The Area Car Mike 1 and a response car Mike 21 crewed by George and his latest probationer had taken a call to a Personal Attack Alarm that had been set off at a house in a large suburban residential area. As the two cars flew through early evening traffic with blue lights flashing and their sirens playing different tunes to each other, so that other drivers would realise there were two cars running, not just one, the crews were receiving updates.
One such update sent chills through both crews, the address was a listed Operation Trident location, the occupants were somehow at risk from attackers with firearms, A Trojan Armed Response Unit was already tasked and running to join them as were the Duty Officer, Inspector Brigstock and a skipper to act as scene controller.
The Area Car and Response Cars arrived on scene having run silent for the last quarter of a mile and the crews deployed to create a discrete cordon and to keep the house under observation without being seen. After a few minutes, during which George had realised he was watching the wrong house and finally crawled into a position to see the right one, the Trojans arrived followed soon after by the inspector and sergeant along with a dog van and a couple of other Response Cars.
At the rendezvous point Inspector Brigstock eyed the unusually all-female Trojan team as they swaggered over toward him, “I take it you're armed then?” he muttered. It was the turn of the armed response officers to look at the Duty Officer in less enthusiastically, although to their credit they refrained from voicing an answer.
After a swift briefing during which they were filled in with the latest intelligence on the address that the Control Room had managed to gather together for them, everyone was deployed. A Trojan assisted by a pair of local officers were able to get into the back garden unseen and cover the rear of the house while the remainder gathered at the front door. The area was kept secure with road closures out of sight of the house.
Eventually everyone was in place and ready, the front door was opened with the aid of the Enforcer Ram and the entry team flooded through the door, securing each room as they went, quickly reaching the kitchen where they found … two CID Detectives sitting at the table with the occupier enjoying a nice cup of tea.
Apparently the Personal Attack Alarm had been playing up and the two detectives had come down to check it, not realising they had set it off during their fiddling. The guv'nor launched into a lecture about the use of Personal Radios and the value of actually turning them on so that their users could be aware of what was happening around them in the outside world and possibly even preventing situations like this one. After which everyone, including George trooped back out of the house for a debrief back at the station.
Sadly the day's catalogue of disasters was not yet complete for George, as the queue of officers returning to their cars turned the corner of the house, most of them noticed the enormous puddle in the road beside the kerb left by the previous night's rain. George didn't. Caught in his own little world for a moment he failed to notice the car that drove through the deepest part of the puddle just as he walked past it. He did not miss the curtain of water that the car created, nor did the water miss him.
George stood stunned, drenched literally from head to foot while his colleagues including Inspector Brigstock gathered around him. Standing in a spreading pool of water he turned to his guv'nor with arms stretched wide, seemingly trying to invoke some kind of divine intervention and cried, “I don’t believe it!”
It took several minutes for Mr Brigstock to stagger to his car, despite the assistance of his Sergeant. The two were laughing so hard they actually looked like a pair of drunks on their way home from an evening of drunken revelry. In fact it was several minutes before either of them were able to stop laughing long enough for the tears in their eyes to clear and allow them to drive from the scene.
No comments:
Post a Comment