Police too busy!

[Dave Hedgehog]

Evolved said:

Too busy catching the real crims... Speeding motorists!

those 34 in a 30 limit tickets wont write themselves you know

[fastbikes76]

La Liga said:

As other have pointed out, it depends on demand what what else was occurring.

You have to be a rather hard-of-thinking, as the OP appears to be, not to be able to consider these variables and unknowns.

Not in the least.. I FULLY appreciate what our services do for us and how far stretched they are due to cuts etc. However to be stretched to the point where not a single person can respond to a someone almost certainly about to cause a fatality is extremely worrying for all !

[surveyor_101]

Evolved said:

Too busy catching the real crims... Speeding motorists!

Or sending their army of laughable PCSOs out to pooky ill thought out new build estates due to two residents complaints about anti social driving and 'CLAPPING' and ticking every residents car for being parking 1 foot onto the pavement.

http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/145005...


They have time for speed trap motorbikes is sleepy villages!!!!

This police force is so pee poor, devon and cornwall are outstanding in comparison.

[wiliferus]

fastbikes76 said:

La Liga said:

As other have pointed out, it depends on demand what what else was occurring.

You have to be a rather hard-of-thinking, as the OP appears to be, not to be able to consider these variables and unknowns.

Not in the least.. I FULLY appreciate what our services do for us and how far stretched they are due to cuts etc. However to be stretched to the point where not a single person can respond to a someone almost certainly about to cause a fatality is extremely worrying for all !

And that's the point. It's extremely worrying for all!
When the public get a crap service from the Police, they blame the Police. What they actually need to do is lobby their MP, or write to the local rag etc. The Police are genuinely doing the best the can with massively reduced resources. It was only a matter of time before it impacted on service to the public.

[Monkeylegend]

The trouble is there are posters who are so blinkered in their views, and so anti police, they can't see the wood for the trees.

[Byker28i]

jamesson said:

I see your profile says you're a soldier. Imagine going into battle only suddenly to find you have a third of the infantry you used to have. No impact? Or would you find it much harder to carry out your mission?

I'm afraid you're a little late for that comment. The armed forces has been significantly reduced year after year for the last 25 years. They are all now a fraction of what they were and some would say, where they also need to be to meet their demands.

[walm]

fastbikes76 said:

Cool story.

Genuinely that sounds like awesome work - good for you!

[wiliferus]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

A combo ....

Yes there is still too much paperwork but that is a direct result of the judicial system, and increased accountability/back covering.
There aren't enough officers to be proactive anymore, they have trouble finding officer to react! The demand on the police has increased hugely over the last 10 years.
Wrongly deployed... Each area will have its own demands, define wrongly deployed, as if you give on officer to one team, you take from another. It's a lose lose.

[Byker28i]

We had this a couple of years ago. At a roundabout a drunk woman went straight on hit a people carrier, mum plus kids, put her on the grass, then carried on. Myself on a motorbike and another car driver managed to stop her, where she locked herself in the car once we'd spoken to her and realised she reaked of booze..

Took two hours for the police to turn up, only because of numerous calls and the traffic issues at the end and the threat by one caller to allow the mob to resolve the issue.

It almost got funny if it wasn't so pathetic. I mean what do you do? she was trying to drive off even though was blocked in, locked in her car, drunk? We couldn't let her go and harm someone else, she was trying to drive off and wouldn't give any details.

[fastbikes76]

walm said:

fastbikes76 said:

Cool story.

Genuinely that sounds like awesome work - good for you![/quote

To be fair instinct just kicked in... but reflecting on it later was quite interesting, right down to borrowing some random blokes stinky jacket who was walking his Staffi as I was shivering like an epileptic rattle snake standing in just shorts with no shirt or shoes haha. My neighbor who's bedroom was about 10ft away form his car didn't hear a thing yet I did from the back of my house on the other side of the road..He was suitably grateful as it was a brand new company car and had someone to claim from.

[jamesson]

Byker28i said:

I'm afraid you're a little late for that comment. The armed forces has been significantly reduced year after year for the last 25 years. They are all now a fraction of what they were and some would say, where they also need to be to meet their demands.

I'm well aware of the progressive strangulation of our armed forces. Given that the OP is a soldier, I would have hoped he'd realise the police are now in a similar position and drew the comparison to illustrate my point. Fewer officers makes the job more difficult and the public gets the brunt of it.

Quite simply, it doesn't matter how many times you slice the cake, there is only so much cake to go round and the police cake is getting smaller every single year.

[Derek Smith]

Many police forces run a triage type of system. Grading calls is the most effective way of ensuring important jobs are covered. Even before the slashing of police force manpower, this in the late 90s/early 00s, we were running out of available police officers. That was due to earlier cuts.

Not even gods know how they manage now. But the logistics are simple enough. There are top graded calls where urgent, drop everything, assistance is required. These are rare. Then there is the next one down where immediate attendance is needed. These are quite common due to lack of accurate information. In my force this would include someone being at risk of serious injury, a serious crime in process: in other words protective. Then we get ones where an offender is likely to get away. And so on. It sounds great and is an effective model to cope with variable demand.

Where it breaks down is when there are more of the top three grades than officers available. In my day this was not common but not unknown. Forcewide there would be one division struggling every night. I had one situation which required the custody officer bailing all prisoners in order to release him as the only supervisor available for the whole of one division.

And that was 15 years or more ago. It is much, much worse now.

I do a bit of volunteer support work for retired police officers and the stories of those just retiring are shocking.

And with the cuts still to come to police budgets (did anyone believe the government's promise not to reduce budgets?) then it will get worse. My force will lose over £4m pa from next year.

bmw535i said:

Police 'too busy' to arrest drunk driver in Somerset

Pretty much sums up my experience of the police - utterly useless and couldn't care less

You are wrong if you think they couldn't care less and to suggest they are useless is nonsense. However, I think you are spot on when you say that the police were too busy to arrest a drunk driver. This is, unfortunately, government policy being based on politics.

Look to Germany, France and even supposedly broke Spain for their level of officers together with level of crime, then you might realise just how hard our lads and lasses have to work.

[anonymous-user]

jamesson said:

I'm not poopooing your opinion in any way but it's sad that you think the police are utterly useless and couldn't care less. On both counts I would argue that you are wrong. I'm a serving officer and I can tell you I care very much. The colleagues I work with also care very much and they're not the least bit useless. They are the hardest working most dedicated people I know.

As wiliferus said, our numbers have been slashed by the Home Secretary. Traffic police, response officers, community officers, all far fewer than they used to be. I was a response sergeant for a while and I would run out of PCs regularly within an hour of coming on shift, sometimes ten minutes. Then you're constantly fire fighting trying to prioritise jobs.

I hate drink drivers and it's a crying shame there wasn't someone available to take him into custody but please don't think it's because we don't care. We're fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.

I see your profile says you're a soldier. Imagine going into battle only suddenly to find you have a third of the infantry you used to have. No impact? Or would you find it much harder to carry out your mission?

I can only go on my personal experiences with the police which have all left me frustrated and having a complete lack of faith in the police force.

Your analogy regarding the infantry being cut: The Army has reduced in size considerably - we are still expected to carry out all the duties we are given. These increase continually. I'm sure you've heard of Op Temperor - basically backfilling armed police in the event of a terrorist attack.

We cover fire strikes, foot and mouth, floods, olympics the list goes on. It doesn't mean we can just mug work off like the police I've experienced do.

[anonymous-user]

Monkeylegend said:

Never had a situation in your life when you needed three pairs of hands and only had one?

Easy to criticise sitting in the comfort of your home/office.

Plenty, and in situations where lives have depended on stretching oneself just that little bit more.

[XCP]

bmw535i said:

I can only go on my personal experiences with the police which have all left me frustrated and having a complete lack of faith in the police force.

Your analogy regarding the infantry being cut: The Army has reduced in size considerably - we are still expected to carry out all the duties we are given. These increase continually. I'm sure you've heard of Op Temperor - basically backfilling armed police in the event of a terrorist attack.

We cover fire strikes, foot and mouth, floods, olympics the list goes on. It doesn't mean we can just mug work off like the police I've experienced do.

'mug work off' not a phrase I recognise. Do you mean there were plenty of officers to attend but they declined for some spurious reason, or they attended and did nothing. From what I have read neither seem to apply in the Somerset case.

[anonymous-user]

XCP said:

'mug work off' not a phrase I recognise. Do you mean there were plenty of officers to attend but they declined for some spurious reason, or they attended and did nothing. From what I have read neither seem to apply in the Somerset case.

I'm not particularly referring to that case. I'm talking about my experiences with the police.

[wiliferus]

bmw535i said:

Monkeylegend said:

Never had a situation in your life when you needed three pairs of hands and only had one?

Easy to criticise sitting in the comfort of your home/office.

Plenty, and in situations where lives have depended on stretching oneself just that little bit more.

Not sure Police officers have the ability to be in more than one place at once. Believe me I tried, it stung a bit.

[XCP]

bmw535i said:

I'm not particularly referring to that case. I'm talking about my experiences with the police.

Which was it in your experience?

[Lopey]

wiliferus said:

Common occurance. Don't blame the Police, blame the Home Sec. She's decimated Police numbers. All this waffle of protecting the front line is nothing short of blatant lies.
When I was on TraffPol 7 years ago we put out 6 cars per shift, 2 of which would be double crewed. The same base is now lucky to turn out 3 cars, with one double crewed for motorway work.
Similarly when I was at a large Home Counties station a few years back we were parading 18 bobbies. Now it's 12 on a good day.
A regular update into incident logs is 'NRA'..... No Resources Available. Basically means we've run out of coppers.
It only takes one or two jobs of reasonable seriousness, think serious RTC, GBH, something like that, and there is no one left to cover the day to day core business.

It's sad times for the Police, but more importantly the public.

Maybe you should look closer to home before blaming the government for lack of funds in the force.

[wiliferus]

Lopey said:

wiliferus said:

Common occurance. Don't blame the Police, blame the Home Sec. She's decimated Police numbers. All this waffle of protecting the front line is nothing short of blatant lies.
When I was on TraffPol 7 years ago we put out 6 cars per shift, 2 of which would be double crewed. The same base is now lucky to turn out 3 cars, with one double crewed for motorway work.
Similarly when I was at a large Home Counties station a few years back we were parading 18 bobbies. Now it's 12 on a good day.
A regular update into incident logs is 'NRA'..... No Resources Available. Basically means we've run out of coppers.
It only takes one or two jobs of reasonable seriousness, think serious RTC, GBH, something like that, and there is no one left to cover the day to day core business.

It's sad times for the Police, but more importantly the public.

Maybe you should look closer to home before blaming the government for lack of funds in the force.

Meaning?