Page Twenty - The FM Button (Copcast #135)

In the UK, police personal radios have a little orange button. It sits on top far, far away from the working end of the radio, the keypad. The purpose of this button is to get help pronto, on blues and twos from wherever and whomever possible. Hold the button down for a few seconds and everyone in your division is alerted to your peril by a loud intermittent bleeping noise that cuts in over all transmissions.

Everyone can hear you, whether its screams of fear or shouts of ‘Get back!’, normally followed by various expletives. In training you are taught to shout ‘location location location’ but no-one ever does. In essence this is the modern day equivalent of the police whistle and is, fortunately, rarely used. Most of the time they are accidental activations; normally CID officers leaning on it whilst stretching for their coffee cup or over zealous PCSO’s who are following someone ‘of interest’.

The noise from the activation immediately grabs your attention and there is usually a slight pause before the officer calls up to say sorry for leaning on it. George has happily been to precious few real activations, probably only about ten in his entire career, although as you may remember he has had cause to use the little orange button himself.

Not everybody is entirely comfortable with the whole ‘FM’ button thing, recently for example George was in the station half monitoring radio traffic, half trying to complete a court file. He was with his skipper talking about almost anything but work when all of a sudden they heard the words “10-9 officer assistance”. It was spoken fairly quietly, the officer a little out of breath but sounding calm and no orange button activation. The radio traffic fell silent as dozens of police officers listened intently. Was this a joke, had they misheard the transmission? No, ‘10-9’ is what hey used before they had the new radios and you had to literally shout to get assistance and not rely on technology. The caller was a dog unit and he was in trouble.

George and the skipper stared at each other for a micro second then bolted towards the door where they saw a great sight, at least half a dozen response cars with lights activated all scrambling to get out of the rear yard. They jumped in a station van at the rear of the convoy and headed towards the last known location of the dog unit and arrived within a few minutes to find a house completely surrounded by at least twenty police officers. George went to the front of the house for no reason other than that the back garden was full of coppers and he felt like a spare part. He saw a man trying to fight about five officers in the hallway.

He lost and was dragged out, handcuffed and limb strapped. He certainly wasn’t very happy, there was a lot of confusion and an awful lot of blood. George took an arm and helped place the struggling prisoner into his waiting caged van destined for the hospital.

It became clear that the dog handler had stopped this chap following reports of a domestic incident at the address. As the dog handler started to check him out, the suspect made off on foot and the officer gave chase but lost him in some foliage around the corner. The suspect then jumped on the police officer from the foliage and started to pummel him to make good his escape. The dog handler used the only thing he had in his reach to defend himself, his ASP Baton and used the handle of the baton to strike the suspect over the head several times causing a three inch cut on top of his head. Hence all the blood.

The suspect then ran off, that’s when the dog handler called for assistance and the world and his brother turned out for him which must have been very reassuring.

With the suspect safely restrained everyone returned to the police station as the suspect was at hospital getting treatment for the head injury with three of the biggest, meanest officers to guard him.

A while later there was another call for assistance and George drove the van back to the hospital where he found the prisoner had decided he hadn't had enough fighting for one day and started to play up whilst being sutured. He had to be further restrained by the officers at scene during which the head wound was inadvertently reopened. More blood.

Thankfully the dog handler had only received minor injuries, his stab vest taking the brunt of the punches. If he'd deployed his dog things might have been very different but, as so often happens in this job, events happened so quickly he never had a chance to. Afterwards he openly admitted to forgetting his radio even had the orange ‘FM’ button but fortunately he had the presence of mind to say where he was immediately prior to the assault. A valuable lesson learned that day for everybody.

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Page Nineteen - Mr Angry and the Kids (Copcast Episode 134)

George has little tolerance for anti social behaviour. There is no doubt in his mind that anti social behaviour stems from poor parenting, a complete lack of respect for anyone and anything, social deprivation, being victims of crime themselves and sheer boredom. This isn't an exhaustive list and he realises he may be stereo-typing your typical bored teenager, or 'chav' as they can be affectionately known.

Last week his perceptions were changed a little, things are not always as they appear and although he prides himself on having an open mind, George isn't afraid to admit when he is caught by surprise.

George was tasked to attend a nuisance youth call where kids were kicking a ball about in an estate car park. Nothing new in this, he's been to this particular housing estate many times in the past and George could imagine the scene, an elderly resident being threatened and abused by a bunch of yobbish louts with no respect for their elders. Upon arrival he saw a bunch of kids, aged between 7 and 11 and one of the younger ones was crying, his left ear looked red and swollen.

George grabbed one of the older lads and asked him what was going on, he told George that an old guy had come out of an address and called them all sorts of names and then when one of the kids told him to go away and leave them alone because the were only playing a bit of football, the old man came out and grabbed the young lad then clipped him around the ear.

A resident who was getting shopping out if his car then came over and confirmed the same story. George established that they were not 'working together' and decided to knock on the door of the old man to get the other side of the tale.

The old lad was about 72, stooped and clearly angry. George asked his name and clarified that this was also the original informant and the reason he had been called there. He barked and swore at George during his attempts to establish what had happened. He then said that if he was 20 years younger he would clip all their ears and kick George's arse too. He told him that he had had enough of the kids screaming and laughing outside his house and that he had also written to the local council on at least 3 occasions to have the swing park moved further away from his address because he couldn't stand the noise. George was a little taken aback at being told the old guy wanted to kick his arse and asked him why he felt so angry toward him but he just told George to eff off.

Mr Angry refused to calm down and continued to throw abuse at George and the kids. The mum of crying boy had now turned up and also wanted Mr Angry's blood while George was still trying to cope with his perceptions being turned upside-down. Here was a yobbish lout of an elderly man showing no tolerance for those younger than him including the police and showering them with abuse. For his own safety as much as anything else, Mr Angry was arrested for disorderly behaviour and on suspicion of assault occassioning actual bodily harm on the minor.

When they arrived at the police station, Mr Angry tried to fight George and two other burly coppers. He lost but not before he was taken down to a cell. A PNC check later revealed that our Mr Angry had served 15 years for armed robbery some years ago and had also been served an ASBO (that's an Anti-Social Behaviour Order) not to enter certain areas where youths congregate (parks etc) as he had been arrested for assault against a minor only a year before.

It turns out that Mr Angry made the 'nuisance youth' call after he had assaulted the lad in an attempt to cover himself. Perhaps leopards never do change their spots even if they aren't immediately obvious and perhaps preconceptions should be treated with caution.

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Page Eighteen - Musical Cars (Copcast #133)

The call was a central station intruder alarm and the venue was unusually a church in deepest Kenton. On scene were Mike 21 a Ford Focus response car, Mike 2 a Ford Transit sation van driven by George, November 2 the second Ford Transit station van and Mike 1 a Vauxhall Astra driven by the Duty Inspector. All in all a good turnout and an impressive array of white vehicles with blue and yellow stripes along their sides, all of them casting an eery blue flickering light over the scene.

The uniformed officers clambered over walls and railings and set up cordons searching for intruders and ensuring no one would escape them.

When the building was eventually found to be apparently secure and unoccupied, the Dutty Officer decided to check out the key holder. Given the distances involved in affluent Kenton, the Inspector leaped into his Astra and zoomed off … the 100 meters to the key holder’s home. Getting no answer there he moved on next door to the home of the second key holder.

Being unsuccessful there as well, he returned to the church, in his car, to where the other three crews were doubled up in hysterics. Struggling to stifle his giggles and at least show some pretence of respect for his senior officer, George asked “Was it far to the second key holder sir?”

“Er what do you mean Saint?” replied the Inspector.

“We were just wondering how far you had to drive there sir.”

“What are you trying to suggest Saint?” demanded Inspector Brigstock.

“Oh er, nothing sir,” said George pointing toward his friend as he edged past Mr Brigstock towards his waiting van. “It’s not me sir, it’s Andy there. He’s already got his pen out writing notes, not sure what for though. 'Bye sir.”

George ran off down the path followed by his probationer.

“Right Smith, come here” said the Inspector to Andy. “I don’t want to hear about this on Copcast or any other form of media, digital or otherwise, including that newsletter of yours. Do you understand? If I do, there will be a piece of Kenton that will be forever you, clear?” said Mr Brigstock, looking pointedly toward the graveyard as if to underline his meaning.

Andy Smith ran as quick as he could to his car. Chris meanwhile had clambered into his van along with his operator. As George passed the van he opened the door and said, “Are you sure you’ve got the right one this time?” He was referring to an earlier call that night when Chris had climbed into George's van by mistake and become somewhat confused and concerned when his key didn't work in the ignition.

“Oh ha ha, are you ever going to let that drop?” replied Chris.

Just then Mr Brigstock strolled past as he walked toward the response car. “Bloody idiots, can’t you even find your own vehicles?” he muttered as he opened the door of the Ford Focus and climbed into the driver's seat. George watched from the driver's seat of his van as the Duty Officer tried to get his key into the ignition.

“Er sir, I think you’ll find that your car is the Astra that's behind our van. That one is Mike 21 and Andy’s been driving it all night so far” Mr Brigstock glared at George as he climbed back out of the car and stalked back to his Astra, growling “I knew that George, thank you.”

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