Hiatus

So the blog is still on hiatus I'm afraid and will be for the rest of the year at least. I still check the emails and will reply if I get a chance. I'm okay having a great time what I'm doing and will update further early next year. Thanks for your patience all readers.

Tyler

Sabbatical

Well I had a few emails from people wondering where the hell I'd got to so I thought it polite to just let everyone know what's going on!

I lost the blog bug in July after my last post, having some difficulties in my non-professional life, nothing major I hasten to add! Since then I've gone on attachment in a different department and although life isn't so exciting anymore there's certainly a lot less to moan about! So I haven't had much cause to put pen to paper, or fingers to keys as it might be.

So an apology for all those readers who want to see my work again I don't know exactly when I'll be back but I might throw together one last post before hanging up my blogging boots for a while. I will be back!

Oh and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Wasting ambulance time

We hear a lot about wasting police time, hell just read David Copperfields marvellous book. Coppers' heads were nodding all round the country, including mine. I have never been so drunk that an ambulance has been called for me, I have never got an ambulance when a lift or a taxi has sufficed and I've sure as hell never hoax called any of the emergency services. Not like some of the people you read about here.

But in my professionnal life, I barely go a day without wasting their time. Our instructions are basically if someone we come into contact with is intoxicated/injured/ill in any way, call the ambulance. It covers my arse or should I say the arse of the MPS.

I come across drunks, whether called by members of the public, the ambulance or come across them direct. I then have to make a decision as to whether there's a chance if I leave them they're going to choke on their own vomit or they're going to waddle off happily and recover. Generally my rule is, if they can stand and insult me, they're probably the latter. I try and avoid calling the ambulance in this instance but when it comes to arresting a drunkard who's not being violent or disorderly, or palming them off to the ambulance to deal with them, the choice is simple. And I hate doing that. I wish they'd just wander off and be adult for a change.

Some people are assaulted and even though I can't SEE any injuries it doesn't mean they've got any. But sometimes, especially when heads are involved, we're more inclined to call the ambo. Arse covering you see. At least they're qualified to make the decision as to this person's condition.

If someone tells me they're ill or they feel a bit faint, I'm not going to refer them to their GP, what if its serious? Call the ambo down, they can sort that out, they've got the knowledge to refer them to their GP.

Now its not just us who are involved in arse covering. Take this example for the chain of arses being covered. A man is brought into custody who is of the age where he should be fit and well, has no previous medical history to speak of. He 'collapses', I don't think it's genuine, but we call an ambulance. Police arse covered. The ambulance turns up and they think he's faking, he can't tolerate an intubator which is a tell tale sign, but they can't get him to stop playing, so they decide to take him to hospital. Ambo arse covered. He's booked in at A&E and the handovers given. The nursing staff and doctor think he's putting it on, but they can't get enough consciousness to turf him out, so they admit him for obs overnight. Hospital arse covered. Of course the people who are with him throughout this whole chain of events are.... us! So chummy still wins cos he's wasted a lot of our time. But that I don't mind, we're used to our time being wasted. What I don't like is an ambulance with a crew of two men/women who can resucitate people from cardiac arrest dealing with my faking prisoner before taking up a bed in a hospital next to people with real medical issues who could be my dad or mum.

Now before I get a load of abuse from my best friends dressed in green I'd just like to point out that this isn't how it should be and I HATE calling the ambulance for people who don't deserve them. But at the end of the day, we all work for accountable organisations and this is the world we live in. Plus we get to see our best mates the ambulance service on a more regular basis :-)

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?

A nice change

Well not much going on near Tyler, I've been away and on assignments involving very little police work for two months or so. I'm sure something will inspire me to put pen to paper in the near future.

On this particular recent assignment I was dealing with crowds, the nice sort. Of course this means giving directions to the same place repeatedly which is fine, but tedious. After an extremely long shift of cutting fown my directions from "Madam, the place you require is about ten minutes walk on your left hand side" to "That way" a lady walked up to me and I was just about to rattle off the pre-recorded message when she said "Thanks for keeping us safe"

I was gobsmacked.

My colleagues on response teams around the country will know what I mean....

Mingers

If you're in the job you'll know there are some people who this word was made for. I'm not talking about some of the female police officers because that would be wrong, I'm talking about the lovely people out there on the street.

I got sent to a drunk male collapsed on the stairs of one of the establishments on my area to move them on. Of course its understandable, it was 2 in the afternoon. When we arrived this guy was sparko, lying face down on the steps. It was my old friend John (not his real name) I've met him in the same situation many times before. It's a really nice hot day but we weren't going to be able to wake him. Double gloved as he has every contagious disease you can think of, still wearing his trousers supplied from the hospital days before. We move him to a less painful position and he doesn't even stir. I reach for my radio with regret and say "Can we have an ambulance down here please?" I hate wasting the ambulance's time like this but in an ass-covering exercise we have to. In fairness, this guy is obliterated and he won't be able to move on if he wanted to. I can smell him from a few feet away, which is quite impressive in fresh air.

The ambulance eventually turn up (I wouldn't want them to rush to this time waster) and the two paramedics get out, they already know him and agree he'll have to go to hospital to sober up and then storm out to get some more vodka. The offending bottle is nearby and it is cheap polish vodka, 40%. My guess is he's drank it in about ten minutes. The paramedics are as sensitive as we are, not very. They bring the trolley bed out and we load him up. Off he goes to hospital and the ambulance and us can go back to doing some 'real' work, until the next one of course.

As we're sweeping up the mess on the pavement (metaphorically) there's an emergency call for an old lady who's been hit by a bus. How ironic, here we are with a 2 paramedic EMERGENCY ambulance and two warranted police officers with a drunk. We're the only unit available to go and there's going to be a delay because of this alcoholic. Thankfully she's okay and there was a fresh ambulance crew ready to deal with a proper injury by the time we arrive on scene.

Some more nothing calls throughout the evening and we got our full lunch break which was refreshing. Late on another unit is doing a stop on a car that is 'four up' and needs some assistance, we scream up as we're nearby along with two other units including a van. The occupants look startled at the police presence. We then spend the next ten minutes being told how much we're hated and how this is the reason we are. Apparently we shouldn't be cuffing people under 18 (?) and we have to make small talk with these muppets while my other colleagues complete checks and searches.

At least I got off on time.

I'll write about more mingers...I could post for two months with a post for each if I wanted to.

Tyler

RTA

Its a lovely sunny day in my area and I'm out in a minibus full of probationers and we've all been on the street for about 3 weeks (exceot the instructors of course!). We take a few calls and turn up like rabbits in headlights en mass.

"Shall we get some refs?" Asks the instructor
It's decided we'll be going to McDonalds, it feels like a school trip.
"Can we have a unit please - personal injury RTA car vs Motorcycle, elm street"
Refs will wait, yeh we'll have that.

Although I'm only new I've already made the assumption that it'll be a sore neck or a sore leg - someone after compensation.

The road is packed with traffic backed up makes it hard to negotiate a 9-seater minibus down. I see the motorcyclist but no bike. He's lying on the floor face down in the middle of the road. Not as expected then...

We all jump out of the van keen as anything and an instructor and I run to the man. His face in the helmet is lifeless and spattered with blood. It's all hands on deck and the road closures are going in like a well oiled machine. Probationers chasing gawpers up the road to get them out of the scene shouting and being police officers.

LAS turn up on scene not a minute too soon and start working on the male immediately, one of my colleagues has felt his pulse stopping and he's quickly whisked away leaving ruined leathers, intubators, empty plastic packets from all the medical stuff on the tarmac. He dies en route to the hospital. Traffic are on scene measuring stuff while my friend completes his first accident report, for a fatal accident.

I am trying to find out his identity and look through his personal effects. There's the driving license, there's the DVD he was going to drop back to blockbusters on the way home from work, there's the bike magazine with his next bike in it. There's his mobile phone which beeps as I look at it. I read the message "Are you going to pick up Tom from football tonight?"

I speak to his wife who is picked up at home by a local unit and rushed to the hospital. It turns out they had an argument two days ago about washing the dishes. They hadn't spoken since....


Another nostalgia post from the early days. These sorts of incidents really stick in your mind. I think we get accustomed to certain calls and think we can predict what they're going to be. Even at this low level of service I was making assumptions - I learnt my first major lesson that day.