Monthly Archive for June, 2007

written by maneatingcheesesandwich from maneatingcheesesandwich

I've not dug through YouTube for ages, but JHL's use of The Laughing Policeman to draw wider attention to my recent on-duty onanism has set me off again.

I love the fact that people have thrown on plenty of vintage concert footage (such as The Specials, rough but magical), but even more wonderful is the array of classic cartoons, without which my life would have been less of a joy.

One of my personal favourites...

The Cat Came Back

and another

Pigs is Pigs (since posted, this has been scuppered - presumably by Disney - damn...)

God Bless YouTube.

The original post can be found http://maneatingcheesesandwich.blogspot.com/2007/06/you-tube-cartoon-heaven.html

written by The Blue Pimpernel from The Blue Pimpernel

Firstly, let us welcome another one to the blogging community.

Area Search No Trace.

Welcome to this new world, my friend,

Secondly, a change of Government, well cabinet at least. Let us hope that large scale change does not fall from on high as those new in post see the need to make their mark.

Although I don't see why not, it happens in the police service all the time. Sergeants and Inspectors tend not to have too many retarded ideas, although with some new inspectors who have their eyes on higher things, some daftness does tend to creep in. The real potential, however, flares up when you reach chief inspector and above.

My new management team has decided to change our shift pattern, which to be fair, does probably need changing, as there's no capacity in it for training days, and most of the things we're terrible at doing, is stuff we have to have training days for. Fair enough. However, there's just been a purge of various posts to put people back in the front line, hey ho', everyone got their hopes up, and now that's been put back at least 3 months.

We will be moving from a 4 shift system to a 5 shift, which gives more coverage at certain times in terms of numbers, but this larger number of officers must compete for the same number of cars, leaving a significant number of us on foot. Not that I object to walking from A to B in itself, but as a means of getting from A to B to get things done, it's pretty damn inefficient. Seeing us zoom past in a car may make us seem less aproachable, but we very rarely get flagged down and told about stuff. Everyone has access to a mobile these days, if you ring us, we will come out to you, and a damn sight quicker if we're behind the wheel of a car.

Anyway, I digress. 5 shifts from four means a repeat of the 3 shift to 4 shift problem, whereby the newest unit becomes a dumping ground for the retards and rejects from the others. Those who move from D unit to E unit must feel like the skinny kid at school who is chosen last for football every time, if they have the perception to realise what is going on, that is.

Another suggestion is that minimum staffing in the control room be cut to two. Which is really helpful when the same policymakers have also arranged for the live jobs to be run on one terminal, the deferred list on a second and the neighbourhood team logs on a third. 2 into 3 doesn't appear to go, but what would I know? I only work there.

The workload on the response teams is the same as ever. In the last month or so, we have had serious flooding, a fatal RTC where a motorcyclist was decapitated in full view of the general public, several murders, an arson which is expected to go fatal any day now, a couple of kidnappings, a serial arsonist, a cannabis factory located with over 300 plants found in a live, i.e. not preplanned, firearms incident which nearly ended up in several people being shot as they didn't seem to understand the word 'stop'. Plus the usual robberies, burglaries, assaults, criminal damage, lots of suspicious incidents we don't even bother to go to because we can't, 6 cars into 105 jobs at a time just doesn't go. 2 controllers and 6 cars can apparently run response fine. Which is why we're currently on the aforementioned 105 jobs, yeah right.

Whinge over, I don't whinge because it upsets me personally, I still get to go home on time and our boss knows we're a good team and do our best, but our best just doesn't stretch far enough.

The original post can be found http://bluepimpernel.blogspot.com/2007/06/another-one-unto-fold.html

written by unlikely cop from Unlikely Cop

As may have been noticed by some very few of you out there it has been a while since I posted.

There are possibly a few reasons why this has happened. Perhaps because I have run out of things to say. But that's not likely.

Perhaps because I just couldn't be bothered. Which has it's possibilities.

Perhaps because I started to feel that in it's way, blogging is akin to literary masturbation. Quite a bit of fun but no substitute for the real thing (whatever the Real Thing may be). And this also may be worryingly true.

But mostly because for the last couple of months (and I think blogging helped to crystallise this) that I have been questioning whether I am still cut out for police work.

Unfortunately I still get up in the morning wanting to track down the men in the Black Hats. However I am feeling less and less able to do this. And it would appear that no-one really wants me to.

As example to this I am on the receiving end of various courses.

For instance about domestic violence. Not how to deal with it or for support in sorting it out just the sort of “cor isn't that a big number” sort of thing.

Another instance. The Racial Equality/Awareness/God your crap at talking to Blacks. Or is it coloureds. Or minorities. Whatever the PC term (PCs - for the use of) is this week. I am apparently the worst person to turn up at any event involving any minority or imigrant group up to and including the Welsh because of my inappropriate behaviour in maybe mentioning the war, Mao Tse-tung, or sheep. (Sorry about that if you are German, Chinese and especially Welsh)

Or the sex equality talk. Because I, like any other white(ish) male am inherently unable to deal with women (even white(ish) women) without offending them by my very presence. Big hairy males. Yuck! (Actually, small hairless males too)

New arrest powers, new fraud offences, new sex offences, even the new smoking offences, have passed me by. Usually without a word being said, sometimes with a couple of minutes at a briefing by another cop who has been handed the Power-Point and a post-it note. (Admittedly we sometimes get the full thing on some email or another but it will almost certainly be the most convoluted piece of interpretation and any Plain English campaigner would have kittens and a fit at the same time)

If kids have a scrap in the school yard and I get wind of it then I record it as a crime. I get the “victim” interviewed on video tape by a specialist interviewer, arrest the “suspect” and interview him/her on tape. Fingerprint, photograph, DNA are all taken. I get some sort of alibi like “it wasn't me, and my fifteen mates will tell you." I then have to speak to a goodly portion of the fifteen and the go to CPS for advice. I can't just take my evidence to them... Oh No! I have to take a full file of paperwork. All the bail/custody sheets, lists of evidence and witnesses. Incident logs, crime records etc. etc. for them to bin it when I knew it was a pile of canine poo all along. And this in spite of the fact that the two contestants in all this are back out together, terrorising Grannies by playing Japs and English in the street outside (or whatever the current inappropriate western stereotype war game is doing the rounds at the moment. Those kids will need a course to sort them out)

If I want to have a bit of a sneak about without the old uniform on, I now, thanks to vast over-interpretation of RIPA, have to spend 3 days filling in forms to ask a Superintendent. That's not putting a camera into your window while you watch that bootleg DVD or hiding in your loft watching your heaving buttocks on a Friday night. No. That is just plain clothes, plain car and maybe a pair of binoculars, in a field.

And what really pisses me off, pardon my French (...there I go again) is that I firmly believe that those in charge like it that way. They know that it doesn't matter one small piece of dried toast that we work our backsides off to no effect. Or that we can't shrug off a case of two kids fighting. Or tell Mrs Miggins that we are finally sick of her stupid complaints and to get a life. Because they know that whatever happens it is our fault. Not theirs. You see we've had the course. And they arranged it. We've had the course that tells us we are crap at dealing with minorities, women, the disabled, homosexuals and all. It doesn't matter that we have no clue how to prosecute for a crime or that we arrest someone for an offence that technically doesn't exist. The penalties for that are minor in comparison.

But when you say the wrong thing to one of the above mentioned groups. And believe me you will no matter how careful or precise you are, the Great and the Good will be able to point to the course.

They will be able to point to the course and say “but he's had the course” and you and only you will be responsible. And then you can be suitably humiliated and hung out to dry.

The course will have been the best practice at the time, but because you have put your foot in it they will be able to say that things must moved on.

And to put it right??

Let's do a course!

The original post can be found http://unlikelycop.blogspot.com/2007/06/course-it-is.html

written by The Thin Blue Line from PoliceCameraPaperwork

Very quickly, I got a reply to the nasty email I sent.

I was told to "tow the party line".

That's me told then.

The original post can be found http://policecamerapaperwork.blogspot.com/2007/06/quick-update.html

written by The Thin Blue Line from PoliceCameraPaperwork

Assuming I'm like most coppers in most ways (there's a post in there somewhere, must make a note!) I don't think I'm too distinctive in trying my absolute best to avoid becoming anyone's personal Police officer.

This happens when you deal with some spurious complaint in, say, January, and that person then makes a note of your name and collar number and puts it on a post-it note next to their phone.

Then, and for ever more, you'll be called to deal personally with every matter of insignificance that happens to that person.

You get into work after a few days off and check your emails. Most of them will be a load of old tosh about some new diversity project or other, some will be a general email from somebody you've never met telling you that they're retiring/changing departments/moving to Australia then there's the ones from any number of civillians telling you off and putting you in your place.

Stuck somewhere in the middle is an email from a colleague telling you that you have to return a call to Mrs Eileen Bonkers who has phoned about a matter you're dealing with. Eileen Who? You do a quick check and see that you attended there six months ago and gave her advice about pigeons or something. And, because she made a lovely cup of tea and had some nice biscuits, you made the schoolboy error of telling her who you were.

Now, she owns you. You are hers, as surely as the ornamental plates commemorating George V's wedding over her fireplace.

This time she's reporting a problem with "youths" congregating near her house. (On a side issue, given her age, "youth" could include anyone up to and including 50 years old. But anyway...)

When you call her, she'll first want to tell you how unhappy she is it's taken you so long.

"But Mrs Bonkers, I've been off for a few days..."
"Don't give me that. The Police never had days off before this country went to pot." (She'll then go on for a few minutes about how "this" would never have happened if that lovely Enoch Powell had been the Prime Minister. Use this time wisely! Have another cup of tea and look at holidays on the internet).
"Well, we have to now. European rules I'm afraid." (Always, ALWAYS, blame Europe!) "Perhaps in future it might be helpful to call the general number and they should be able to get an officer out to you on the day?"
"That's no good, I'll have to explain everything to them all over again! You already understand!"

I haven't got the heart to tell her I haven't really been listening.

So, you trot round there, have some more custard creams, and listen to how teenagers are running amok with "those skateboard things" and how "it isn't safe to even step foot outside anymore!" You give her half an hour of nodding and making sympathetic "hmm" noises before telling her you'll set up a task force. Then, when you get back, you allocate the message to somebody from the Safer Neighbourhood Team.

This Personal Police Officer thing does have a good side though. There's nothing like the feeling of elation you get on answering the phone and Mr Doolally says, "PC Copper already knows all about this".

"Right, I'll send him an email and get him to call you straight away!"

The original post can be found http://policecamerapaperwork.blogspot.com/2007/06/your-personal-police-officer.html