A few weeks ago I was sprucing up the `street garden` in front of our humble abode. We don't have a front garden, but we do have a strip of grass about 6 feet wide that stretches the length of our place and the attached place next door plus the block of 5 garages. It was all one big barn when it was built in 1860, with walls 3 feet thick, but some clever types converted it all about 30 years ago. I spruce up the street and tend the grass and the flower beds that have been laid into it over the years, because the village always enters the "Britain in Bloom" thing. I know very little about gardening but can follow simple instructions, plus I like to be able to contribute to the well being of my chosen community and help keep it looking nice.
As I was sweeping up the trimmings a villager from the `in bloom` group came up to me and seemed very keen to talk. She had been told that I was `ex job` and that I used to be in the Met Police. She proudly told me that her son had recently finished his initial training and that she was at his passing out parade the previous day. She told me everything that went on and how proud she was of her son and all his colleagues. As she described the ceremony it all sounded so very familiar to me to the point that I started to recall my time at Hendon, both as a cadet and finally as a trainee on the 4 months initial recruit course. I wished her son good luck and finished off my sweeping up. Two days later she posted a DVD of the ceremony through my door. I have just watched it and have to say that the Met did a very good job of the passing out parade, reminiscent of my own.
It was held at what used to be the Cadet Corps Training School, where I spent 9 happy months, getting fit, being beaten up (boxing, wrestling and Judo were compulsory) road running (techno padded, shock absorbing running shoes hadn't been invented - my knees suffer now, perhaps I can sue the Met? Everyone else does). I was then shipped to the Met Cadet Corps phase 2 training centre at Ashford, Kent for another 9 months. And I thought Hendon was hard! By the time I was ready to enter back into the `real` training school as a 19 yr old probationary constable I was a Devizes to Westminster grade canoeist, a cross country runner, fearless exponent of the assault course, held a brown belt in Judo, had been taught to map read and orientate by using a compass and OS Map, conducted mountain rescue training in Snowdonia - in the middle of Winter - represented the Corps at football, swimming, and athletics and was just about the fittest I have probably ever been before or since. Not only that, but I received free board and lodging, 3 square meals a day, took additional GCE's in Geography and British Constitution and was paid pocket money that allowed me to have a good night out on the town once a week.
All of this flooded back to me as I watched the latest young and not so young recruits as they started their new career as London police officers. I watched them march off the parade square before their proud families and friends, escorted by a detachment of the Mounted Branch (who saved my arse on many an ugly demo) as the Band of the Welsh Guards played Auld Lang Syne. To my surprise, I found the whole thing rather moving. Well done The Met for still putting on the style and good luck to you all, every last one.
I believe the Cadet Corps was closed down years ago. What is there that prepares our young potential police recruits for public service these days and is compulsory Judo, wrestling and boxing still allowed?
His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
5. Teaching Maths In 2005
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habit of animals or the preservation of our woodlands.
Your assignment: Discuss how might the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes just for a measly profit of £20.
6. Teaching Maths In 2009
A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling licence. He is also fined a £100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health & Safety legislation as it deemed too dangerous and could cut something. He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be a recividest and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another £100 because he is such an easy target.
When he is released he returns to find Gypsies have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land. He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further £100.. While he is in jail the Gypsies cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for £100 cash. They also have a leaving BBQ of squirrel and pheasant and depart leaving behind several tonnes of rubbish and asbestos sheeting. The forester on release is warned that failure to clear the fly tipped rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced £12000 plus VAT for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.
Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make £20 profit by hard work, give up, sign onto the dole and live off the state for the rest of his life?
7. Teaching Maths In 2010
A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub- prime mortgages in Alabama and lost the lot with only some government money left to pay a few million pound bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses. The logger stuggles to pay the £1200 road tax on his old lorry however, as it was built in the 1970s it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.
Some Bulgarian loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the governments expense. Following their holiday back home they return to the UK with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay £1500 registration fees as a gang master.
The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonus's are not cheap. The parliamentarians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances. You do the maths.
8. Teaching Maths 2017
أ المسجل تبيع D8موله شاحنة من الخشب من اجل 100 دولار.
For the second day running, these beasties have been flying low over my house. Yesterday there was only one, but today there were two of these awesome machines that have the backs of our troops in Afghanistan and fill them with confidence, unlike our political masters. It is an Apache "Longbow", an American attack helicopter now in the skilled hands of those gallant men and women of the Army Air Corps. But these Apache are equipped with the `Longbow` radar (the swiss cheese above the rotor) and further enhanced to British Army spec by our brilliant people at Westlands, which actually makes it a superior being to the ones the Americans have - true, ask any pilot - we should be proud of that one, a triumph for the British Army.
They are not as noisy as a Chinook, nor are they as big and only carry two, but I reiterate, they are definitely multiplying around here (location undisclosed in the interests of security) and I do hope they will soon be covering our soldiers in theatre. Knowing that he reads my blog, I am waiting to hear Gordon Brown announce this as a 100% increase in the supply thereof and living `proof` that the Government really is providing our troops with all the helicopters they need. Hang on, there's something else going over - I think it's a pig.
Once again we have our Nanny state, bereft of any actual ideas on how to stop hooligans and idiot drivers, come up with a great system for punishing eveyone as an alternative to them being actually able to do what they are paid for -
You will see from the attached link that another reduction in speed limits is on the cards. As there are no traffic divisions left this leaves only one way to enforce it - ie more cameras.
Please click on this link and add your vote - if you have a mind to support it.
I am really impressed by the quality of comments on the Armed Robbery post, below, which was in turn prompted by some valid comments from ex pat British officer, PC Copperfield, now serving in Canada. Pc Copperfield was commenting on my post, Risk Assesments are Risky. He will be familiar with this and will once again be glad that he has a .40cal Glock pistol for company whilst out on patrol - so would I!
From our armchairs, desks or laptops we seem to have pretty much topped this one off and have got very close to a workable solution, or at least the plan thereof. Insp LT Hobbes, ably assisted by Blue Eyes had got very close to the plan that was utilised and there was equally sound logic with very well considered comments from Conan and David. Conan's suggestion of snipers (referred to as `riflemen` in the polis) are excellent spotters and would be a serious consideration but the rules of engagement would mitigate against the use of these weapons, as would other technicalities that I won't divulge due to the need for tactical confidentiality. However, I’m so impressed I’m almost ready to sign up to the main plan and options and allow officers with real firearms to go and get them. The difference is that on this occasion I have nothing to lose sleep over. I’m glad I quit while I was ahead. Incidentally, Powdergirl, the sort of thing you suggested is actually not far from reality, particularly relating to the activities of drug dealers. I’ve heard of some instances where the tactic of an up-front confrontation on a villains doorstep has been used, where they were put on notice that their activities are known about. Not in my town, I should add..
Hopefully, blog visitors of a non-police persuasion will have had a little peek into the decision making processes of these sorts of tasks. If you’re from a place where guns and the police are `bread and butter` you may be amazed at the list of `what if's` we are required to have an answer for, over here in Merrie England, Bonnie Scotland and er Wales, but you clearly already realise that just because your police are all armed, all the time, doesn’t solve this problem alone. Guns on the belts of police officers are primarily for their personal protection.Arresting these cunning, determined nasty bastards needs teamwork, skill, lots of training, specialised equipment and communications and above all courage under fire. Officers on routine patrol may have many, if not all, of these qualities but on these pre-planned tasks against these type of people, all of the required skills have to be drawn together into one cohesive unit to stand a chance of planned success, hence the existence of tactical teams like those pictured above, in all modern police forces. So, I’ll add a little more info and bring you closer to the chosen option:
The ACC initially wants us to just `blow the job out`, meaning to make it obvious to the blaggers that we know about the job so that they don’t do it. He asks why we don’t just put a marked police unit outside the bank at the allotted time? Not good Sir. Consider this: The gang are well drilled and have their escape well planned and have already shown that they were of such ferocity and determination that they would think nothing of blasting a security guard, so why not blast the police? The penalty is exactly the same for shooting a police officer, but they still have to be caught and convicted and penalties don’t compensate individuals for loss of eyes, limbs or their life. Also, what about the risk to the informant when the gang twigs its been grassed up, surely we have a duty to try and protect him from being kneecapped or topped? And what of their previous victims and the police forces wanting to bring these violent thugs to justice?Or the next town in the next police area that gets hit and another guard gets shot because we just played `pass the parcel`? What of our liability in respect of Health and Safety? Isn’t that what the Met got saddled with after the De Menezes homicide? OK that’s unfair because this job was a while before suicide bombers hit the UK.Bit trickier than checking the typing pool for wobbly chairs or a loose carpet isn’t it though? OK, we won’t blow the job out.
Then why don’t we let them do it and then get them on the way out of town in a safe area? This is getting warm, but they may shoot someone in the bank or another guard and a passing MoP with her babe in arms may get hit by a stray blast from a sawn-off – these people are not trained police marksmen who can be sued if they make an error, plus they don’t care about anyone else’s safety. Dead guard? Dead police? Dead MoP? Same penalty. No, we must be seen to prevent the crime, after all its the primary objective of an efficient police. Fortunately an attempt carries the same penalty as the full offence, but they have to do things more than just `preparatory`. What a legal minefield we have to work around in this liberal democracy of ours. The price of freedom ain’t cheap.
So we don’t want them getting in the bank, we don’t want to arrest them before they get there because we then only have a conspiracy/possible possession of firearms (we don’t know if they collect them en route as part of a counter-surveillance measure) and we have no firm evidence linking them directly with the previous jobs, only the informant drip- feeding bits of information for this current job and some, as yet, unproved intelligence. Its just not enough to know in our hearts its them, we have to prove it. All of the comments made after Armed Robbery part 1 were right on the money as far as safety of the public is concerned. It is just not enough for the police to step into the spotlight with guns drawn and call on the baddies to surrender. If this were to happen and the response was, `You’ll never take me alive copper` followed by a blast from handguns and sawn off shotguns loaded with 00-buck, the High Street would be full of flying lead, police would be obliged to return fire to defend themselves and the world could be turning bright red all around. The aftermath and Daily Laim headlines would reveal a pre-planned operation where the police, by their actions, provoked a shoot out resulting in `x` innocent victims, casualties of a gung ho bungling police force. If, by pure luck, only the villains got killed, then the headlines would be of heroics, until the follow up stories revealed `what could have happened`. It is against this background that ACC’s have a weather eye.
Consensus seems to lean towards us plotting up the location with armed arrest teams concealed in the immediate area, with the clearly defined objective of safeguarding the security van crew and the public from reckless armed criminals who may hurt them anyway, if the police aren’t there to stop them. We’ll place a high visibility police unit on foot patrol in the High Street, just like any other day, but at a safe distance from the bank with instructions to go no closer than a set point and to then act, with others in support nearby, in a rapid cordon manoeuvre to cut off the High Street and clear public from the immediate area if called upon. Why this? Well it was argued that in the event they went ahead this would indicate that they were so determined to commit the crime that they ignored the presence of a uniformed patrol officer. It was not quite blowing out the job but it was argued as useful, for any subsequent post incident enquiry, that an attempt was made to deter the gang (?).We have our Air Support unit on patrol at a discrete distance and altitude. We have Dog Units and a surveillance unit acting to give us accurate information as to their movements.Armed arrest teams will intervene to protect the guards and prevent threats to life and, if practicable, arrest, but if not practicable will allow them to clear the crowded area of the High Street, pursue in a follow operation of armed mobile units, guided by the Air Support Unit and `Stinger` units on strategic exit routes. Objective, to stop and arrest at a location where there is minimum risk to the general public. The people who decide this location are the frontline officers in the arrest team vehicles. No more talk of tactics in detail.
The bottom line is that several options based on this premise would be acceptable and might work, but this plan also has its weaknesses and could be challenged. Time, place, resources and any number of other factors will determine the lengths that one goes to, to protect the public andpolice involved. The plan has to show that we considered all the likely risks, discussed them in depth and took all reasonable steps to minimise them – some can be eliminated altogether, but rarely can all of them, especially as the criminals never attend the briefing and so don’t always do what is expected of them. Some jobs are even performed in the `half dark` because of the sensitivity of information and of the need to protect sources and it is these that, in my time on firearms operations, have proved to be the most frustrating. The plan has to be committed to paper and signed off by a senior officer. Oh the responsibility.
This `tabletop exercise` was little bit of fun and was in respect of an armed robbery. Terrorists and suicide bombers take a little more planning, but the principles are the same - how can the police stop a crime of an atrocious nature and safeguard the public, and themselves, at the same time? You'll need a big postcard to send in your answers.
My last post, Risk Assessments Can Be Risky, was in response to something I read by PC Ellie Bloggs on the subject of the vortex of caution and accountability one can find one`s self being sucked into as a frontline police supervisor. Comments from ex pat, ex Britcop and published author, PC Copperfield (now of an Alberta Canada PD) on that post, showed how much simpler it can be in a country where all police officers are armed with a self loading pistol. It has the effect of raising the threshold so that a call to a possible sighting of a possible firearm doesn't set in motion the command-chain juggernaut that happens in UK PLC. In this way, the more `run of the mill` calls where a firearm `may have been seen` (a very commonplace call) are responded to in a much quicker and less bureaucratic way because all police are armed for their own (and the public's) protection.
The spin off is that if the subject happens to be innocent, as in my post's example, he gets a couple of real firearms pointed at him and will be ordered to kneel or lie down in the street (or dragged to the ground if he doesn't comply) and be cuffed while the information given in the original call is checked out. This would happen in the UK in a very similar manner if armed officers are deployed. When this happens to an innocent person in the UK, saying "sorry" is rarely enough, although when this happened to me many years ago my `victim` was just so delighted that we didn't kill him (as would have happened in his own country, Pakistan as it happened) he didn't even complain about his dislocated shoulder, but I think that can be saved for another bedtime story.
At least doing things PC Copperfield's way the officer has a fighting chance of surviving if the call turns out to be a bad one. His main point was that the decision to draw the firearm and point it at someone is a matter for the individual officer and that individual officers perception of the threat. One officer might draw his weapon, another may choose to keep her pistol holstered. Up close and personal on the street, only they can decide and in his force in Canada they are given that option. In the UK, at least up until I quit a few years back, the perceived threat of a firearm went through many ranks before a decision was made to either deploy an Armed Response Vehicle or deny it and let the officers on the ground devise their own plan. Sometimes the decision to arm and deploy an ARV was obvious and pretty much instant, but the obvious calls weren't the problem calls - they were also in the minority.
I ought to mention that even though a police force might have all its officers armed with sidearms, it still has to maintain `Tactical Units` where the officers are trained to a much higher level of competency and skill at arms than the standard patrol officer. Pre-planned jobs to deal with armed criminals, hostages and the like or counter terrorism tasks right up to the point where the risk assessment is to hand over the situation to military special forces, will always fall to Tactical Firearms Teams, Tactical Advisers and a senior officer in overall command. The junior ranks facing spontaneous firearms or deadly weapon incidents on the street do not have that luxury.
Apart from the obvious need for highly skilled professionals to carry firearms, this is also a matter of economics. By having a small number of highly trained officers, a much greater shooting skill level and tactical effectiveness can be achieved as the force can allow much more training time and equipment. If every officer in the UK were armed they would be lucky to receive more than a days training a year on top of the need to requalify once or twice. There would just not be the time allocated to do any more than the very basics. Shooting standards would, as a result, have to be set at a lower level than is currently the case. Training, although an investment, is also viewed as a heavy burden on a force's budget. Something would have to give, somewhere. However, this was not my point, nor was it PC Copperfields either so I'll leave it there.
The picture at the top is of a typical English High Street. Information has been received that there will be an armed robbery within a few days, by a team of `top ten nasty` blaggers who are suspected of committing a string of robberies across several force areas. They do not hesitate to shoot security guards, in the legs, who show the slightest resistance. One has already been hospitalised by being blasted by a sawn off shot gun loaded with heavy buckshot - like being shot by nine handguns simultaneously. He was lucky he didn't bleed to death. The informant has told the CID that they plan to hit a security van as it arrives to collect the days takings from two banks. The first is the 2nd to last red brick building on the far side of the street. The second bank is on the opposite side and just a few yards further down. This will happen at about 3pm and the street will look pretty much like it does in the picture, except that a local school will have turned out by this time and there will be a lot of teenagers wending their way home via the shops to add to the crowds of pedestrians.
Your task is to devise a plan to arrest the armed robbers. Hint: Uppermost in policy and planning will be the need to ensure you act in the interests of the public, who's safety is always number one, so before you think up the classic police ambush plan remember that if you jump out of cover shouting armed police and someone opens fire at you and a few stray rounds hit a young mother and her 2 yr old child, you'd better have another think before you sign up to that one. I'll leave that as food for thought, after all, I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore. Feel free to submit your questions or plan in the comments section. After all, its just a bit of fun.
I read a post by PC Ellie Bloggs this morning and, as usual, she flagged up a very interesting topic about risk assessments, decision making stuff and the operational juggernaut that can often be unleashed as a result - something that happens pretty much daily, any town, anywhere. Read it here. It made me remember this one:
I was sat at my desk pushing reports and files about, when I heard a call come in over the radio. Yes, I used to have a police radio on my desk as well as my kit belt hanging up ready to don, much to the suspicion of my superintendent in the next office who thought me a weirdo. I thought exactly the same about him, a man who thought that going out on patrol once a year, on New Year's Eve, would somehow endear him to his officers as a `policeman's policeman`.
I had missed the first part of the radio traffic but the general gist of the call was that an armed response vehicle had been dispatched to my station on the authority of the force control room(FCR) inspector, a job I used to do. One of the higher authorities delegated to the FCR inspector was to be able to arm-up and deploy the ARV before asking the assistant chief constable `Ops`. Some of these inspectors were pretty good but most had never been trained in firearms or tactical options and you could hardly call a one hour lesson in a classroom on such matters `adequate preparation`. As a result, the timing and quality of their decisions was inconsistent.
I went down to the front office and found the acting sergeant. She was a graduate entry high flyer who I had a lot of time for. She was highly intelligent, conscientious and very keen to learn the art of climbing the ladder quickly and had crammed quite a bit into her two and a half years of police service. She clearly had her hands and mind full and so I asked her to tell me all about it. It seemed that a MoP had just left the railway station and walked past a line of taxis. As she glimpsed into the last one on the rank, she thought she saw the driver holding a silvery handgun. Keeping her cool, she walked into the police station to report her sighting. She was a good witness, having memorised the cab company and the cab licence number.
I asked the acting sergeant what she had done so far and she told me that the area control room had flagged the call to FCR as they were required to do (policy on serious incidents) and the FCR inspector had deployed the ARV and was notifying the assistant chief constable `ops` to ratify the decision. I asked her how she intended to resolve the incident and her reply was to find the cab and ask the ARV to do an armed stop on it. I suggested we explore other options that might not involve the ARV but she couldn't see what these might be. I contacted FCR and told them to keep the ARV coming but that this was now not an urgent call and to slow them down and turn off the blue lights.
I told her that I would help her resolve this incident and asked her what intelligence she had on the taxi driver. She hadn't yet delegated anyone to work on that (a primary objective) so I told her to get onto it straight away. The inspector at FCR called me back. He was a guy I knew and he was happy to hear that I had been tuned in because he couldn't raise an inspector on our division to notify. I told him that I would take overall responsibility for it and to enter me on the message log accordingly. By now my acting sergeant had come back with some good info. The cab company was one of the good ones and, as luck would have it, one of our special constables worked there and was today's duty supervisor. I entrusted him with some of the information and of our need to speak to his driver but without raising any suspicions. Our special thought the driver may have had associates in the drug dealing fraternity but had no evidence, apart from that he had a clean sheet.
Once again I spoke to the acting sergeant. She was quite adamant that an armed vehicle stop was the only option. I offered her my plan, which was based on the following facts: 1. We had no evidence linking the taxi driver to criminality, although we did know that some dealers used taxis and may have `tipped the drivers heavily` and anyway on this occasion there was no other reported suspcious activity 2. Our division had a very low crime rate with no heavy main dealers living in our midst. It wasn't `middle England blue rinse` territory but it wasn't sin city either -not that this is a reason to be careless 3. We knew his cab, we knew where he lived, we had a friendly contact in the taxi office and he was still on duty so we could put this taxi anywhere we pleased.
Therefore, I suggested, we get the taxi duty supervisor (our special) to task him to attend the police station to `pick up a fare`, waiting in the front office. This was a typical call for taxis and would cause no suspicion. We deploy an officer to be casually waiting outside, near where the cabs always stop - again a typical sight for a cab driver to see. We watch him get out and, providing he doesn't get out with guns blazing (highly likely? I think not), we have a quiet word with him and search his cab. I explained to the acting sergeant that as long as you can see the suspect has empty hands then he can't shoot you.
She was not too happy but I had relieved her of that decision and said that if she was unhappy to approach him, then I would gladly be the person who made the initial move as he parked up, such was my confidence in this plan. She relented, but I insisted I would be there as well -It was my plan, she was a bit windy, so I would take the lead. The ARV arrived and I told them I did not need an armed stop but that as they were there they could position themselves nearby. They were cool about the whole thing and knew me very well. I used to work alongside and, latterly, train these guys. The call was made to the cab concerned, it turned up in 5 minutes, the driver got out to collect his fare and was duly stopped and checked. His cab was checked and he produced a novelty cigarette lighter in the style of a small self loading pistol. I explained a little of the reception that could have greeted him and he immediately signed it over to me against a form of disclaimer. No high risk blue light run, no armed stop, no guns up someone's nose.
The acting sergeants plan would have worked too and would have been quite legitimate. I did explain to her that had we been in certain other areas of some of our gun-prevalent cities then tactics could be different. This was about nine years ago. She's done well for herself. I think she's a detective superintendent now.
