Police Numbers "Record High" except on my district.

This is a post in response to this story on the Police Oracle website;

Police numbers reach Record Levels Yay! But where are they?

I think that it's interesting to see posts like the above on the Police Oracle website. Specifically considering that a lot of forces have a long term freeze on recruiting (ours has, so have a few others according to comments left on this very blog!!). I know that my force loses quite a few officers a year due to natural wastage/retirements etc.. as such with a freeze on recruiting our officer levels are dropping again!!

Now I see that apparently we've got loads more police running around.. But no where near us.

So perhaps with budgets being cut everywhere and more and more red-tape/paperwork those extra police officers and even PCSOs are now tied to a desk or seconded to some useless shiny arse team or department as well..

I'd really like to know what the public think of the current levels of officer numbers v the current levels of actual officers on the street v the current levels of officers seconded to stupid ineffectual teams.

I think I will ask my local MP (if he's not too busy fiddling the expenses system) what he proposes to do in my division to even up the numbers! And if he doesn't do anything I might just write to the Health and Safety Executive to ask them how the current levels of policing in my district are "SAFE" for anyone, officers or the public!!

Shooting at the moon.

Ok, some time back I had a couple of weeks off. I spent that time out on a friends boat on a "fairly" large river which runs right through the middle of another county force area which is somewhere near to Southernshire.

After several lovely days of sun and enjoyment, quite a lot of golden nectar consumed between randomly purchased meals from the banks or oddly cooked things turning up out of the galley we eventually gave up as time had run out and returned to my friends house after spending 5 hours sitting at a broken Lock. Yay!

Now as I've noticed a few others have said.. I am the only Police Constable that most of my friends know as well. So likewise, I get the grillings about whatever the Daily Monologue has been using to slate the police about on any given week. So there we are, standing out the front of my friends house on the side of a fairly big road right in the middle of this their biggest city on patch, you would expect to be fairly well policed and safe......

I'm getting a grilling for about 2 hours of slightly heated debate (which I am enjoying immensely when I get the chance to actually rebut something). My friends dad is a nice guy so I'm putting up with this simply because it's polite to do so and it's fairly good fun for the most of it.

The discussion carries on and all of a sudden I hear 3 or 4 shots fired.

Of course having spent a lot of time around guns as a kid I know that sound of something whizzing past my ear and I hit the deck!

After a few moments I realise the danger has passed, I look up to see everyone else standing up again after having followed my lead...

So I run out to the footpath from the garden hoping to catch the VRM (vehicle registration mark) of the vehicle in question. All I get is that it's a small black hatchback with 3 people and it starts with "R" or something along those lines, it was most certainly doing a lot more than 30 MPH at this point.

Dutifully as a good citizen I start dialing 999. My friend wants to jump in to his car and give chase but I manage to stop him. After all, it's not a police vehicle and I don't want him doing silly things to catch these idiots...

While I'm waiting what seems forever for the 999 call to be answered I walk back in to the garden and see that the "bullets" have hit one of the cars there, and the front of the house.. it is at this point that I see that it was paintball pellets.. so there is paint all over the place.

Oh well, they still shouldn't be doing random drive by shootings!

I expect some sort of a response from the local police force of this county.. I've given them my details. My force details and collar number. The details of the vehicle. The details of my friends who's house and car were damaged. The details of everyone present.......... and yes, I still expect at the very least some sort of a response.

Low and behold we remain chatting out the front of my friends house for another hour.

No police cars drive past. No police cars pull up and say "Hi, are you alright?" No PCSO's stop to check on our welfare. No return phone calls from the police.

I know that in Southernshire as it would've been graded as a Firearms incident at the very least someone would've been despatched to check on our welfare. Strangely my friends told me that no one would turn up, but I didn't believe them.