I work as a communications officer for the police. A large chunk of my job involves receiving calls from very agitated members of the public asking for help. I enjoy helping people- really I do. Some of these people are in danger and need immediate help. Sadly, some people simply have no concept of the word ‘emergency’ or believe the police are a free errand service.
Before my head explodes (after a particularly irritating night shift) I’d like to share some of the inspiring calls I have taken over the last month. Any names or places I mention will be changed to protect the stupid.
I have never in my life had any need to call the emergency services, and this is something I am grateful for because it means I have never been involved in a fire, or a serious car accident, or witnessed a violent attack, or been badly injured.
Generally speaking, I would consider any day when I needed to call 999 a bad day.
It appears however, that I am in the minority. For many people, the day just wouldn’t be complete without pressing those three magic numbers.
For the sake of clarity the letter ‘P’ will represent me- your chirpy, enthusiastic, helpful police staff member (P for Police, clever right?). I have also divided the calls into sub-categories of annoyance.
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The terrifying, heart pounding, life threatening emergency call**
When I joined the police, I was worried at how I would react emotionally when I had to deal with serious emergency calls. It can be tough trying to get someone who is very scared to talk to you. There can be a lot of pressure for you to get a lot of information very quickly and if you make a mistake, people’s lives are on the line. You can imagine then, my reaction, when I dealt with this call:
P: Police emergency.
Woman with no brain: I need your help please, it’s very important.
–I obtain her name and address etc-
P: What’s the emergency?
WWNB: Something very suspicious has happened. Last night, someone left a plastic bag near to my driveway.
P: What is inside it?
WWNB: It looks like rubbish. But it has gone now. Someone has moved it.
P: Ok. So what’s the emergency?
WWNB: I just think someone should look into it. It’s very suspicious.
Alternately
Drunken male: I need your help, it’s an emergency.
P: What’s happened?
DM: my tortoise has escaped.
P: We don’t take in lost animals. You need to check with an animal shelter.
DM: It’s still in my garden, I just need you to help me catch it.
Powers of discretion and key word policing.
If you have ever called the police and wondered why it has taken us three days to arrive and help you, this is your answer. It’s all down to our powers of discretion- we don’t have any. Once upon a time the police could tell you to stop being silly and use some common sense, then toddle off and deal with things like catching bad guys. Luckily, someone realized what a terrible idea this was, and as a result, we are now able to police without engaging our brains at all. Everything that is reported must be recorded, and, assuming the caller wants to see a police officer about it, we must send a police officer out.
So if you’re phoning the police and no one is answering, that’s probably because we’re all busy writing reports on the ten year old boy that just phoned 999 to make farting noises down the phone and the likelihood of there being an emergency.
And if you’ve waited three days for someone to come and take a report of your burglary, that’s because our officers are busy speaking to these people:
P: Police emergency.
Slurring woman: I’m being harassed.
P: Who is harassing you?
SW: I dunno.
P: Well what are they doing?
SW: I just got a phonecall and the person hung up when I answered.
P: How many times has it happened?
SW: Just once.
P: It was probably a wrong-number.
SW: I’m being harassed. I’m on my own in the house and I’m dead scared.
P: If it happens again, call your phone company and ask them what they can do.
SW: I’m being harassed.
Is she being harassed? No. Will the officer still have to waste 45 minutes visiting her for this single wrong number? Yes.
On a related note-
With only a limited number of police officers and a large number of people who need their help, we have to prioritise incidents to make sure that the person being robbed at knife point gets help before the person who received a nasty text message from a relative in another country. Sadly, word gets around, and it has reached the point where people know the magic ‘keywords’ which will get them police faster.
Example: ‘Racist’
‘Racist’ is a magic word in the police force. Every member of staff has days and days of training to ensure that we are as politically correct as we can be. I agree that we need to take a stand against racism- I disagree with the way we go about it.
(A question from a work-book I was required to complete as part of my diversity training included a question which went more or less like this:
Your colleague tells you he hates all black people and wishes they would die. Do you?
a) agree with him and slap the nearest black person.
b) Challenge his behaviour and explain that you will not tolerate his racist attitude.
I can only imagine how many closet racists they must have weeded out with those succinct questions.)
Anyway, back to the point. In order to combat racism it has been decreed that any racist incident will be treated as a top priority. Any racist incident. And just in case you haven’t been fully diversity trained yet, a racist incident if defined as any incident which someone feels may be racially motivated, regardless of whether there is any proof, or any indication that it may be racist. The victim may not think it was racist, but if a passerby who wasn’t even there when it happened thinks it might have been racist, then we treat it as such.
I don’t know who came up with this policy, but their heart was in the right place. They want to send a message that racism will not be tolerated, and ensure ethnic minority groups feel confident the police force will look after them. I’m sure we can all support those aims. But word gets around, and suddenly ‘it’s racist’ pops up in the most unexpected places.
P: Police emergency.
Victim: I need you to move on these kids.
P: What are they doing?
V: Playing football on the fields at the end of the street.
(Thank God you called. We can’t have children out playing on fields. We’ll rush right out and arrest them all)
P: What harm are they doing?
V: They shouldn’t be there. They’re annoying me.
P: What exactly are they doing to annoy you?
V: Playing football?
P: How many are there?
V: Three, about 12 years old. They’re always doing it.
P: There isn’t anything I can do about that. That’s why the fields are there, for children to play on.
V: I think it’s racist.
This has now become a priority incident. We will go and visit this victim long before we visit the person who was beaten up on a night out last night, or the little old lady who just had a brick thrown through her front window (assuming she gets a visit at all).
Racism is not our only magic word in the police force. It is however the best known. I’d tell you the rest, but I’d hate to give away all our secrets.
Mike November
Mike November is the police way of saying that someone is mentally ill. It comes from the letters ‘mn’ (the abbreviation used in our computer systems for ‘mental’) said in the phonetic alphabet.
A lot of our callers are Mike November. Unlike most of the other categories, these calls don’t make me angry, but they do make me very sad. These people are ill and can’t be blamed for the calls they are making. Sad as they are, they can also be very funny, and you have to laugh or you’ll cry.
Mike November calls can be divided into two groups- the people who call the police because ‘999’ is the only number they can remember/manage to dial (my favourite example from this group being ‘my towels are too fluffy’) and those who call the police because they genuinely think the police are needed.
Frail old lady: I’ve been burgled.
P: When did this happen?
FOL: I don’t know, I was asleep.
P: How did they get into your house?
FOL: I don’t know. They must have climbed through the window.
P: Was the window open, or has it been broken?
FOL: No, it’s still locked.
(At this point I begin to wonder… It later transpires she lives in high rise flats and only Spiderman could have climbed through her window).
P: What’s been taken?
FOL: Nothing.
P: Is there any sign of forced entry? Any broken locks, doors, windows?
FOL: No.
P: How do you know that someone has broken in?
FOL: The flat smells different.
P: Police emergency.
Caller: I am an angel.
P: Sorry I didn’t catch that.
C: My father is trying to kill me.
P: What is he doing?
C: Trying to kill me.
P: Is he there now?
C: No, he’s been dead for ten years.
P: How is he trying to kill you then?
C: My aunty is doing it.
P: Where is she?
C: Germany
P: How can she be trying to kill you from there?
C: Using her crystal ball. My father is making her do it.
P: Why does he want to kill you?
C: Because I am an angel.
Agitated Man: You need to tell the MI5 to stop following me in planes.
P: Sorry I don’t know anything about any planes.
AM: Yes you do! You’ve been following me in those huge orange planes for months now. You don’t follow the bishop of Canterbury, so you shouldn’t be following me!
(I have spoken to this man several times over the last year. Interestingly enough, though he is born and raised in England, the last time we spoke he had developed a thick Jamaican accent.)
I could go on and on because there are so many funny or sad calls from people with mental health problems. Some call so often I can recognize their phone numbers and we have a little rapport going- like the lady who calls to say her “baby” (in inverted commas, because the baby is actually a parrot) has been abducted, then tries to get you to speak to said baby. Or the lady who sends her carers out to buy milk then phones the police to get them in trouble for abandoning her. Or, perhaps most annoyingly, the local psychiatric ward which allows the patients to call 999 on the payphones every day. Instead I will just say this:
I do always try to help these people, and wherever I can I get hold of their carers or family members to calm them down and check on them. Sometimes we send police officers round to help. But I can’t help feeling frustrated- surely it isn’t down to the police to look after these people? And at the end of the day, every call they make is stopping someone else getting through, and that person might actually have an emergency. Probably not though.
Part 2 to follow
