Steve Williams

Was at my parents on new years eve.......

When I was leaving just got into the car, which was parked 2 houses down the street, am surprised to see their next-door-but-one neighbour standing at my drivers door looking concerned.....
He says "oh sorry, didn't recognise the car" (I have said 'hello' to him before so he did recognise me, just not the car) "only we were burgled about 2 hours ago...... along with the house next door...."

I asked if they were ok, they said that yes, they were and the police had been called....

I said my goodbyes to both them and parents and went home.






Later I phoned the parents to see what had happened (they were talking to neighbour when I drove off)....

Well...... it would seem that the burgulars (kids) had broken into thier house, then gone next door to "do that one" as well..... the original neighbours return home, burgulars are disturbed and make their escape across gardens, dropping their "swag" on route (this is the only good thing to come from this!), the police are immediately called and told "We have just had a burgulary, the thieves were disturbed and we saw them escaping across our neighbours garden... send someone quickely we can probably identify them if you catch them....."
Were told "someone will be with you as soon as possible".





Now remember I spoke to them 2 hours later, guess what...... they were still waiting for the police, and they had phoned again and been told again that "someone will be there as soon as possible"....





Now that is just absolutely cr@p service.......



I have every respect for the police and can appreciate that they are probably understaffed on new years day...... but this is really taking the pi$$........



Makes you really want to take the law into your own hands......

Tommy 2000

Give the poor old 'boys in blue' a chance, they have to prioritise and were probably busy extracting revenue from real criminals - the type of serious law-breakers that drive their vehicles at 5mph over the speed limit or drive modified cars. They are only human, you can't expect them to be in two places at once!

Fatman

IMHO, I'd say this would get you in trouble with the Law. I'd like to think it would be a useful 'trick' to get 'em to attend faster, but I don't think you'd get away with it. You never know, perhaps there's a good reason they couldn't attend sooner?

BuRR

We're talking New Year's Eve here. You can't possibly know what the force's resources were doing at that time.

In my experience its the busiest night of the year, bar Boxing Day night.

Look at what happened to Nathan L...

And before the wise cracks go on about speed camera vans and traffic enforcement, they tend to go home before it gets dark! (I don't like them as much as the next person on here)

Also, how do you know that an area search wasn't made initially? I know its what I would have done before attending the scene.

If you're going to look into this, then you need to be asking for copies of incident logs etc. A million and one things could have happened.

Luke

No excuses please. We all pay enough taxes to expect a good working police force in this country.And we have not got it.

BuRR

Ok.... I suggest you write and complain then.

marty_t3

I'm not having a go at police here, but, i have a few questions that have been bugging me for a while.

I've yet to have a job that does not involve working to Service Level Agreements (SLA's). Do the police force work to something similar.. ie. is there a set response time that should be met?

The excuse of "I was busy with something else" would just lead my employer to accuse me of not managing my resources properly. Are the police forces accountable in such a way?

BuRR

Any other night, I can fully sypathise.... On New years Eve - as I said its the busiest night of the year.

Yes - the police have targets to meet. Immediates - 15 mins (IIRC) Plan 1's - 1 hour - danbo is probably more qualified to answer this one than me. If a certain percentage of calls falls outside this threshold then the force is accountable.

Example 3 yrs ago. I was night shift (16 officers) in East Leeds. We worked a 10 hour shift, and answered over 200 calls. Those consisted of public order, domestics, burglaries, damage - and several of these included prisoners. At one point 11 immediate calls came in within a 2 minute period.

You can only spread butter so thin.

I could go on, but I've got to go make dinner.

BuRR

Ok. I think I'm gonna step out of the conversations regarding my profession on Scoobynet from now on. It seems lately that for every thread I take part in, another 3 crop up.

I'll take this opportunity to thank you all for the experience and hope that at some point you experience something that changes your opinion of me.

a lot of you have never met me, so why tar me with the same brush?

thanks, and l8ers.

Sonic'

I understand you Burr

as long as you dont stop posting on Scooby Plod

I didnt know you were in the force until Scooby Plod opened up, and i had converstations with you prior to this (ECU sale ), and to me your just the same as the rest of us, doing a job (doesnt matter what job), and enjoying scoobs, NOT to defend the entire Police Force

imagine if all our employment got slated there would soon be no-one left on scoobynet

Ive had my fair share of bad cops, but ive also had a fair share of good cops (being told my driving was near perfect cept the speeding, one example, car stolen another etc etc)

Most of the time I have been stopped (driving or otherwise) it has been deserved, and i have been punished accordingly

but ive been let off far more than convicted (phew)

Steve

Gastro

Its stories like this that make you realise why the boys in blue don't go on strike for more pay - 'cos if they did, no one would notice any difference
Shocking.....

Gastro

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I'm afraid it all comes down to money again. Whatever we think, the police are STILL massively underfunded. The funding should be taken out of the control of local authorities, and paid nationally, to an agreed formula.
In my area, you can make a 999 call, and be put onto hold for up to 15 minutes
But the local paper proudly announces today that the police/council are bidding for Ł2.7m to buy 15 mobile "safety" cameras, (God, but I loathe spin, why can't they be honest????)
and the revenue will go direct to the police to fund "even more much-needed road-safety improvements". Have I missed something here?
Tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime? I don't think so!!!![img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]
Alcazar

Sparky1066

Hmmmm, didn't have to bother the Police about 10 years ago or so, my brother had a burglar break into his house, he went downstairs caught him in the act, and told him to get the f*ck out, and the burglar said f*ck off I'm not finished! So my bro broke his arm and nose, and threw him outside, the burglar did the off never to be seen again. I don't know for sure that the arm and nose we're both broken, but apparently the crunching nosies were quite loud.

Katana

Relax, when WW3 does break out, people would be pestering Chris instead on how not to get conscripted. I've sort my problem out. Since Switzerland would be a bit too expensive to live in, I'm going to cut out one of my toes hence making me disabled and not fit to fight.

Hoppy

Burr, hope you change your mind, mate

Either way, you've done both ScoonyNet and the police credit with your posts so thanks for that, and best wishes.

Richard.

Nathan L

Sorry to all of the people around the country who didn't get the immdediate response they wanted on New Years Eve.

And to those of you in Kent.

Sorry but I was in hospital having my face sewn back together.

Katana

Ouch! How did that happened?

Nathan L

Went to a fight with my colleague.

Lost control and had a twenty stone man stamp on my face several times.

Nathan..

BuRR

4th post down.

Huxley

I think the words that tend to make them move a bit quicker

"I Think he was carring a gun"


Huxley

Danbo

There's often no point us posting on these threads because people dont want to hear the reality of it all....

So I'm not going to anymore either..

SilverSmith

Earlier this summer I 'discovered' a burgular in my house, after a brief exchange he ran off, I called the Police and two cars were here within 5 minutes. I was pretty impressed with that sort of response.

In an ideal world (apart from there not being any scum in the first place ) I guess that is the sort of response we all expect, maybe I was lucky, maybe it was a quiet night that evening... It is certainly not an ideal world

Katana

Respect to you Nathan. But check out my idea in that thread.

Steve Williams

It was actually New years day, not new years eve...

I spoke with the neighbour at about 9pm, so that would put the original call to the police at about 7pm.



As I said in the post, I do understand that they are busy at this time of year, and I do have a lot of respect for what they do (the police force)......

Before anyone has a go then PLEASE READ THE POST PROPERLY.



BTW.. they did not "search the area" before they contacted the neighbour (they told him they had not), and I do not know why it took them so long to attend.

Scoobs_4ever

To NathanL, Danbo & BuRR

Please dont stop posting on this site, how else are you going to educate people about what really happens??

You'll need to change the way people think before you'll have any chance of getting your message across - silence wont help you do that. Unfortunately, I think there is a perceived ' police culture' which doesn't help you but I think a lot of that is self imposed by some of those associated with the Police.

I have no real experiences of the Police except being run-over by a Police car when I was eleven and few weeks ago when I was nabbed for speeding, but just consider this thought and see if you can relate it to how you could do things differently.

In my work (Project Engineering) I am responsible for many things including safety and the enforcement of relevant standards or work practices if you like. One such standard is wearing hearing protection in the factory, as its v.noisy. Now, I had one instance where a contract worker was not wearing his hearing protection, so in the old way, each time I would approach him and boll**k him and afterwards he would wear his hearing protection. After about the third time he would be wearing his hearing protection only because he didn't want a boll**king and not because it was there to protect his hearing!!!

However, I could do this differently. My aim is I want this contractor to think why he has to wear hearing protection otherwise I have failed because the next job he does may require he wears eye protection. He needs to think about his actions and assess each circumstance on what could possibly happen and not think that I have to do this to avoid a boll**king. So in practice, I chat with the contractor, ask him why he's not wearing his hearing protection, I ask him why he thinks the safety standard is there and what could happen if he continues not to wear his hearing protection.

This safety programme is called SUSA - Safe and UnSafe Acts. The theme is there is always a safer way to do something and the way to achieve that is to get people to think about what they are doing. It all started at Coca-Cola a few years ago and MARS (company I work for) has adopted 2-years ago.

Unless we can change the way people approach events in their lives and think about the implications of their actions then issuing penalties after the event wont help because they could be dead, deaf or blind.

Apologies for rambling on but hopefully you've understood the theme of my point.

Oh one more thing. I remember a few weeks ago and item on some daytime programme which really struck home for me. In this item a police speed trap was set up outside a school. 30mph limit I recall. Those speeding had two options, No.1 - take the fine or No.2- take an un-named challenge. No.2 was the good bit.

In No.2, the driver was to answer some questions asked by the school kids. These kids were aged about 5yrs old. Various questions like ,"why were you speeding", "what was so important you had to travel so fast". But the the killer question that made me cry and think was ,"if you had run me over and killed me, what would you say to my Mum and Dad?" - say no more.

keep posting
Andy.

Jen

****. Nathan - nightmare, hope it's ok and no serious damage to eyes etc. Facial injuries are the scaryest things I know

Hope all the burglary stuff's ok and all are well now...

I think the Police guys just get a little p*ssed off as you answer a question with your view point and then people retailiate with "well in 1987 my friends friend...." (ok , and exageration, but you get the point. All they can do is give their opinions, which I know most people on SN value greatly, so I hope they don't give up

logiclee

Brings back some memories for me.

My police story here

Nothing against individual police officers, its the Police Force Top brass / Government thats at fault.

Lee

scunnered

iTrader: (1)

(True Story)
George Phillips of Meridian Mississippi was going up to bed when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.
He phoned the police, who asked “Is someone in your house?” and he said no. Then they said that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be along when available. George said “Okay,” hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.
“Hello. I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I’ve just shot all the sons of bitches ! .” Then he hung up.
Within five minutes three police cars, an Armed Response unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips residence. Of course, the police caught the burglars red-handed.
One of the policemen said to George: “I thought you said that you’d shot them!”
George said, “I thought you said there was nobody available!”

Gooner

You must understand that all Police matters are prioritised, and of course catching speeding drivers is of utmost importance!
After all, driving at 35mph in a 30mph zone is a very serious offence, far worse than burglary!!!!!
The police dont raise revenue from burglars!!!!

fatherpierre

Cynic