Change of scenery

Sunday night was interesting then; the final shift of this block.

Instead of covering my usual market town in the south of the county, because of staff shortages they send me to the other side of the county to assist in covering a somewhat larger market town.

Thank god I was double-crewed on the 22:00 through 07:00 shift. Basically I turned up with little idea how to even get into the police station itself, let alone which sector I’d be covering or who the hell I’d be working with.

Turns out I'll crew one of two cars covering the town and a massive rural area.

Highlights of the night:

• First job – assist other unit at a domestic where male turns up at his ex’s place, pissed-off that she’s got a new boyfriend. Rants & raves outside for a bit before going round the back of her place and putting a brick through one of the windows of her car and ripping off all the windscreen wipers. On arrival he states to the other unit “You’re probably here about the damage I caused then.” Why thank you.
• Blue-light run for miles down one of the county’s main arterial roads at high speed. unsurprisingly we set off a speed camera which is solved with a quick transmission of “Control, can you show a speed camera activation at blah-blah.” Sorted. Report of animals on the carriageway – deer, possibly cows (?!). Area-search no trace when we get there. They’ve doubtless mooved on.
• Report of domestic. Male and female, female states she wants male to be reomoved from the house. Arrive and they're arguing - she slaps him right in front of us. We seperate the two, give a little advice (especially to her), and he then agrees to be taken to a friend's place for a few hours so they can both cool off. As he's walking to the car she then declares "I wan't him back here now so we can talk this over."
• Just before we knock off close to 07:00, report of male coming into one of the train stations on an early-morning service refusing to pay his fare. Foreign male, big burly bloke apparently and the train guard was reluctant to challenge him as he was clutching a piece of official paperwork detaining his court appearance at one of the county’s courts on an assault charge. As two 6ft+’ers we form the welcoming committee and negotiate for him to leave the train and escort him to buy a ticket for the next train, which he does. Phew. Lucky really – an arrest at 06:45 for something would have probably seen us stay on till at least 10:00.

Being out of my usual sector, there was no real paperwork to fill in, as anything I did pick up would be simply assigned to local officers to investigate. Basically the night was just job-to-job.

In a way that’s how police work should be really.

I can dream.