you.

Revised policy on police emails – Black in Blue

Copyright © Black in Blue – View this article and others HERE 

First published Thursday 11th January 2007:

Revised policy on police emails

Please circulate this memo to all officers and police staff within this said Force, er now. What are you waiting for?

Revised policy on official emails

1. Emails sent by police employees using police computers will hence forth become the property, of the Force, or precisely, myself, the Chief Constable. This revised amendment is amended to protect the human rights of myself, the Chief Constable, and my peers . ( The oppressed might be liable under The new ammendment to the Theft Act 1968 incorporated in the TWINING ACT 2007. )
   
   

2. Emails highlighting poor working practices will not be circulated to DC, Insp G, PC Bloggs, or any other blog writers, or any tabliod newspaper or police review. No, no no.

3. Any person found to be in contravention of the revised policy will be dealt with via the new misconduct/misfortune/theft codes, (that I have written just and which I will circulate laters).
4. This revised policy here-with the consent of ACPO now applies to all 43 Forces. All chief constables will have the same jurisdiction as myself.
   

Dated: 11/01/07Chief Constable Twining,Shireshire.

Memory is the guardian of everything – Inspector Gadget

Copyright © Inspector Gadget – View this article and others HERE

First published Monday 22nd January 2007:

Memory Is The Guardian Of Everything

Question for you:
You are a Chief Inspector, and you attend the parade at the start of a shift (which is rare for you to do). During that parade you hear for the first time that one of the Constables present has been awarded a nationaly recognised gallantry award. This is a huge achievement for the officer and the Force.After the parade, would you;

a) Take the officer aside and congratulate him personally?

b) Ignore the whole issue?

c) Send an angry email to his Inspector complaining that some of the other officers were dressed incorrectly during the parade, and that the Sergeant did not conduct the parade in what you regard as a correct manner, making no mention of the bravery award?

The Chief Inspector at F Division chose c) as the answer.

Note to self; Personal ambition is all very well – but let’s not forget the context within which we serve, and get so obsessed by the ‘points’ to be earned by highlighting uniform standards and crime statistics that we cannot see the imense damage we have just done to morale. In the final analysis, noone will remember the Sanction Detected rate on that day, noone will remember if a Constable failed to iron his shirt – but they will remember this crass stupidity and lack of imagination forever.

I’m embarrassed to wear pips this week. I’ve seen some poor leadership in my time, even in war, but this is the bottom of the barrel.

I’ve given up saying ‘you couldn’t make this up’.

A very English Murder – Midlands PC

Copyright © Midlands PC – View this article and others HERE 

First published Monday 5th February 2007:

A very English Murder

In the days of Agatha Christie, this would involve landed gentry, a small village seething with backstabbing and rivalry in the local WI, maybe a bit of illicit lust, all very harmless in itself, the odd revolver or fire poker and a few brutal deaths. Alcohol was limited to the odd pre-dinner sherry, and drugs were heart pills prescribed by the local quack, the only hazard being that some mental old biddy might lace one or two with cyanide. Cars were registered to the owner and insured correctly, and everyone was clean. Murder was still wrong, of course, but at least you could see the murderer would gain some benefit from doing the deed if they got away with it.

All together a pleasant way of life, unless you were unlucky enough to be the one whose murder Mrs Marple was solving, but at least if she was, you could guarantee that the murderer would hang.

These days, it is a bit different.

A few years ago, my division went through a bit of a bad patch, we averaged one murder every 18 days for a year, and a serious shooting at least once a week. The definition of serious shooting at the time was either someone was injured, or automatic weapons were used.

There were procons around that time who had the rather dubious distinction of being first at the scene of more than one murder. First at the scene is a difficult job, as you have a million and one things to do, and only two hands. If you have a person on the floor injured, and a man running away, what do you do? What about the onlookers trying to walk over or round the potential murderee, as they have to get to work. Do you arrest them, and stop yourself from doing your primary job, or just tell them to f*ck off, and hope they don’t contaminate your scene any more than they already have? It is fun, one of the few times when your pulse really races even though you are not usually in any great danger.

My murder that year was a classic of a modern english murder. Key elements are alcohol, numerous previous convictions, drugs, mindless violence, lots of overtime and the sheer total unnecessariness of it all. No party gained anything other than some overtime.

My friend Dave and I were delivering a court warning when a call came in to a local bail hostel, a minor disorder outside, the manager called us saying an ex-resident had come back and caused a scuffle. We tootle half a mile down the road, and the manager is there standing, and the ex-resident is lying there, unconscious. Manager says he swung at me, missed, fell and hit his head on the step. Sure enough, there is a step there with a small amount of blood on it. I kneel down and start monitoring the guys pulse and breathing, which are slow and steady, nothing to worry about. He is already in the recovery position, or something closely approximating it, so nothing much to do really. There is a CCTV camera there, so Dave goes to look at the pictures to see what went on before we decide what to do further. An ambulance is on the way, so we sit tight, bored.

Another car was there, as it came over as a disorder, so my friend Phil helps me with the guy, he is lying half on a run of three steps down to the pavement proper, so we agree who will grab where to get this guy on his back for CPR, just in case it becomes necessary. We sit there, trying to work out what his last meal was from the contents of the vomit near to his mouth, but there is none inside, so we’re not particularly worried.

All of a sudden, I realise I cannot see the condensation of his breath anymore. I check his chest, which is not breathing, and as his pulse starts sinking to zero, mine shoots in the other direction. We grab him hurriedly and get him on his back, and I start CPR. I can’t find my face mask in the rush, so I end up going lips to lips with him. Mmm, lovely. Incidentally, in the process, we drop him on his head from about 3 inches up onto concrete, more on this later, but this is the least of his problems right now.

I start wondering where the ambulance is, and a figure from my Summer Camp job in the USA many years ago pops into my mind, from a senior paramedic trainer there, who told us that the chances of resuscitating someone by manual CPR without the intervention of medical staff with the correct equipment is approximately 1 in 64,500. Hey ho, the ambulance gets there soon, and I help pile him into the back, still going with the CPR. The manager, surprisingly, is getting rather panicked at this point, one suspects he has hit the guy at least once and is now wishing he hadn’t. He is arrested for assault at this point, and the radio goes mad.

I say to the paramedic, as I always do in the back of ambulances, do you want me to do anything or just f*ck off out of your way, and am invited to continue the chest compressions. I can see the results of my labours on a monitor, like some mental version of Daley Thompsons Decathlon, the 80’s athletics computer game. Now I’m really showing my age. For those with a too low geek rating, you waggle a joystick and the little guy runs, jumps or swims, the faster you swim, the faster he goes. I try to keep the peaks and troughs the right height and width, and soon we pull up and A & E. I stand back while the proper tea work on him, but they decide to stop after about 10 minutes. No emotion, no dramatics as a junior doctor demands to be allowed to keep trying, to be led off in tears by the consultant, they did their best and his injuries just happened to be too much

So, come on duty at 0700, and by 0930 I’m tucking into buttered toast at City Hospital sitting in the same room as a slowly cooling corpse. Having cleaned my mouth of his vomit first, of course. Well, you gotta eat. Once the vitals are out of the way, I get down to the serious business of bagging and tagging all his clothing and doing a lengthy statement.

Eventually, I get the privilege of going to his post mortem, which I have to say, I found fascinating. I can now reveal that when they cut the top of your skull off to look at your brain, they cut a little notch in the back, so it goes back on straight. Now there’s quality British workmanship for you. It was truly fascinating, especially the bit when the pathologist noted the bruise on the back of the poor guys head, and I stuck my hand up and said ‘Errrr, actually doctor, that one’s my fault. Sorry.’ The pathologist was truly charming, a real gentleman, as he should be for the £2,000 he was getting paid for a couple of hours of dicing and slicing. If you get a chance to go to a PM, do not turn it down!

I eventually got home at 10.30 pm, we had a chinese for dinner and I was not in the least peturbed by the fact it was the second time that day I was seeing spare ribs. The guy was charged with murder, as he’d conveniently forgotton to mention the fact he’d beaten the shit out of the victim before ringing us, but a second post mortem was inconclusive, so it was dropped.

I can honestly say I was not in the least emotionally upset, I did my best for him and it just wasn’t good enough, and as for watching someone die in front of me, nope sorry dear reader, not a flicker. I didn’t know him, and I’m sorry for his death as I am every death, but that fact I saw it happen doesn’t make me feel any worse about it.

Miss Marple it wasn’t, but a good days work it was.

There are some right Arseholes about – 200 weeks

Copyright © 200 Weeks – View this article and others HERE

First published Thursday February 1st 2007:

There are some right Arseholes about

There are some people who, just before they open their mouth, you know are going to seriously wind you up. It’s the expression on their face, the way they walk towards you, you just know they’re going to be grief.

So you’re in the town somewhere trying to put a containment on a group of streets with other colleagues. The dog handler is out trying to find a track and the force chopper is circling overhead using its heat-seeking camera to try and locate the guy who’s just attacked a lass in an alleyway not 15 minutes ago.

You know it’s going to happen, it usually does when the helicopter is out. Someone rings up to complain about the noise. Occasionally they actually have the bottle to come out and complain face to face.

So you’re watching 3 streets in case matey-boy runs across one of them, listening for movement, noises, dogs barking, and signs that someone has disturbed someone or something. You hear a door slam and look round to see some arse storming towards you in a coat, bare legs and shoes not laced up.

“Do you really need that thing, people are trying to sleep here?”

You ignore it and turn back but he just keeps coming, oblivious that you are trying to do your job.

“Excuse me, I’ve got to be up at 7am, isn’t it illegal for that thing to fly 50 feet above the houses?”

“It probably is but that helicopter is not 50 feet above your house it’s a thousand feet or more.”

“Well it’s just not good enough, disturbing the whole neighbourhood like this.”

And then they put in the one-liner which they think will actually make a difference. It can vary but is usually someone or some position they think is very important and thus deserving of selective treatment over and above anyone else.

“I’m a solicitor.”

Lots of thoughts run through your mind, most of them will get you into trouble if you say them.

“Well then when we catch the bastard who’s just tried to rape a girl who might have been your daughter, we’ll give you a call and you can some and defend him.”

“I don’t like your attitude, the chief constable will be hearing about this.”

“Good, now fuck off.”