Ask most police officers what gets their adrenaline pumping and many will tell you that hearing the ‘I’ grade call about a ‘confirmed sequential’ intruder alarm will often come close to raising the heartbeat of most 999 response team officers.
For our civilian readers, then a ‘confirmed sequential’ alarm means that an alarm has been activated by movement at least twice within a premises (commercial or residential).
The fact that there has been two separate activations at two different locations within a building is important because many false alarms are triggered by a single activation and that means that most police forces probably won’t have the resources available to send to the location because of the high likelihood of it being a false alarm.
But when you hear that an alarm has been activated by at least two sensors within a building, then in the dead of night you know that it will either be a person, a large animal or perhaps something a bit more ‘spooky’ and/or unexplained.
You can therefore imagine how response team officers in Northumbria felt a few nights ago, when just such a call came through the airwaves.
A post on the Northumbria Police Facebook page revealed:
“Officers in Newcastle found themselves on the “tail” of a sneak-in burglary at the weekend – after a CAT broke in to a local bookies.
“Response cops in the city centre were dispatched to the BetFred bookmakers on Shields Road in Byker in the early hours of Sunday morning.
“The alarm company at the store had alerted police after receiving an automated message to say their alarm had been activated three times in just 20 minutes.
“Officers were prepared to come face-to-face with a “fur-midable” foe when they arrived at the bookmakers.
“But they were grateful to find no burglars at the scene – except a black cat just sitting on the front counter.
“The cat eventually left the store and officers were able to get back on duty to keep the public safe and put some real burglars behind bars.
“Acting Inspector Peter Bond said: “We were pretty shocked to find a cat burglar in the act but thankfully this time nothing was being stolen.
“Our Dog Section turned up as well so you can imagine the scene when our PD caught a scent of the intruder.
“We’re still not sure how it managed to get in but after a bit of chasing it did eventually leave the store.
“You never know what you might find when you respond to an alarm activation but this made our officers smile when they arrived.
“After a stern talking to the cat went on its way empty handed and hopefully it will think twice about breaking in to anywhere else again!”.
At least this call would have resulted in minimal paperwork being generated – a rarity in many forces up-and-down the country.
In fact, it would not surprise me if it was my cat, as he often comes home in the evening with wads of cash and half-chewed betting slips.
If you have an emergency services related story, video (that you have filmed) or blog (whether its light-hearted or serious), then contact our team of former emergency services personnel at:
Email: emergency_services_humour@outlook.com
Twitter: @ES_humour
Or us via our Facebook page @EmergencyServicesHumour
Featured picture credit: @NorthumbriaPolice / Facebook
Before you go...
We need your help. As former emergency services & armed forces personnel, we pride ourselves on bringing you important, fast-moving and breaking news stories which are free from the negative bias which is often directed at the emergency services by some sections of the mainstream media.
One of the reasons we started 'Emergency Services News' was because we became tired of reading badly informed stories about the emergency services which seemed only ever to highlight negative aspects of the job.
We want to be the unheard voice of the remarkable men and women who serve in the emergency services, NHS and armed forces. And with around 500k page views each month, we are getting there!
As income from ads, the mainstay source of income for most publishers, continues to decline; we need the help of our readers.
And remember, if you have a service, product or job vacancy that you would like to promote to our large readership, then you can buy advertising space in our articles.
You can support emergency services news from as little as £1. It only takes a minute. Every contribution, however big or small, is vital for our future.
Please help us to continue to highlight the life-saving work of the emergency services, NHS and armed forces by becoming a supporter.