Proactive policing and Gene Hunt

It's very rare these days to get any proactive policing done on a response team. Stops, arrests and searches are usually generated by calls and when you're not answering them you're writing up previous ones or eating. The only time you do get a chance is late on a night duty ie after 3am, when most of the criminals are finally in bed and you're left too shattered to keep driving around in circles watching milkmen and coppers going in for early turn!

Sometimes you do get a good night with minimal calls and a keen colleague. The festive season is one of these times. Brad and I went on a mission with a breathalyser in the glovebox and a new lease of life. We stopped about 18 cars and bagged them....with a negative result. The last one I stopped was a transit three up with no lights on. Alarm bells were ringing. Sure enough the driver staggered out to us and refused to blow into the machine. His mates were bigger than the two of us and they were interfering. A call for another unit was made.

He was nicked for failing to provide and after a long charade of unconsciousness that the ambulance couldn't even disprove we ended up in the local A&E. He was chucked out by the doctors after a couple of hours for feigning it. But not after his blood was diluted substantially by an IV. Anyway, back to the nick and we managed to get two satisfactory breaths out of him in the machine. He was over, still.

I've had a spate of proactive arrests recently some of which have been for "non-sexy" stuff that is still none-the-less illegal. I get some stick and everyone on the team thinks I'm made for traffic with some of the arrests I bring in but hey, might as well earn my money.

It's nice to do a bit of "old-fashioned policing", trying to find criminals before they commit crimes, rather than after. A lot of the time recently we're getting s60s put in place, which basically means for a period of 24hrs (extendable to 48) we can search anyone with no grounds (preferably in a group) to make sure they're not carrying weapons when serious violence is anticipated. I'd love to say I contribute to preventing knife crime in teenagers but I'm afraid searching everyone in a hoodie and finding nothing doesn't make much difference. Without actually imposing stiffer sentences these youths are not going to be deterred. I always look at the "rapp sheet" for people I arrest and some of these people have 20 or more convictions for kindred offences before they get put inside. Even then, they get short terms.

My last arrest had been convicted of various immigration offences, and he was fined £10.00 for each of them. That £40 bill will show him!

Apparently the police aren't doing enough to keep the public safe, not to mention only having four cars out last saturday night, the courts are doing a lot to keep the public in danger....


Oh and about Gene Hunt. He used to leave comments on this blog but he hasn't been around in a while.Whatever happened to him?