PC Jones arrives in the locker room in the basement of the
police station at 13.40 hrs and changes into his uniform and clips on his
personal radio on his belt. On the way upstairs he collects a charged battery
and switches on his radio. His radio is now transmitting regular (at least once
a minute) signals to a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) of his location. This
signal is not being logged on any computer but if he pressed the emergency
button on his radio the last signal of his radio will be flashed up on the
screen of CAD terminals at the MPS call centre that covers his area. PC Jones
knows from the duties database, Computer Aided Resource Management System
(CARMS), that his
posting for this month is to drive a response car and he knows there is a new
one that is better than the rest so he wants to grab the keys and logbook
before his colleagues. He saw it in the station yard as he walked in and sure
enough the early turn driver is in the custody suite dealing with a prisoner.
After a bit of banter that included a warning that there were new road works in
the high street he managed to get the keys and quickly goes out to the station
yard, checks over the vehicle and puts his bag of equipment inside, making sure
that the early turn had taken all their stuff out. He rushes upstairs to the
briefing room, arriving just in time for the late turn parade.
The parade is being taken by the section sergeant with about
15 of PC Jones’s colleagues present with the Duty Officer Inspector Shetty
watching on. There are no surprises on the postings; he is posted to XX21 with
PC Smith as the operator, refreshments at 6pm. The sergeant talks through the
power-point briefing that has been prepared by the Borough Intelligence Unit
(BIU) which has pictures of suspected active criminals and their modus
operandi, maps of crime hotspots and officer safety instructions and advice. A
short discussion takes place about missing child that the team had dealt with
the previous day and which PC Smith had completed the necessary paperwork that
included a Merlin entry and a referral to social services via the Borough’s
community safety unit. Even though the parents had come into the police station
to report the nine year old girl missing a CAD incident was created because it
involved a number of urgent enquiries. Inspector Shetty thanked the team for
their good co-ordinated work and said that fortunately the child had been found
at a friend’s house by night duty. The parade ends and the section sergeant
rings through the postings to the CAD operator at the MPS call centre so that
the CAD system can be updated with who has been posted to which vehicle (by
call-sign) and those that have been assigned to walk beats. She enquires which
safer neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers are
on-duty so she knows what resources are available if the need arises.
PC Jones is just settling into thinking there is time to
have a quick cup of tea and a check of his emails when a call comes on the
radio, “fight in progress, knife involved” and a location given as Acacia
Avenue W13 outside The Eagle Public House. He acknowledges the call on his
radio and shouts out to PC Smith and they both run down to the station yard and
PC Jones jumps in the driver’s of the vehicle. PC Smith jumps into the front
passenger seat and switches on the mobile data terminal. The mobile data
terminal now if linked up to the CAD system and is transmitting GPS signals of
the vehicles location, speed and direction every 15 seconds. This is logged and
retrievable at a later stage. The call they are going to has been recorded on
the CAD system by a CAD operator after a member of the public who has witnessed
the fight has phone 999. The call has been graded “I” which means it is an
emergency which warrants using blue lights and sirens. The target time is 12
minutes, which is measured as from the time the call was made. The operator has
shown the type of call as “1” meaning violence against person and “69” meaning
suspect armed and enters “knife” in comments field, the location is entered as
“o/s Eagle Pub, Acacia Ave, W13; the computer confirms that as a unique
location in London and automatically provides northing and easting coordinates
of the centroid of 250 metre by 250 metre grid square that the Eagle Public
House is located in. The callers details are enter and XX21 is shown assigned
along with X4 and XX3. The free text of the incident is updated with the
description of the suspects. PC Jones and Smith arrive at the scene of the
Eagle Public House, there is no fight going on outside. PC Smith says “on
scene” on her radio for the information of other units and the CAD operator who
then updates CAD. Both PC Jones and Smith go into the Pub and look round, no
fight. PC Jones says “All quiet on arrival” on his radio and then asks the CAD
operator to phone back the caller asking them to make themselves known to
police at the scene. This is all updated on the CAD system. The caller is found
who explained that there had been a bad tempered row between three men who had
just come out the public house; it looked like they were fighting over
something that could have been a knife. Meanwhile the crew of X4 have stopped a
person who meets the description of one of the suspects and are searching him
for the knife. Another witness then is found by PC Jones who says all three men
were seen to drive off in a vehicle and supplied the registration mark. PC
Smith does a PNC check of the vehicle and obtains the registered owner details;
there is an information report saying the owner of the vehicle is a
disqualified driver. This information is circulated on the radio by PC Smith
and unit is assigned to attend the home address. The end result of this incident
is that the fight outside the Eagle Pub was for the car key, which was mistaken
for a knife by the witness. The disqualified driver was not driving the car
when it arrived at the owner’s house with police waiting. X4 let the person
they stopped go after completing a search form, which would later be entered on
the Stops database. The incident is resulted with “1” to show that the violence
against the person had occurred and “77” entered to show that no offences had
been disclosed; a comment “no knife” is also entered.
PC Jones and PC Smith attend various other incidents in
their day’s work including a burglary for which PC Jones enters a crime report
on CRIS. PC Smith arrests a shoplifter who it turns out has given a false name.
The true name is identified after fingerprints are taken and reveals when a PNC
names check is done that the person is wanted for failing to attend court on
assault charges. There is a credit card in the arrested person’s possession
that requires further investigation regarding his ownership. The custody computer is updated by the
custody sergeant, case papers completed, wanted missing report cancelled on the
PNC, CRIS record updated regarding the assault and a new entry regarding the
shoplifting: the credit card will be entered on the property computer and PC
Jones helps by entering a CRIMINT report regarding the false name that the
prisoner gave and tried to use the credit card to verify it. Lastly PC Jones
obtains authorisation to claim overtime for himself and PC Smith so that all
these information systems can be properly updated!
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