A Poem

When i was at Ryton doing my training in the last week of my course, my Tutor gave us all a A4 sized piece of paper titled "When God Made Police Officers".

I have been sat here trying to explain to someone what its like being a member of my shift which got me thinking about the poem again. I managed to find an American version which is similar to the British one:

When the Lord was creating Police Officers, He was into his sixth day of overtime when an angel appeared and said,"You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."
And the Lord said, "Have you read the requirements on this order?
A Police Officer has to be able to run five miles through alleys in the dark, scale walls, enter homes the health inspector wouldn't touch, and not wrinkle their uniform."
"They have to be able to sit in an undercover car all day on a stakeout, cover a homicide scene that night, canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, and testify in court the next day."
"They have to be in top physical condition at all times, running on black coffee and half-eaten meals, and they have to have six pairs of hands."
The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands . . . no way!!"
"It's not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord,
"it's the three pairs of eyes an officer has to have."
"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.
The Lord nodded.
"One pair that sees through a bulge in a pocket before they ask, 'May I see what's in there, sir?'"(when they already know and wish they'd taken that accounting job) "Another pair here in the side of their head for their partner's safety, and another pair of eyes here in front so they can look reassuringly at a bleeding victim and say, 'You'll be alright, ma'am,' when they know it isn't so."
"Lord," said the angel, touching His sleeve, "rest and work on this tomorrow."
"I can't," said the Lord, "I already have a model that can talk a 250 pound drunk into a patrol car without incident and feed a family of five on a civil service paycheck."
The angel circled the model of the Police Officer very slowly. "Can it think?" she asked.
"You bet," said the Lord, "it can tell you the elements of a hundred crimes, recite Miranda warnings in its sleep, detain, investigate, search, and arrest a gang member on the street in less time than it takes five learned judges to debate the legality of the stop . . . and still it keeps its sense of humor.
This officer also has phenomenal personal control. They can deal with crime scenes painted in hell, coax a confession from a child abuser, comfort a murder victim's family, and then read in the daily paper how law enforcement isn't sensitive to the rights of criminal suspects."
Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the Police Officer.
"There's a leak," she pronounced, "I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model."
"That's not a leak," said the Lord. "It's a tear."
"What's the tear for?" asked the angel.
"It's for bottled-up emotions, for fallen comrades, for commitment to that funny piece of cloth called the American flag, for justice."
"You're a genius," said the angel.
The Lord looked somber.
"I didn't put it there," He said

An Idea

A while back i was crewed with another guy off shift and we got to talking about specialist roles.

At the moment if you want to specialize you need to transfer off core shift and into a specialist department.

Now i actually quite enjoy core shift work where i have many roles ranging from emergency response to social services to traffic warden.

I would like to specialize in Roads Policing (Yawn i hear you cry, he's mentioned this hundreds of times) I have applied and been rejected, but i will reapply.

Now my crew mate wants to join Tac Firearms or ARV as they are more commonly known. This again will involve him leaving shift.

So we were discussing this and came up with a solution which may actually make sense.

We decided that core shift was the dumping ground for the force (crap rolls downhill) and experience is a big issue, i mean I'm the most experienced on shift at the moment and i have just under 3 years in.

What we would like to see is a multi role core shift where there is a class 1 driver in a fast response vehicle or maybe 2 which could deal with core shift responsibilities and also deal with traffic related incident, thus keeping experience on shift and enabling officers to learn from each other.

Also we would like to see AFO's on shift so that should there be a spontaneous incident they can be authorized to arm and deal in the immediate instance until more armed support arrives, thus avoiding issues of waiting 30mins for ARV to arrive from miles away. Again experience retained on shift with that little bit extra.

We even thought that maybe a couple of CID trained officers on shift to assist where there is serious incidents to enable proper planning and interviewing skill to be utilised.

This would mean core shift would suddenly have masses of tactical options available 24hrs a day 7 days a week. We would have experienced and well rounded officers on shift who can pass there knowledge to others. Rather than being detached from shift for a few months on attachment.

Just imagine a fully staffed reactive shift with firearms / pursuit / traffic / CID capabilities and each officer able to learn about all these areas. Who would want to leave shift unless they wanted to become dedicated AFO, Traffic or CID. It could even be a stepping stone to these areas thus reducing the drain on resources and keeping core shift at the top of its game with the best mix of abilities and knowledge and each officer knowing what is required from different departments!

Am i dreaming or is this a good idea?

John

PC Copperfield's Book

I have just seen on PC Copperfield's blog that he has managed to get a book deal.

It's not been released yet but you can pre-order here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0955285410/026-3909426-5639660?v=glance&n=266239

Should be a good read and look forward to getting my copy, especially if its anything like his blog.

JS

Sorry

Sorry, seems to have been a fault somewhere along the blogging lines where my blog was not being displayed.

All seems sorted now and normal service will be resumed.

John