Another Constable

Nights have always historically been quite a quiet (should I really use the “Q” word!?) affair, especially the set of 4 we do from Monday to Thursday. The set of 3 over the weekend are usually a bit more lively, at least for the first half whilst the great unwashed are getting tanked up on Special Brew or Stella Artois (Wife-Beater as it is unfortunately known around here - as in 4 pints of wife-beater please barman).

I’ve noticed though, that nights recently have been getting quieter and quieter. I’m not sure why this is. The bonus of being quiet on nights is that the whole section turn out for every job, so not only is there a nice social aspect of getting to stand around and have a chat for a few minutes after the job, but if it is something like a possible burglary in progress, there is much more of a chance of us actually catching someone in the act as the area is rapidly flooded with police officers. I haven’t done a “Day In The Life” posting for a while, so I thought I’d combine a recent whole week’s night shifts into one post - just to show that it’s not all abseiling from rooftops and chucking stun grenades through windows.

Monday was probably the quietest of the lot. It started off okay - at 7pm I was in plain clothes for a few hours overtime, proactively targetting an increase in burglaries. After hearing some noises eminating from a nearby alleyway, my colleague and I sneak in hoping to catch Billy Burglar but instead find a schoolboy and some chums hiding off the main street. One of the lads is busying himself building a cannabis cigarette or “spliff” and is in possession of a small bag of cannabis bush. Too young for a street caution, he’s duly arrested and taken into custody where his mum attends, he’s interviewed about it, then he’s given a formal warning and released. As simple as the job was (and for which a crime is recorded and detected), it still took the whole three hours of our allotted overtime. I’m not sure that the Inspector will be too impressed that he’s effectively paid for 6 hours of proactive burglary patrol and got 6 hours of bums in seats (and in the warm) doing paperwork and interviews (that’s 2 bobbies times 3 hours in case you were baffled) - which at time and a third actually means he paid for 8 hours. I digress. It was then back to the nick (our own nick as opposed to the custody suite) change into uniform, but retain a plain vehicle for more of the same.

More of the same actually meaning drifting around the hotspots aimlessly as there was absolutely no-one about. The first job we were deployed to was a drunk on a bus refusing to get off. The bus wasn’t going anywhere with him on it. We arrived to find that the drunk was in fact profoundly deaf. Luckily, I have some knowledge of British Sign Language, having done level 1 at college a couple of years ago. It’s not ideal, as I can ask basic questions, but I can’t really have a conversation. Still, I was able to muddle along with the chap and managed to get enough information from him to take him home. Funnily enough, I’d met him once before as a probationer. I was in the custody suite doing my awareness training and still new out of the box. Someone brought this guy in (drunk again - par for the course so I was told) and fighting. He was really frustrated at the inability of anyone there to communicate with him. I assisted and actually managed to resolve all the conflict and made the detention run quite smoothly. This all helped me get signed off on the “Effective Communication” part of my PDP some time ago. Of course, on Monday, he didn’t recognise me, and I didn’t remember enough of his personal details to be able to get by without the struggle of my shoddy sign language. I think I managed to make an impression on him though, as can be shown by his efforts to hug and kiss me when I dropped him off - which I politely declined I might add. The rest of the night remained incident free.

Tuesday was the usual 2200-0700 affair, with a pendigestatory interluditude penciled in for 2am (far too early really - you’ll never find night duty taking scoff at 2am… usually waiting until it’s really dead at 4am-5am). It was one of those nights that are invariably referred to as “shit”. That is, absolutely nothing happened. You might think that would be a good thing, but on nights, it’s really hard staying alert and focussed. When things are happening and we have a few grade 1 jobs to rush to, the adrenaline keeps us going through the night. When there are no jobs on the go, we mooch around in dark alleyways trying to catch Billy Burglar etc. Or we cruise around looking for sheds (crap cars) with nominals on board to turn over. When there is not even a soul about to perform a stop check on, the shift is thereupon known as “shit”. Tuesday was a one such night. At least it meant my notebook was easy to complete.

Wednesday had a couple of “sudden deaths”. You could say that all deaths are sudden, being alive one moment and dead the next, but it’s short for “sudden and unexplained death” which is pretty much everyone that dies that isn’t in hospital where they are alre