Strange that I use a footballing term for someone so opposed to the professional football game, but I’m so made up by the latest news, I’ll let my personal ethics slip for a while.
Or perhaps I can just say, “Result!”
Just a little of light entertainment today as we have family round & not much time to sort out a written blog entry…
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One of the perennial questions that crops up when you’re applying to be a copper is what would you do if you had to nick a mate or a family member?
It’s one of those questions you think you know the answer to but hope it will never happen. I can’t imagine the sinking feeling going to a drunken knife-wielding shoplifter who’s kicking off only to arrive at Asda to find it’s your own gran.
Some years ago I was on patrol with a probationer. We were driving through the town minding our own business when we saw a car heading towards us, it swerved into our lane &n collided with the car ahead of us. It did no more than reverse off the victim’s front offside wing & continue its journey. It was around midnight so the instant thought was either the driver was drunk or the motor was nicked.
The circumstances were such that we could tell the victim was unlikely to be injured, so shouting for him to remain & that we or another patrol would be back soon, I swung the patrol car round & high-tailed it after the suspect vehicle.
It didn’t take long to catch him up & it was pretty apparent he was pissed. We followed him for a mile or so, blue lights & headlamps flashing to no avail until he pulled into a cul-de-sac – in which he happened to live.
Fearing a decamp, I jumped out of my patrol car & ran to the driver’s door wrenching it open. I had nothing to fear; the driver was so drunk he could barely stand.
I grabbed him by the shoulder to pull him out of the car when it suddenly hit me. I knew the driver & I knew him really well.
It was Dave, the lad I had grown up with, who lived next door. It was all the more surprising since we were many miles from our home town, unbeknown to either of us I had been posted there Dave had moved there.
Dave was born in the house when I was two or three & we grew up as next door neighbours. His parents were Aunty Margaret & Uncle Peter; all our close neighbours were known as aunty or uncle, none of this kids calling adults by their first names lark back then.
Dave & I played football, his dad took us fishing, my dad took us sailing. I moved away when I joined the police & Dave went off to do engineering like his dad.
So here we were in a dark cul-de-sac, me an officer of he law & him an attempted fugitive from it.
He looked up around the time I was double checking it was actually Dave. “Hello , 200, I think Ive been a bit naughty.” I think my reply went on the lines of “Dave, what the fuck are you doing?”
I called the probationer over & directed him to say the magic words & we put Dave in the patrol car &Â carted him off to jail (well, the local nick).
Dave didn’t appear to hold any grudges & openly admitted it was his own sorry fault. It hadn’t been his first brush with the law he was lucky not to get a custodial.
His mum didn’t take it very well, which was really awkward for my folks. Aunty Margaret blanked them whenever she saw my folks, uncle Peter would only speak to them when Margaret wasnt present.
Whenever I go see the family, I get the same treatment, to this day & the event was in the early 90s. They’ve lived next to each other for nearly 50 years & no longer speak because of an incident that even dave moved on from, very sad.
I saw Dave last week when I visited my parents. He was coming out of his folks’ house with his kids as I was coming out of mine, with mine. We had a good old chat & caught up with what we were both doing. The funny thing is that we both live in the same town but have never bumped into each other.
His parents never came out.
Regular readers will know of my general disdain for MPs.
So, some good news today.
One question, why so few….?
Sometimes you just don’t know what you’re dealing with, nor how it will turn out.
In the following stop check in Michigan, USA, a 23-year-old man threatens an officer with a loaded .45 cal handgun before shooting himself in the head. (The shooting has been cut out of the following film, but the before & after remain)
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New report on the story: here
Facebook has been on the news a bit recently. There was the guy who had escaped from prison somwhere & spent weeks on the run taunting police with his Facebook entries. Then the killer of Ben Kinsella, Jade Braithewaite, had his Facebook page removed after taunting his victim’s family from his prison cell.
This week, news of another criminal inside using Facebook to threaten his enemies.
Colin Gunn, jailed on 2006 for a double killing, said on his Facebook page: “I will be home one day and can’t wait to look into certain peoples’ eyes and see the fear of me being here.”
I’d have thought that convicted killers would have difficulty accessing the Internet from a prison cell, & a spokesman said serving prisoners do not have access to the Internet except for educational purposes when access is closely monitored by staff, access to social networking sites is prohibited.
A Facebook spokesman said that their rules ban users from harassment or intimidation.
Judging by the amount of work which comes our way on a daily basis, they don’t appear to be very good at policing their own site. It would not be an exaggeration to say that every division in our area gets several complaints about threats & harassment every single day. I guess we attend more Facebook related incidents each day than we do burglaries. If Facebook decided to shut up shop there would be so many police-hours freed up the government wouldn’t know how best to spin the perceived extra-officer news best.
No, I don’t mean small sergeants but those obsessed with getting involved in absolutely everything.
I’ve been working recently with a team I’m not famiar with. This always presents problems to controllers; you have absolutely no idea about the dynamics of the way the officers work, you don’t know any of the officers, which means you don’t know their personalities or capabilities.
I wasn’t filled with confidence when my colleague with whom I was sharing the division, said: “Do you know Sergeant Wombat? shes a knob.”
It’s always great when the focal point of the shift is a knob, it makes your job as a controller so much more difficult.
It wasn’t long before I got to see what my colleague meant. Sgt. Wombat is one of those supervisors who apparently has absolutely zero trust in her own team, to the extent that she feels the need to micro-manage absolutely everything.
She spends more time on the radio than all the other officers put together. This is usually finding out who is doing what asking for updates on every ongoing job.
She clearly doesn’t feel comfortable leaving people to get on with the job or to let people consult her if when they think it necessary. She has to know the ins & outs of a cat’s arse on who is doing what, when, why & how.
So when we had a potentially serious RTC on the division this week, sticking her oar in every 2 minutes just pissed everyone off, including me.
Traffic officers are often some of the most experienced officers on the streets. They usually know their job pretty well too. You can rely on them to knuckle down do their job pretty thoroughly & professionally. They know what’s required & how to do it. A section acting sergeant with 10 minutes in the job & no road policing experience doesn’t. Sticking stripes on your arm doesn’t give you knowledge or experience.
Sgt Wombat’s supervisory style takes the form of calling up every 30 seconds making helpful suggestions about where the traffic units should be deployed, what they should do when they get there everything else up to including the best filler for their sandwiches.
Every time she speaks on the radio is time that neither I nor the traffic units can speak & quite frankly, what we have to say is more important than the inane suggestions &Â questions she keeps asking. If knowledge is power, being devoid of knowledge is paralysingly. At least I think that’s what Sgt Wombat thinks. Her only saving grace is that at least she is out on the street, in her car, & making her way to it also. Not like the micro-managers who are even worse in that they just sit on their arse in an office barking orders & instructions & never offering to help when you’re short of units.
In the end I get fed up & I speak for all parties when I say “Can you just leave it to traffic to sort out”, in an exasperated attempt to get her to shut the fuck up.
This is met by a few seconds of silence then “Can you ring me on my mobile?” Like if I had time to ring you on your mobile I wouldnt be telling you to shut up so I can get out on the radio to deal with the incident that is currently running.
My colleague leans over & touches me on the arm, “I told you she was a knob.”
This won’t go down well with the likes of Elizabeth who will probably claim it as outrageous racist, if she’s still reading this blog.
One gang of travellers recently arrested by police were found to be responsible for half the caravan thefts in Britain.
Four members of the gang face jail terms having been convicted last week of conspiracy to steal.
The gang stole caravans & motorhomes from all over the country. Some were stolen off drives, others were taken from motorway service stations when families pulled in for a break on their way to or from holidays. Some were the owners’ only homes, leaving them without a place to live.
Nineteen police forces from Yorkshire to Somerset were involved in trying to catch the gang. They were finally caught when 120 officers raided a travellers site in Wiltshire. Stolen property worth £1 million was found including vehicles worth £700,000, £100,000 of jewellery £70,000 in cash.
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Around two weeks ago many police bloggers reported a story of a single-crewed officer getting beaten unconscious during a stop check in Kent. A photo of the female officer concerned was published on many blogs. Inspector Gadget received some 200 messages of sympathy for the officer. The story was used as evidence that single-crewing is an inherently dangerous practice.
Several police bloggers encouraged others to post the same photo on their blogs. I chose not to, despite a direct request to do so from one or two bloggers.
Last week the story of the attack on the officer disappeared from the Kent Police website. It seems some wool may have been pulled over some eyes.
Joey Barton, Michael Thomas, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Steven Gerrard, Jermain Defoe (twice), Ledley King & Marlon King. What have they all got in common?
They’re all professional footballers who have been charged with criminal or traffic offenses & been mentioned on this blog. I also mentioned Ashley Cole 3 weeks ago when he was convicted of doing 104mph in a 50 limit. His case was adjourned so he could appear in person & today he didn’t (appear, that is) but was banned for 4 months anyway.
His solicitor Katherine Hodson, said: “There was no suggestion given by police that there was any cause for concern about Mr Cole’s driving, except for his speed.” Like doing 104 in a 50 isn’t sufficient concern on its own. He also received a £1,000 fine.
So, official figures reveal that 60% of the country’s 43 police forces have cut the number of police officers during 2009. 26 forces saw figures falling in the six months up to September last year.
The decrease in police officers is set to continue for many forces as budget cuts for 2010/2011 start to hit. The only saving factor for the government – in the spin stakes – is that they are still able to say that overall police numbers are increasing; there were some 560 additional numbers last year above the previous year (nearly 145,000 overall), but this is mainly due to the Met taking an additional 700 officers, most other forces are reducing numbers.
Prior to the release of the figures the Government have been happy to say how important it was & how well they were doing to increase numbers, you’d have thought that decreasing numbers would have an equal & opposite effect. Not So. In a master-stroke of spin the Home Secretary has said that ‘it is not all about numbers.’
“Police officer numbers remain historically high and they are doing a great job – crime is down and public confidence is up. But it is not all about numbers, the force must carry on tackling crimes that matter most to the public and that is why the Government has guaranteed funding to maintain front line strength until 2013.”
So that’s alright then.
North Wales Police are doing their bit to up the public confidence stakes in their area.
They’ve gone over to black polo shirts, baseball caps & combat trousers, much the same as a lot of forces. Generally, this is because the uniforms are more fit for the running after burglars & rolling around the streets with drunks & ne’er-do-wells, which the old helmet, shirt, jacket & tie weren’t.
North Wales are doing a public survey to see what the good folk of North Wales think about the new uniforms. They deny they are seeking approval or that things will change if the public decide they don’t like the new look.
I wonder how quickly things will change if they find that public confidence has dropped as a result of the new uniforms.
Four years ago the government told police forces they had to investigate the possibility of merging. This cost the country millions of pounds while forces set up special units tasked with investigating the costs & benefits, or otherwise, of merging. They were full of senior officers who make careers of keeping away from front line policing (if you accept that any senior officer is actually ever involved in front line policing).
All the money & work was wasted when the government decided it didn’t want forces to merge. It was probably something to do with having to spend more cash to bring it off.
Since then, some chief constables have been conspiring with each other to bring about mergers anyway, working away at creating joint units, merging a department at a time.
Now it’s back on the cards as the government find more ways to save cash & avoid the really bad publicity that the inevitable sacking of police officers that comes with the enforced cuts we are now suffering. A committee of MPs is suggesting the exploration of mergers once again, which will probably mean setting up the same boards with the same senior officers as last time & spending the money all over again. This time, the MPs say, the Home Office must fund the mergers properly.
Their figures suggest merging small neighbouring forces such as Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire could cost £20 million, but would result in savings of £15 million per year.
Here we go again…
Welcome to another in my Police Fact-f’ile series in which I aim to enlighten you as to the inner workings of the modern UK Police Service.
Robert Haines, a 41-year-old armed robber & father of three was shot dead by police in October 2006 when he was part of an armed gang who raided a building society in New Romney.
Whilst running from the scene he had to misfortune to bump into a group of more skillful people with guns, who happened to be from the Met & had the gang under surveillance. CCTV footage showed Haines threatening a security guard with a gun. He had stolen £105,000 cash from the guard.
A police officer told an inquest this week that he heard Haines fire a shotgun so, fearing for his & his colleagues lives, he shot & killed the robber. The inquest ruled that Haines was lawfully killed & an IPCC investigation also found no wrong-doing by police. The IPCC said: “The officer was responding to a clear threat to his and others’ life when he discharged his gun. The decision making and planning during the operation was also subjected to review and it was found to be professional throughout.
“We concluded any arrest before the robbery would more than likely not have gathered sufficient evidence to charge, and the decision to intervene as he entered the car park provided the best opportunity to safely control a dynamic and potentially dangerous situation.”
Which is good news for those officers involved, although one wonders why it takes more than three years to come to the conclusion.
Haines’ brother, Burt, wasn’t in agreement with police actions, saying: “I think he could have been wounded. To shoot him dead, I think is completely wrong.”
Perhaps Burt watches too much YouTube.
In the real world, if you take a gun to work, & look like you might use it, be prepared to be shot dead. Best perhaps, to advise the family first, so that they understand what might happen to you.
The following video shows an armed robbery in San Dimas, California in December 2009.
Whilst he is forced to hand over cash from the till he calmly presses the alarm. In the meantime a Los Angeles Sheriff Deputy enters the store.
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When he was later arrested, the robber said the only reason he didn’t shoot the officer was because she was a woman.
The government say they have done away with all the targets &Â replaced them with just one; public confidence. They want all forces to raise public confidence to 60%. I don’t really know what this means but it doesn’t seem particularly high. I expect the government doesn’t have much confidence that we can get any higher presuming that 60% is achievable. I don’t know about you but if I was wanting to get something on eBay the seller only had a 60% rating, I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about that state of British policing.
Anyway, the Home Office have told chiefs not to let ordinary coppers talk openly about crime & anti-social behaviour. They are concerned that if officers talk about the true levels of crime & bad behaviour, the public confidence in the police will plummet & we won’t be able to hit the already abysmally low target, which will cause an equally low opinion of the government, and we can’t have that.
A report, ‘Improving public confidence in the public service‘ concluded that one of the pitfalls to raising public confidence was employees talking negatively about their organisation. It said that officers talking about the apparent pervasiveness of crime could stimulate feelings of threat or fear among those listening and in turn lower opinions of the police service.
I don’t think anyone in the government mentioned this to the Justice Minister who recently announced the police were lazy & preferred staying in warm police stations stringing out the paperwork rather than fighting crime & anti-social behaviour. I’m guessing that he has probably done more to harm public satisfaction than a few local coppers telling it how it really is.
Not much hope for government support of police bloggers, then.
I check out the police-related stories in the news most days to seek inspiration for my blog – when you make a post every single day for more than two years, you sometimes need a lot of inspiration!
Today I could have gone with a story on some Met Officers accused for fraud, or the news that forces up & down the country ar lauding the good news that recorded crime is down, or experts being drafted in to help a failing force or a similar story that last Christmas’s drink driving figures are down.
But the story that really caught me eye was the one where a prosecution of a woman accused of killing 3 goldfish has failed in Norich. Nineteen-year-old Chantelle Amies was accused of pouring bleach into the fishtank killing a 4-year-olds pet fish after a ‘bitter dispute’ after her fingerprints were found on the bleach bottle & fishtank in a neighbour’s house.
Three witnesses told police they could smell bleach in the tank & water samples were taken. However the sample was not sent off for froensic examination by police who quoted the high costs involved. The defendant denied the charge but was sent to local magistrates who dismissed the case on hearing the water had not been tested.
The Mail isn’t really sure whether to blame the police for not sending the sample off or the CPS for allowing the case to proceed without sufficient evidence.
Important issues are raised by the case. The fish are classed as property & the value of the damage caused to them was £7; their replacement cost – no cruelty charges were brought, the charge was criminal damage. How far do we go to enforce the law. A 4 year old child had his fish killed, should the facdt that the cost of prosecution runs into several thousand pounds mean we don’t prosecute anyone.
Do we say that unless there is a financial loss under a certain amount of money then no prosecution should ensue because of the costs? If so, what message does that send?
I posted here, here & here about the case of Munir Hussain who was jailed for 30 months for assaulting a burglar he chased from his home after being tied up & threatened with death.
I argued that whilst it was right to prosecute Mr Hussain, on the basis of the level of injury caused, a prison sentence wasn’t the correct result. I’m pleased to see the High Court agrees & yesterday he had his sentence replaced with a one-years suspended sentence. He served five weeks in prison. It’s a shame the court couldn’t have gotten it right in the first place.
The following is a clip from the good ol’ US of A.
A 66 year old woman, who had been drinking before she crashed her car, is pulled from the wreckage by two police officers. She later recovers from her injuries.
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