We received this guest blog earlier on today via email. And whilst we have changed some of the details regarding the circumstances (for obvious reasons) we felt that this story summed up the many highs and lows when it comes to being on the front line of the emergency services.
Most oppos (colleagues) in the world of Policing will be able to relate to this scenario for a variety of different reasons.
There are few (work) related ‘things’ which are more satisfying than catching a criminal in the act of committing a crime; especially when it comes to catching burglars ‘in the act’.
But for this oppo (our word for ‘colleague’), what appeared to be a potentially huge ‘result’, was instead a massive anti-climax:
‘Hello,
I wanted to email just about an incident I was involved several weeks ago.
Mostly because there’s so much s__t (both figuratively and sometimes literal faeces) being thrown at the emergency services and this was bitter sweet.
I work in the control room for a police force based somewhere on the northern hemisphere and have done for a few years.
The frequency of ‘good jobs’ has reduced and we tend to spend our days wading through stuff police shouldn’t have to deal with.
Then we get this job come through:
Burglary in progress, caller is upstairs in his loft conversion, he has CCTV inside his house and he’s watching the offender in his dining room.
FINALLY AN ACTUAL CRIME IN PROGRESS!
The planets must have been aligned on that day because I had an armed response unit and a dog unit on my talkgroup – dispatched them.
On hearing the situation being broadcast over the despatch channel, the entirety of the response units redeployed.
The home owner is still on the phone, still watching the offender via his iPad.
I’ve got all the units plotted up and the house contained, offender still in the dining room, no signs of any damage outside of the property.
YES WE ARE GOING TO GET THE SUSPECT!
Door knock goes in and our informant comes to the door.
Turns out he has been watching a recording of himself from the previous night!
So there was no burglary and no baddie and no day saving.
I’ve never felt so dejected in my life.
Textbook 10/10 response in a difficult policing environment that people won’t even know about. But I suppose that’s the job.’
So there we have it.
Just when you thought that you were engaged in a modern-day battle against criminality, it turns out that all of your crime-fighting hopes and dreams have been dashed.
If you have a story that you would like to feature in our ‘guest blog’ then feel free to email our team of former emergency services personnel at emergency_services_humour@outlook.com
We are interested in hearing stories from both the public and from our beloved oppos – regardless of where in the world you serve or the colour of your uniform, so get it touch!
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