Back......again

Well its been quite a few months since i last updated on here, mainly because of lack of internet access at home and also for lack of effort to keep typing after every shift.
Well whats happened since i last posted on here???
Not a lot to be quite honest.
I've continued to deal with the crazy people of the area i work in having a few fun vehicle and foot pursuits.
I've had mountains of arrests, most which to no avail as going past custody sgts then CPS then Court and expecting your case not to be thrown out somewhere along the line is like throwing a box of eggs at a house and expecting them to be intact when you retrieve the box!!!
I have decided to change tact and go after the bigger fish.
For the well known drug dealers and thieves i've become a sworn enemy as im always there. One dealer who calls himself biggie, i had the pleasure of nicking on his christmas day for being a twoccer then the following day which happened to be his birthday (yes i did wish him happy birthday before nicking him!!) for possession of naughty drugs.
He now realises its not fun to open his front door and see me smiling at him, or to pull into his road and see me waiting for him, or when he goes to see his 'friends' (drug runners) i'm lurking nearby watching him.
To further my quest in getting back at those who believe the law doesnt apply to them and as my force so nicely states "deal in death" i am changing department from the lowly lows of shift work which every police officer will tell you is fun exciting with a great team spirit and real sense of direction(apart from every monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday..........) to a problem solving intelligence led department known in my area as the BAT TEAM.
Well enough rambling, i will update with some more real life policing stories shortly.
I'm currently finishing up a night shift and writing this is all that keeps me from
a) falling asleep
b)losing the will to live
c)going home to sleep and forget all about policing.

earlies

Ok i havent posted for a few days but there is a very good reason for this.
Firstly i have now moved back into police accomodation and no longer have constant internet access.
Secondly bar the crazy team night out during rest days nothing much fun has happened.
In a quick summary, firstly the first early i was on a cell watch for someone in for supply of class a drugs and murder. Nice!!
Second early i was an immediate car but only really had three jobs to goto. The first was an arrest request and house search for CID which was amusing, the person we were after wasnt there, his parents were on holiday and his little sister had all her friends round and were in semi naked states when we arrived!! Next we took a supposed racial incident which ended up not being a crime (honest we didnt just fob him off so we could go and have breakfast) Then finally a domestic where i got an arrest for ABH nothing too brutal just your everyday run of the mill husband hitting wife.(i know it sounds cold but we do see it everyday and are somewhat hardened to it all)
The third early i didnt go in for as i had to go and be interviewed by professional standards, which was immense fun.
Then the final early which was due to be a training day was cancelled so i stayed in bed!!

Quick Swing

Ok i've left it a couple days and a big night out which conincidently ended up being two entire teams from our nick being in the same place (about 40 coppers!!).
For that reason my recollection of quick swing is a little hazy but here goes.
Got in early and was sent out to an immediate before briefing and about 20 mins before i was due to start. It was a damage only RTA so didnt take too long just gave a couple producers, ran checks on the cars and that was it.
We were told by our skipper to come back in to pick up some slow time jobs so we took the long way round and saw a car 4 up (4 occupants) that looked a little dodgy, so we pulled it over. Long and short of it, the driver got nicked for possesstion of an offensive weapon as he had a baseball bat and a knife.
Got back to the nick and found the prisoner handling team were too busy to deal, so he was dearrested and we did a contemp note interview(basically interviewing whilst writing it all down, instead of tape recording) then let him go on his way.
This took a little while and after we then took a couple slowtime jobs from our sgt, but we were diverted to an immediate shout of youths setting off fireworks towards electricity power lines. Searched the area couldnt find them so called up to say we were about to attend a slow time job when another immediate came in that nobody else could take. It was an IRTA (injury road traffic accident). Two cars had crashed both were writeoffs and one of the drivers was bleeding from her ear and going into shock. The ambulance took 20 minutes to get there but luckily there was an off duty paramedic who stopped to help out.
Well after gathering witness details and helping to clear the mess and direct traffic we went back for a quick meal break.
The next shout we had was to a dog handler who had nicked someone for burglary but it was getting a bit heated and he needed urgent assistance. We got there and took the guy to the ground and cuffed him before taking him back to custody. Firstly this guy was the worst smelling person i had ever come across and secondly, in his pocket i found a spray labelled STUD, which on closer inspection turned out to be an erection enhancement speay, needless to say we all had a good laugh at his expense.
Well following that we sat around in the briefing room for the next two hours as the overlap shift had taken the cars, so we had plenty of time to gossip and plan our night out, ......... errrm i mean do some paperwork!!

The calm before the storm???

Got in extra early at about 2000 hours to do some paperwork then went to the station canteen to watch the first half of the England match before briefing with a few lads from shift.
Well went to briefing then did more paperwork til about 0100 hours.
Went out on patrol after this and stopped nearly everything that moved without any success.
Attempted an arrest in the morning which was a negative result. Finally i helped one of the sgts plan an operation which is being executed during quick swing.
After such a quiet night i half expect the area to explode with activity later, especially as its quick swing!!

Same old.

After the excitement of the past few nights things were bound to quiten down a bit and tonight is when that happened.
I was crewed as one of the immediate cars for the night.
Well cracked on with paperwork for a while before heading out into the unknown!! We stopped quite a few cars and people milling about but didnt really find too much.
About 0100 hours we were sent to assist an ambulance crew in assessing some bloke who was supposedly loony.
Well we got there and three stunning paramedics got out of the ambulance, which is always nice!!!
Well this guy seemed normal enough and he voluntarily went to hospital to get the once over.
Well after that we sat up at various spots hoping to catch people speeding through the night but no such luck.
Our next commitment was to attend a burglary at Nationwide Building Society. They had smashed the lock of the door in and nicked a laptop, they were never going to get into the safes so that was ok!!
Well after taking a couple of statements we resumed and soon had a call from a colleague that he had a motorbike making off. We made to them as quickly as we could and saw there car parked in the middle of the road.
As we raced out of the car one of them had caught one of the riders but he said his crewmate was still chasing the other guy.
We got sounds of fighting and shouting over the radio but couldnt hear where from so were running blind really. We soon came across the motorbike on its side in the middle of the road and just continued sprinting straight up the road hoping to hear or see him.
As we neared the end of the road we began to hear shouting and sprinted towards it to find Mark wrestling with the guy. Mark was clearly relieved to see us arrive as he was breathless and we soon had him *under control!!!* after a little more struggle.
More units soon arrived and the prisoners were taken back to the nick. We sat with the bike which turned out to be stolen during a burglary, until recovery arrived.
Whilst waiting at about 0430 hours one of the well known faces came walking past and refused to stop when i asked him. I chased him a short distance and carried out the normal checks but unfortuntely he wasnt wanted. He was a right idiot and we nearly ended up fighting with him, but had to let him go in the end.
After that we were done for the night as we went back to the nick and had some food then floated around for a little while longer not turning anything up. At about 0530 hours a suspicious fire came in which ended up being arson with intent to endanger life, but we steered well clear of that and went home on time.

undercover

Ok take the two youngest officers on shift, let them work in plain clothes and a plain car and they'll have lots of fun!!!
I'm not going to go into too much detail as all these logs seem to be getting longed but we stop checked and searched a number of people who had been smoking cannabis, we pursued one car that jumped a red light after overtaking 5 cars stopped at the light, on the wrong side of the road, and took his license from him.
We also pursued a subaru that had been involved in an armed robbery and had made off from police at 150 mph earlier. We managed to get the helicopter up to follow it and i believe they were caught as a result.
We stop searched a few more people before going to a domestic where husband had broken into wifes house and was beating her up with a bar.
Had a nice little scrap with him before carting him off to custody.
That pretty much ended the shift, back for more tomorrow.

The attacks.

Ok Saturday afternoon into saturday night was again looking like it was going to be a very busy shift.
Well to make things all the better i was crewed as one of the immediate cars for the day.
Well the first 20 minutes wasnt too bad as we went to try and take a statement, which we couldnt take as the person wasnt in, we were then going to go to a slow time job when we were diverted to a police domestic violence alarm. We had about 3 cars make to it and had a 2 mile blue light run but when we arrived it turned out to be a false alarm.
Well we didnt even have the time to turn around before we were sent to another immediate, landlord tennant dispute that was gettin violent. We went in convoy to the address having a couple of very close shaves on the way in. Pulled up at the address and knocked on the door.....control sent us to the wrong address, so off we went again, luckily we were just around the corner and got there to find a landlord trying to kick his tennants out on the spot and had tried breaking his door down. We informed him that under tenancy law he needed to give them 30 days notice or apply to the court for an emergency eviction order and that he cant just turn up with his mates and kick them out or he'd be arrested for a breach of the peace.
Well with that resolved we still had no peace and were sent to a report of a Misper (missing person) who was a 13 year old kid with a mental age of about 5 years old.
When we arrived i wasnt too surprised the kid was missing as the front door was open with an 18 month old toddler playing by herself next to the door, whilst the father was upstairs sleeping and the mother was in the kitchen.
Well we started filling out the misper report and had been there for about 30 mins when the kid came back with several africans, who he regularly goes to church with. Apparantly they had come to take him to church and didnt think to tell his parents they were going.
Well with that aside we decided we were going to go and get some food. On our way to Mcdonalds when we were diverted to reports of a large fight outside a house with 15 asian youths with baseball bats, cricket bats and knives beating up the occupants of the house. We were only half a mile around the corner but the offenders had already gone by the time we got there. They had smashed up the front of a house, putting the windows in then when the occupants came out they were set upon and hit with the bats and slashed with the knives. They were extremely lucky to escape with very minor injuries.
We had a dog handler on route to try and track them but he crashed his van just as he was pulling onto the road as someone decided to ignore the blue lights and sirens and pull out in front of him despite it being his right of way.
Well while we were trying to get past the language barrier of the aggrieved partys (Polish) they suddenly pointed out a car and said "THATS HIM" i wrote the car index down and passed it on the radio and we quickly ran to our car and gave chase. With the help of 2 other units we managed to block the car in just onto the next road. The driver was arrested not only for the assault and criminal damage but also for being a disqual driver.
Well as we were taking him back to custody about 4 999 calls came in reporting a group of about 15 asian youths with baseball bats and knives had stormed a house not to far from the first attack and had dragged three people out and were beating them up.
All three were hospitalised one with a very nasty broken arm which was spurting out blood everywhere as well as cuts and stab wounds.
Two of the offenders were caught at least this time so adding that to our prisoner we had three in custody for the attack.
Well we had a lot of paperwork to prepare for our prisoner and whilst doing this another call came in from another location reporting the same thing, about 15 young asian lads had stormed a house and were armed and appeared to be smashing the place up.
Well police attended again but didnt catch anyone on scene. This time things had got a little worse though as they kidknapped one of the occupants. (as i went off duty CID were still investigating this one).
Well we soon finished our paperwork and were asked by our inspector to go out on bikes high vis in the areas that had been attacked.
We did this for a while before heading into the town centre to assist with pub/club kicking out times.
There were a couple minor scuffles but nothing to serious. There was one incident that made me chuckle.
After a 6 or 7 man scuffle one of the offenders who i had arrested pleaded his innocence and tried reasoning with me saying "I was the one being attacked, i dont want any more trouble. If you pay for me to get a taxi home i'll go , i dont want to be involved in this any more!!"
The thing was he was actually being serious.
Well onto nights tomorrow.....errm actually that'll be tonight!!!
thats gonna be fun with it being bank holiday weekend and all!! bring it on!!

COME ON!!!!

Well friday evening shift 1600-0300 in scorching temperature always promised to be a busy shift and it was.
Straight out of briefing amd we had to shoot off on immediate to an RTA turned fight.
Apparantly some old dear had been trying to reverse out of her drive, in a rear service road between two rows of houses and had stepped on the accelerator instead of the breaks and had crashed into a concrete fence snapping her door off then caried on into the neighbours fence destroying it. her two sons apparantly went to the neighbours to apologise but the neighbour lost the plot and started waving a knife around threatening them.
Now this is where things became unclear as the neighbour claims the two sons (one ex copper just retired after 30 years in service) beat him up hitting him with the broken fence posts. However the two sons say he fell over.
The two sons had no injuries and didnt really look like they had been fighting but the injuries the neighbour had were consistant with both having a nasty fall and getting hit with the fence posts, so the two sons had to be arrested. It wasnt a plesent scene with lots of arguing but it didnt really kick off so wasnt too bad!!
Well after those niceties we did our statements and were supposed to go for an urgent arrest but were diverted to an immediate domestic, husband beating up wife.
We got there and there was no answer at the front door. I tried the door and it opened. I walked in and shouted is anyone home its police. There was no answer and i started to fear the worst. I went into the living room and saw the husband asleep on the sofa apparantly very drunk.
Just then the wife returned home and had a huge black eye.
We took a quick account from her before waking the husband and i arrested him for ABH. He thought it was candid camera and refused to play ball so i had to force him to his feet and handcuff him. Whilst doing this he grabbed hold of my arm and pinched and scratched me. Ok your further arrested for assault on police. He then continually swore at me outside the house so he was further arrested under section 5 public order act.
On the way back he tried smashing the car window so i had a nice little scrap with him on the back seat and held him in a headlock as we made back on immediate.
Well following his pleasantries we had to forcibly search him in custody then return to see the wife and take a statement.
On the way back to the station after that it was starting to kick off on the high street.
We diverted down there and assisted a WPC with a volatile female who had apparantly been involved in an assault and tried to make off in her car.
Well she got nicked for ABH and drink driving and her boyfriend decided to be an arse and try and obstruct us. I wasnt particularly bothered and pushed him down the street and told him if he came back he would get nicked.
Just as we were about to transport the prisoner back reports came from the other end of the high street that males were making off on pushbikes. I ran down the high street to see them but they were on bikes and went through the shopping centre so i called it up and other units made to the other side.
Well we went back to the nick to take the prisoner in and to finish of the paperwork in relation to our domestic incident.
Half way through the paperwork i took a walk downstairs to the car park where i heard shouting from the back of the nick. I went to see what was going on and saw 2 groups of two lads arguing. One group shouted THEYVE GOT KNIVES then the other two lads legged it. I hit the emergency button on my radio to cut in from the conversation going on and chased them for a few hundred metres before finding them hiding in an alleyway between two houses. I drew my CS and told them both to lay on the floor or get sprayed. They complied and i soon had colleagues with me and handcuffed both of them. I searched them both and the dog unit searched the area but we couldnt find anything so we grudgingly let them go. This was not before a traffic unit who had a sky camera crew had shoved a camera in my face whilst i was ridiculously out of breath trying to tell the dog unit where to look.
Well back to the station to finish paperwork before heading out into town on foot to help out before all the clubs kicked out.
Well i stop checked a few people around town before settling outside two clubs and dealing with the usual drunken idiots getting kicked out who thought they were going to go and beat up the doormen.
This theme carried on throughout the night until thankfully at 0330 i managed to get back to the nick and go home!!
Lets hope saturday night isnt as hot or as busy!!!!

Lates

Well the likelihood of a busy shift was always on the cards for a late on thursday that was unbelievably hot. Before anyone even made it to briefing we were all sweating under our stab vests!!!
Well we had two jobs allocated to us during briefing. The first to do with a dangerous dog, we did not have to deal with and the second we slowly headed out to, which was a report of threats made to a family. Well we got there and there was nobody home, good start.
Next we made on immediate towards the town centre as a disqualified driver was making off from police. Unfortunetely the officer that saw him had been on foot and we couldnt find the car.
Next job was a report that someone had spotted an offender riding on a bike he had stolen from them and was following them through the town. It was a bit of a wild goose chase as they told us they were on the high street then hung up the phone and wouldnt answer so we had a quick float around the area and got out on foot through all the alleyways but could do little more.
No sooner had we got back to our van did we get another immediate to the other side of town due to reports of kids smashing up a construction site. Well after racing across town at breakneck speed, the smashing up had involved a few kids knocking cones over and their dad had got to them before we had done. I was quite certain that the action their dad was taking/about to take was going to be a lot more severe than the ticking off we were going to give them so we left them too it.
To keep a busy day going before finishing talking to the father we were diverted to help an ABO (area beat officer) who had just had reports of someone being threatened with a knife. We searched the area and found the guy. He obviously had mental health problems and was a drug user. We searched him but found no knife. All we did get was a handful of abuse!!
Well we had about 5 mins to have a little drive around and follow a fire engine to see what they were up to before getting a call to another immediate on.... you guessed it, right on the other side of town a good 7 miles off. Well long blue light runs are always fun but this was just plain ridiculous trying to negotiate rush hour traffic on blues. We got there after about 8 mins. It had been a report of someone chasing kids after they had smashed his car window. Well by the time we got there he had lost them and gone back home. We drove him around for a while to see if he could spot them but had no joy. CCTV were less than helpful, despite having cameras that could have monitored the whole incident they wernt listening to the radio so missed it all.
Well after a quick statement we were again rushed off to another immediate this time only a couple miles off, this time it was to a very well known domestic household where 5 of 6 kids had been taken into social services care the day before and the father had kicked off big style so we had three units making at breakneck speed to get there. We met at an RV point at the top of the road then all went down together. Turn out nothing had actually happened and the mother was just pissed off about the kids having been taken and wanted to talk about it. Well we didnt give her the usual bollocking as our inspector told us to take it all very softly softly as the 6th kid was going to be taken into care in the next few days and they were going to be evicted from the house, so he didnt want her upset before that.
Well i then had the task of writing up everything i heard and saw whilst there in a report to the inspector, while my crewmate grabbed some food.
As soon as i had finished we were off to a robbery/attempt theft/assault.
Details were sketchy but basically someone had seen a guy under his dads van with bolt cutters trying to nick the spare wheel. He went out and challenged them and the guy threatened to hit him with the bolt cutters before running to the car. The aggrieved stood infront of the car and said to the offender your not going anywhere. The offender was going somewhere and just drove sending the aggrieved flying.
Well we got to the house to find out more precise details and spoke to the aggrieveds father who stated his son was at the cinema and didnt want to be seen until tomorrow!! oh well.
Still no rest for the wicked, we were sent straight away to another job to try and prevent a breach of the peace over a civil dispute. Well by the time we got there all was calm and it was basically a dispute over a shoddy MOT job. Not a police matter we advised them and told them to speak to citizens advice bureau.
By now it was just past 2200 so we went back into the station to hand the car over to the next shift.
Usually at this point we'd all go out in the transit for the next few hours but we decided for a change so me and my crewmate took a couple of bikes and went out plain clothes to see what we could turn up.
We didnt get any real results but stop checked about 20 people and searched a few under misuse of drugs act and for offensive weapons.
Well by 0115 we were both absolutely knackered and decided to call it a day and took a slow cycle back to the nick where we nearly collapsed and waited for 0200 to roll around.
Our Sgt brought the transit back in with the rest of the shift and said we could go early at about 0145 so off we went.
I dont know how, but its likely to be even busier tomorrow!!!

Off duty king

I've got somewhat of a reputation for getting into situations while off duty and before i started posting on here have been involved in 3 off duty arrests. Well the following happened to me today.
After a big night out with quite a few lads from the team i stayed over at one of the lads single quarters, as there was a spare bedroom. Well about 1300 we got up feeling rough as hell and decided on a hangover cure so we got dressed and decided to take a walk down to Mcdonalds.
We literally just walked around the corner from his house when a old Maroon coloured renault 25 pulled up with two occupants in it and an Irish voice said, u lads fancy buying a laptop??
I turned to John(my mate and colleague from work) and said, u speak to them i'll call it in. Well i discreetly gave all the details to control, then helped John with the next ten minutes of stalling them whilst a marked unit made to us.
They had a brand new laptop, a digital camcorder and a digital camera which they were planning on throwing all in for £400.
After deliberation and more bullshiting to keep them there despite their best efforts to go "come on old bill will be here any minute!!" "get in the car i'll drive you to the cashpoint"
we managed to stall them until the marked unit got there.
They pulled their car across the road infront of the offenders vehicle and the driver off the vehicle shouted "shit police go" and started the engine and tried to drive off.
Without thinking i dived in through the drivers door and wrestled with the driver and managed to get the keys out of the ignition to halt their escape.
Well with that excitement aside they were both nicked for handling stolen goods.
On examination of the car we found out they had been running the "water bottle scam" which has been prominant in the area, which is basically where they show you a laptop and camcorder in a laptop case then once you go get the money they swap cases and give you a similar looking case which only contains water bottles!!
Ingenious, pity they tried to do it to two off duty coppers though!!!!
To top of their day i seized £600 from one of them under the proceeds of crime act.
Well had to go back to the nick and do statements but wasnt too fussed about that as we'll be getting 4 hours at double pay for what was essentially 2 hours work!!!
Think we'll have bragging rights for a little while!!!
Back in tomorrow!