A mild night

A steady Sunday night every now and then doesn't go amiss.

But someone had other plans... I signed my car out and went for a trundle around, not being a response vehicle for the evening meant I would be dealing with any crime reporting and anything urgent I was relatively near, luckily I had a colleague with me to share the writing. The good thing about being a 'panda' is you are not tethered to the radio as much so you can do a bit of proactive policing which makes a nice change, especially as the calls you take generally don't have a time restraint.

We were following a car along one of the main roads on our patch and my colleague pointed out that the car had a bald tyre so he was pulled over in order to rectify this. On closer inspection the vehicle had four adorable little children in the back seat. I can never understand why parents think this is acceptable - even if they are all going to a birthday party. I asked the father where he thought his children would end up if they had a crash "The front" he said and I pointed out that more than likely they'd end up about 20ft in front of the car having met the windscreen on the way through. He didn't like that but either way the kids had to go with uncle in a cab to continue their evening.

While my colleague completed the ticket (for the bald tyre - words of advice for the dangerous load) I made sure the child seats were fitted in the back which the father obliged. The kids were becoming restless so I thought I'd entertain them with some road safety advice. I asked them to show me how to fit a seatbelt which they knew and demonstrated. I then told them that whenever they travelled in cars they should use seatbelts even if it's not mum and dad's car. They were about 6 years old and I think the message was well received and I hope they remember it for their own sake.

The calls kept pinging up on the box and we kept accepting them whilst we went looking for more vehicles to stop. Then I saw a man driving whilst talking on his mobile phone and stopped him. He was ticketed and will be receiving 3 points on his license.

We were right on top of a call where a female had had her car window smashed and seen the suspects run off. We got there very quickly and had a good look round for the 3 inerbriates but with no joy so we headed to the address to take the report. Whilst we were there we were offered a seat and also some orange juice. We politely declined but as we went to leave the house we were accosted by the victim's youngest daughter with two glasses of juice. It was a nice gesture and much appreciated. I left wondering why all families couldn't be so pleasant.

We cleared up some more calls that seemed to have been outstanding for days before popping in for some chinese take away. I was then tasked to take an appropriate adult home as she had been mucked about by the handover team and just as we dropped her off we were called up and asked to attend a domestic nearby which had been outstanding an hour or so.

We attended and the mother stated she had been hit by her 14 year old son and she wanted him nicked. So he was arrested and taken to a cell hopefully to learn a valuable lesson. He was a pleasant kid and I hope he's not too far gone to learn a lesson before he just becomes another statistic.

Whilst we were dealing with my arrest we heard LAS put up an urgent assistance and refreshingly the world and his wife put up to accept the call. If I'd have been free I would have been rushing there myself but wasn't available. I wonder if its the same one Xf refers to.

As many police bloggers have said before we are best friends with the LAS and always a cheery wave or "woop" on the sirens to greet them when our paths cross. We try our best to be prompt to assist them. Last night it was urgent and a number of units from other divisions were even running from wherever they work which was nice to see and I know the LAS appreciate it.

Tyler