Valdore

We had a chap recently in the UK who was in court over charges of supplying heroin and cocaine. Turns out he was found not guilty, though he did get sent down for appearing in the dock with a block of cannabis on his person . . . I don't think the judge took too kindly to that contempt of court! EDIT: My bad, wasn't cannabis, it was cocaine >_< Sky News

Indeed we can, in fact there were special constables around during WW2, when the able-bodied men were called up to fight, the country quickly found itself without a police force! There are a few different types of volunteering, we have police staff volunteers who work alongside the office workers in various roles, then us Specials. The only difference that can be seen (force dependent) between a regular and special constable is a crown and SC on the epaulettes like this: Other than that though, we have the same powers of arrest, seizure and even use of force as regulars, carry a baton, spray and cuffs, and respond to the same incidents as regulars when we're on duty, we're just the crazy ones that do it alongside a full time job without getting any pay for it!!!

What I Did On Duty 11/10/2015 (Sunday) Rank: SPC (Special Constable) Length of service: 4 months Planned Duty: 0700-1600 (actual finish 1700) Duty Type: Early Turn Patrol (Response) Shift Callsign: Papa Charlie 318 (PC318) Intro: So one of the consequences of the current cutbacks in UK policing is that frontline units are having to investigate more crimes themselves. As such, this is a bit of a boring shift unfortunately, but it is the reality sometimes! 0530 hrs - Time to wake up and get thoroughly confused by it being pitch black outside, it's a while since I did an early and is not realised how much later sunrise has been getting! Not helped by a late night before, I ended up checking the time about 20 times to make sure it actually was time to get up!! 0640 hrs - Arrive at the station and kit up, everyone's a bit bleary-eyed this morning, it's their first shift back on after rest days, there's a bit of a faff over getting a pool radio out as someone has managed to break the SGTs key for the radio keysafe. We get it sorted eventually and it's off to briefing. Not a huge number of us in today, and a couple of prisoners to deal with as well, one of them on mine and my colleagues patch, coincidentally I'm partnered up with the same officer as last shift. We're reminded that it's Sunday, so it's car day, time to get a set of keys and give it its weekly checkup. Everything is fine, with the exception of an odd bit of kit that we have to replenish, so it's off to grab some more information regarding our prisoner and read up on the file. 0900 hrs - I have a read of the paperwork on our way over to our patch, sounds remarkably similar to the incident we dealt with at the end of the last shift. Domestic situation, though only a verbal altercation this time, suspect ended up getting himself arrested for providing a positive sample of breath (drink driving), and his car was seized as he had no insurance to drive it either. Slightly unusual in that he was arrested away from the vehicle as his girlfriend gave a statement saying he had driven it, vehicle was found later. Our job is to try and get evidence to place him in the vehicle and interview him to allow him to account for the events of the previous night. We start by knocking on the girlfriends door to see if she still stands by her statement as she was in drink at the time. 0930 hrs - No answer at the girlfriends door, so my colleague does a bit of door to door to see if any of the neighbours is willing to provide a statement linking our PiC (Person in Custody) to driving the vehicle while I try the girlfriends mobile. I get through and have a chat, and she's adamant that it was a mistake and utterly regrets providing the statement the previous night, as expected. At this point, we have next to nothing to go into the interview with, any decent solicitor would advise their client to 'No comment' and we'd have no hope of charging him. That being said, the girlfriend would still be a compellable witness as she signed the statement the previous night agreeing to stand as a witness, though her testimony likely wouldn't help. There's a bit of hope with the neighbours, but not enough to place him driving the vehicle drunk. Next step, CCTV, we find out where the car was found and have a cruise on over, lol and behold, there are two businesses with cameras on them, one opposite with domes on the corners, probably haven't caught much, but worth a try. More importantly though, the business just before the vehicle's location had an infrared fixed camera pointing right out into the road, in a rarely travelled location, it might just be enough to catch the vehicle passing one direction and our chap walking back the other way shortly after. We later find out from a local PCSO (Police Community Support Officer, google them!) that there's a business on the junction with a camera that covers the road and the path which could help as well. We start enquiries around the footage, but no joy in getting it for interview. 1030 hrs - We get a call from the custody sergeant to ask if we can get our interview done, as our chap is due for his custody review at midday, it doesn't do to get on the bad side of custody, and there's probably not much more we can get to help us, so we head on over to the Nick. 1100 hrs - Interviews are a bit of a game, and it pays to be prepared, so my colleague and I sit down and hash out the cogent points we need to cover. 1300 hrs - The interview turned into an hour long cut and thrust, our chap didn't want legal representation, so we probably managed to get more out of him than we should have done, in the end, we didn't even mention about the girlfriends statement and the possibility of CCTV as he's managed to dig a nice hole for himself should the CCTV footage come through. Essentially, he admitted to driving without a licence and insurance on three occasions, knowing that at worst he'd be disqualified from driving and have to pay some fines, which he likely doesn't mind about. He's got a couple of previous for drink driving however, the last of which resulted in an accident and a few months jail time for him, he's fully aware that if he gets done for it again, he's extremely likely to get jail time again, so he's hoping that we'll settle for no insurance and no licence as he's served them on a platter. Anyways, he has no way home, so we agree to drop him off at his girlfriends as she's happy for him to stay there. 1430 - Finally, lunch time! I had a single brioche roll when I woke up and this is the first chance we've had to get any food, definitely a call for McDonald's! While we're eating, we get to sit down and do the paperwork associated with our PiC. Writing up the handover package to the officer in charge (OiC) as the gentleman has been bailed to custody in a months time so further enquiries can take place. He also has bail conditions not to drive any vehicles during that time, if he does, then we can arrest him for breaching bail and it'll help build a picture for the court. 1700 hrs - Hometime, not the most exciting shift, but Sunday earlies rarely are! Back in tomorrow night (Monday 12th) to do some foot patrolling at a local fair, but that's a story for another time!

If anyone does this, make sure to add copious officer banter :D On a more serious note, ideas for complications in detained person transport (arrested person as opposed to convicted) that we come across: They've managed to get out of their cuffs/get themselves from rear cuff to front cuff position. Get out, get them out and re-cuff them. Medical emergency, get them out and into recovery position, call for ambo. They've got their phone out and started using it, seize the phone. Seriously, the number of times this ends up happening . . . Could also look at implementing things like searching the van before putting someone in the back and searching after in case they dropped / discarded any evidence.

Ah, this would be the difference between the UK and US, we're able to TPAC as there's very minimal risk of firearms. And to us, a rolling roadblock is when a single police car slows down traffic behind it, normally used on motorways when they drive in a weaving motion across the three lanes to signal what they're doing (nowadays they usually use a matrix board if they have one as well) then slowly slow down causing the traffic to slow with them. Used when we need more breathing room on a motorway, either to move a vehicle in a dangerous position or due to an ongoing pursuit to minimise the risk to other road users. Also makes it easier to bring the road to a stop for a full closure if needed. As for PITting, it tends not to happen here due to the preference for TPACs which don't cause vehicles to go all over the place, and reduces damage to our cars :p though they can still be used if the pursuit calls for it. Stingers are far more prevalent as well, and if they do need to call a pursuit off then a chopper is normally not to far away which can direct units in for the arrest once they bail. Then again, it isn't unknown for a force to keep changing out the units being used in a pursuit and just wait for the suspects to run out of fuel ;)

May be worth waiting for the winter steam sale around Christmas time, no guarantees, but it may well go on sale during that period :)

Playing a UK based devil's advocate, we used to have the right to keep and bear arms, enshrined in common law which, whilst not a constitution, is essentially similar. It was decided however that due to the use of weapons for reasons other than what the right was intended for (self-defence, defence of land and property etc.) was a sufficient enough issue that better control was needed, and so gun control started happening, the earliest example being in 1903, the Pistols Act to be precise. Now I'd ask you guys, what was the initial reasoning behind the second amendment? As far as I understand, it was put in place for the same reason as above, and also to ensure the country had a well armed militia. Now I ask you these questions as well, why does one of the most powerful nations in the world still need an armed militia? Why is it not enough for the law enforcement agencies, who are now far more able to respond to incidents, to be armed for the protection of the nations citizens? Why is the answer to gun crime to increase the quantity of guns that can be legally brought? I know that the mentality in the US is that you should be able to defend yourself from a gun-wielding maniac, but if that gun-wielding maniac wasn't able to legally purchase a weapon in the first place, would they even known where to go to buy an illegal one? And if they did, what is so wrong with leaving it for the authorities to deal with?

What I Did On Duty 03/10/2015-04/10/2015 (Saturday) Part Two Apologies for splitting this one into two, it wasn't intended to be that way when I started writing! While we were heading to the patch I have a bit of a chuckle with one of our crime recorders over some of the aspects of this harassment incident, and get it logged as a crime, at least this way we won't be sat in a station on hold for half an hour! 2000 Hrs - We'd finally got onto the patch we were covering for the night, and decided to have a drive around the areas we'd been tasked to patrol to get it out of the way before things got busy. There wasn't a whole lot going on as expected, though a part way through there was a silver hatchback that took a crossroads at some speed. Unfortunately they turned off down our road and with a car behind us, we weren't able to pull the driver over, nor were we able to get the reg of the vehicle given how quick it happened. We headed down a road that we thought the vehicle might take and parked up, no joy though, but hopefully he saw us and modified his driving, though perhaps that's hoping too much! Failing to get him, we continued with the rest of that patrol with no more incidents of note. 2100 Hrs - Into the station we go, there's a PCSO on duty in the town tonight, so we have a chat with him as well as a bit of banter, sounds like he's had the usual sort of evening dealing with anti-social behaviour (Read: kids being kids, adults getting annoyed). My colleague gets started on the paperwork for the crime, and I start checking the persons involved on our systems, there has been some contact with us previously, so I print out the relevant incidents and we include them with the file. The risk assessment questions that we went through with the IP are on the fence between a medium / high risk domestic victim, but given the situation and the measures that will hopefully be put in place we go with a medium risk, though the sergeant will check it later and flag up any concerns he has anyway. We even manage to grab our dinner while we're doing the paperwork which is practically unheard of on a Saturday night! As another bizarre point, my partner asked me to submit some intelligence reports while she was busy with the paperwork, the first wasn't much to get excited about, though the second was somewhat unusual: A gentleman was stopped for suspected drink driving, he refused to provide a sample of breath at the roadside so was arrested for the offence of refusing to provide (failure / refusal to provide is treated much the same as a positive test over here) At custody, he refused to provide again for the evidential machine, so was put into a cell to sober up until he was fit to be charged. The case went to court, and failure / refusal to provide is an automatic conviction, however because of some bureaucratic failings resulting in the two arresting officers never being called as witnesses, the gentleman walked free. This in its own right would be frustrating, however we were informed by custody that the gentleman had been tested to ascertain whether he was fit to be charged. This test had taken place 6 hours after his arrest, and his alcohol content was still 143, the limit being 35. There was also information to suggest that he routinely drives in that state every week. 2300 Hrs - Back to our shift however, in a very unusual twist of fate, we actually managed to get all the paperwork completed and are getting to the point of thinking control had forgotten about us when the call comes in. 'PC518 immediate response to a domestic in progress' The call came in from a nearby town which wasn't on our patch, but the unit covering the town was already busy and to top it off, a pursuit had just started the other side of town! So it's into the car, hit the blues and twos and down the road we go. It was on a fairly new estate, and whoever designed them seems to have done it specifically to confuse police and postmen, long roads that sometimes continue straight on while other road branch off and sometimes branch off while turning into another road straight on. Eventually we find the block of flats and head up to speak to the IP. Unbeknownst to me, I'd actually seen the suspect briefly in the stairwell while trying to confirm it was the right block! My colleague speaks to the IP to ascertain what happened and as she's very clearly shaken up, I make her a cup of tea, accompanied by two small but very loud dogs in their cage. It seems they got into an argument, she asked him to leave and as he was leaving he seems to have deliberately shut the door on her arm. It's obviously painful, but she doesn't want a paramedic to have a look at it, and there's no damage that we can see other than some reddening of the skin, time will tell with that. She states that her boyfriend is in drink and that his car is parked in the visitor spot downstairs. a Citroen Saxo, reg starting with BU is all the information we have, so I head down to see if I can get a full reg to circulate in case it's seen out on the roads. No joy though as the vehicle had already disappeared. I head back upstairs and hang around outside the flat in case he comes back and sensing that the female touch might be appreciated more in this incident. Approx. 0030 Hrs Sunday - I hear a car pull up on the road fairly loudly and get a slight premonition that our suspect is about to make an appearance. Moments later, he's at the top of the stairs asking if his girlfriend is alright. He's got a bit of an attitude and clearly isn't happy that we're there, and have been there for so long, but when my colleague starts querying if he's going to be driving tonight he heads off fairly sharpish, we follow to see where he heads to, but lose him. Instead, I do a bit of a foot patrol of the area to see if I can locate his vehicle on the information we have. On a hunch I look down the roads opposite the direction he left in (I almost didn't bother looking) and as the Inspector pulls up to have a nosey around the area I spot the vehicle, Citroen Saxo, reg starting BU and the bonnet is still warm. I radio it through to control and flag the Inspector down, the vehicle has come back as in trade (no registered owner) and no insurance, as we're discussing the vehicle, our suspect wanders past, clearly heading back to his car, though thinking better of it with the police presence. I point him out to the Inspector who has a chat to him while I head back to my partner, it's not really proportionate to arrest him as the assault is minor with no confirmed complaint from the IP, and no visible injury at this time, and we're likely to need the cells later for the usual Saturday night problems. As it is, he's advised to find a different way home and not to drive his vehicle. 0200 Hrs - We've got everything we need from the IP, so we fix her door chain for her and head off. On a hunch, I suggest we drive past where the suspects vehicle had been and guess what, it's gone. I mention this to control, but the airwaves are too busy with immediates and another pursuit for them to circulate an observations message. Turns out it's not needed however as our Inspector has stopped the chap already for suspicion of drink driving, but with no breathalyser in his car we head over to assist. (Turns out he did have a breathalyser!) 0230 Hrs - We initially go down the drink driving route (my first live breathalyser), expecting this chap to blow a positive test, though he blew 24, high, but under the limit so he's safe from the cells tonight. Unfortunately for him however, it just means we have to look more closely into the no insurance matter, during which we realise the vehicle isn't taxed either. He's adamant that he has insurance and tax, though in hindsight he wasn't as angry about it as someone who did legitimately have them would be. We were all set to give him a HORTI (producer) to give him the benefit of the doubt and 7 days to produce his insurance and tax documents at a station when the Inspector pipes up again querying why we're not seizing the vehicle. Long and short of it, more checks are run to triple confirm that we can't find a trace of insurance or tax on the vehicle, and eventually we have to succumb and follow the lawful order from our Inspector to seize the vehicle, it's turning into a very bad night for this chap. To top it off, he lives in a different county which means we can only justifiably drop him off at his Mother's house which is in our county, though it's gone 0400 hrs by the time he's dropped off. On the plus side for us, he now doesn't have transport so isn't likely to be visiting his girlfriend anytime soon! 0500 Hrs - We finally get back to our main base and I check with my partner and Sergeant if they're alright with my knocking off as I know that I have to be up for my day job on the Monday morning and if I stay much later, it's likely to impact me too much on Monday. They're fine with this, though I'm well aware that my partner has another hour or two of paperwork to complete before she can go home. It's off to the locker room for me though, and time to shed the literal and metaphorical weight from my shoulders as I take the stabbie off. It's always a relief to take the uniform off at the end of another shift, as much as I enjoy it, it's nice to know I'm going home to bed safe and sound! I'm welcome to comments on these, it'd be nice to know if you guys would like to see more like this, and as I say, if you have any questions about law enforcement in the UK, I'm happy to answer what I can!

What I Did On Duty 03/10/2015-04/10/2015 (Saturday) Part One, I'll update with Part Two of this shift tomorrow! Rank: SPC (Special Constable) Length of service: 4 months Planned Duty: 1700-0400 (actual finish 0500) Duty Type: Late Turn Patrol (Response) Shift Callsign: Papa Charlie 418 (PC418) I've been attached to A Shift since the start, and as such I've built up a bit of a rapport with the team, so it's a pleasant start catching up with them as it's been a week since I was out with them. It's a Saturday late shift, and with an important Rugby World Cup game for England, I'm not a fan myself, but I'm aware that alcohol, sport and defeat don't go well together, so I'm expecting a busy night of domestic incidents, we don't know the score at this point, but they're playing Australia! So, into briefing, we're a bit thin on the ground today with only 12 officers plus our Sergeant and Inspector. The area we cover is mostly rural, so quantity of jobs isn't normally an issue, distance is however, and less officers means less cars, each having to cover a larger area. I'm assigned to an area with several villages and a town in, it's normally a quiet area, so there's hope yet! We're given a asking to patrol some villages that have been suffering from burglaries recently, it's unlikely that we'll spot anything, but it'll reassure the residents should they see us. We're also informed of a missing person who is from the area, though not the patch I'm on tonight so I don't pay much heed other than to make a mental note of the photo and not down the name. After a half hour of briefing, my partner suggests we head to the local station on our patch via the areas we've been tasked to patrol as she has some paperwork to do. We get ourselves a car and have a nosey at it first, the first aid kit could use a few extras so I grab those while my partner gives it a wash down before we get started. As she's doing that, control call up with a job. They pass the details, it's an odd one as we've been asked to speak to the IP at her work location, a Waitrose franchise at the motorway service station on our area, again, it's not our patch for the evening, but the other units are busy with arranged appointments and paperwork already! It's come in as a priority call, so we head over to the motorway at slow speed having a bit of a natter. Job details: Female is being harassed by her ex-partner, they work in different franchises at the same service station and he seems to be giving her unwanted attention. Not much more to go on than that, he has a couple of previous convictions for assault, one involving the female IP. We arrive at what we eventually figure out is the southbound services, though at this point we think it's the northbound and spend 5-10 minutes trying to figure out where the service road is to get to the other side with some directions from another colleague. Eventually we give up and head to the next junction and flip around. We get to the actual northbound services, and thankfully I'd misheard control and this is the one we needed, though we only confirmed that by my going in and finding our IP! She comes out with me and we have a chat with her in the car. At one point during this, a gentleman try's to park in the spot next to us but nerves got the better of him and he mucked up his angle resulting in a near miss with our marked patrol car, I exchange a look with him and he seems to be very sheepish, his daughter in the passenger seat seems to share my humour at the situation however and we share a disguised chuckle. Eventually he gets in, then has to get out with his door extremely close to our car, it's amazing how differently people drive and act around a marked unit, it's like they're treading on eggshells! Anyways, back to our IP. She had been in a relationship with a Polish male for some time, though earlier in the year he had assaulted her, an incident which she had followed through to court at which he got a fairly decent sentence, community service, a decent fine and a mandatory course on building better relationships. He was also put on a suspended sentence for two years, so if he is caught being naughty during that time the courts can potentially just send him straight to jail. She was also offered the option of going for a rest training order against him, though she didn't take her solicitors up on that. Despite this, they ended up back together until mid August when she finally ended it with him. Since then he's been visiting her at work, buying drinks from the store despite him being able to get the same drink for free from the franchise he works at, or if there's a queue, he would sometimes just stand and stare at her which had been picked up by some customers and mentioned to her. There's also the usual texting and calling as well. In the end we tell her that we'll report it as a first instance of harassment which will allow us to potentially serve a PIN (Police Information Notice) on him. Essentially this is a bit of paper and a chat with him that will tell him that what he is doing amounts to harassment and that we're telling him to stop. If he decides not to, then we can arrest him for breaching the PIN and he'd get his day in court. We can't issue that tonight however as it needs to be authorised, so we give her some advice about not responding to his attempts to contact her at all, and to change her number by providing her phone provider with the crime number. We also tell her about the Polish culture, and specifically how their attitude towards women and relationships is somewhat different to what she was brought up with, and suggest that perhaps it's an experience to move on from and learn from. Other than that, there's not much more to do other than speak to her manager to make sure he's aware and ask him to put some measures in place to help protect his employee, we leave it that he's going to ask a director to move the ex-boyfriend to the services on the other side of the motorway to help in the short term while we get our intervention organised. So, after about an hour and a half dealing with that we have another hunt for the service road between the two sides. Ok and behold, we find it almost immediately, then have a drive around the other side of the services to orient ourselves . . . Sod's law strikes however and we realise we can't then get back onto the service road and are now on the wrong side of the motorway, so it's up to the same junction again to turn around! Life is rarely simple on patrol!!! Well, I ended up writing more than I anticipated and it's late, so I'll sleep now and write up the rest of the tour tomorrow (later today) hope you enjoy!

Hi all, just joined the bandwagon in the last few days, and the forum today. I figured I'd take some inspiration from a topic I've seen elsewhere on the inter webs and share some of my experiences with you all, please bear in mind that any names are either removed or changed for obvious reasons. My hope is that others out there in law enforcement might like to share their experiences as well, and that maybe some mod creators take inspiration from my/our experiences. Background My name is James and I am a rare British idiot who decided that it would be a brilliant idea to volunteer my time as a member of my local police force, specifically as a Special Constable, a warranted officer. As an aside, my day job is with the same force as well, though in a tech support role. When I look back on my life, I think a part of me always wanted to be in a position to help people, but it was the combination of the rioting in 2011 that swept several of our major cities in carnage combined with watching a documentary series that featured the specials more than normal that made me take the plunge and apply. 10 months after I put my second application in, I started training in my spare time with a group of 11 others, and 16 weeks later we attested (equivalent of being sworn in). Since May of this year I've been policing the streets of my county, mainly at the weekends, working alongside one of our patrol teams, the response element of the force. These are the guys and girls who spend their days responding to 999 calls for help, and generally providing the first response. So that's me and how I ended up joining in brief. ill separate out the duties that I post up, so feel free to pipe up and ask questions in between. I can't guarantee I'll always be able to answer, but I'll try!

I'll tell you this, on my shift we have three taser trained officers, this is response mind, not sure about local units. In total, there will be between 10 and 20 of us on duty total, and although we can expect armed backup should it be needed, it won't be quick, even on blues and twos, though in more densely populated areas, backup is far closer. We can potentially be waiting up to 20 minutes for the nearest standard unit to respond on blues! Taser itself would never be deployed on someone with a firearm due to the risk of the trigger finger tightening and shots being fired, though for knives and other weapons it is useful, and even then, it is only discharged very rarely, red-dotting them is usually enough. The rest of us however, have a hitty stick and a spray (which doesn't last long). Then again, we fall back on those and the other skill sets we're taught so rarely that people can never find the forms to fill out when we do have to use force! The voice is a far more powerful tool in our arsenal! Though maybe I should start a topic about the UK police rather than piggy-backing this one, I just thought the above information might be useful to someone in relation to the topic :p

From a UK police perspective, it depends on the vehicle, but normally there will be the following controls for the lights / siren: 999 / Arrival / Reset - most commonly used, one press sets the standard travelling and activates siren and h/light flash (siren is then actually activated with a double press of the horn, single press after cycles to faster warble, another press for the rapid warble, single press back to standard, double again to cancel it) next press of the lighting button puts them into scene mode, so rear reds flashing with blues I believe. Third press resets everything to off. 360 - 360 flash pattern on the blues Rear reds - Rear reds flashing, rarely used by itself, arrival is usually used, but can be used if the vehicle is stationary to warn approaching traffic without distracting everyone with the blues Left / Right Alley - individual control of the left and right alley lights in the end of the lightbar Siren - activates siren (still requires horn as above) H/light flash - activates h/light flashers Immediate response calls (code 3 equivalent) are lights and sirens response, anything else is slow speed. Lights can be used for scene preservation and hazard warning though.

In addition to the last, the ability to TPAC a pursuit would be nice rather than having to ram/shoot them! Not sure if implementing it would even be possible however! If you're not sure what a TPAC is, three or four police vehicles boxing in a car that is being pursued, and slowing down thereby forcing it to slow down. Also benefits from blocking the doors so they can't get out :)

Not exactly a sworn LEO as it's not how we do things over here, but I am a Special Constable in a UK force (volunteer officer). Though our attestation is much the same as becoming a sworn LEO I expect. @‌download: Mental health calls . . . bread and butter work these days. In addition (and bear in mind I only found LSPDFR a few days ago so I might have just not come across it yet) how quickly and randomly things can go wrong, for instance, you can be moments away from resolving an issue with a ticket or similar and then all of a sudden you're rolling around on the floor and the person is spending the night in the cells instead. It doesn't always go wrong at the initial point of contact!