Confessions of a Police Constable

by Matt Delito

  ‘You bastaaaaaaard!’ she howled. She landed a punch, a slap and a kick before Pete managed to intervene, grabbing her by the back of her jeans and dragging her off her brother.

  ‘Will – you – calm – down!’ Pete shouted, but Sarah continued to try to tear herself loose in order to attack her brother again.

  ‘Right, sod this,’ I said. ‘Sarah, I’m arresting you for assault.’

  I fished my handcuffs out of their pouch, but she had completely failed to hear me, and had continued kicking Pete and trying to get at Roger. Roger did the only wise thing, which was to shrink away into the hallway and around the corner. Because she was flailing her hands at her brother, it was easy to get one of them into a handcuff, but that didn’t stop her from trying to wrench herself loose.

  ‘Take her down,’ Pete said to me, before hooking one of his legs around both of hers. I had a firm grasp of the handcuff on her wrist, so when I made two quick steps into the hallway she stumbled and ended up face down on the ground.

  She wailed. Understandable – being pulled around by a handcuff can be rather painful. In OST51, these manoeuvres are referred to as ‘Pain Compliance’, and with good reason. We use them sparsely, but they’re extremely effective when you need to bring a struggling prisoner under control.

  Once Sarah was on the floor, I used the rigid handcuffs to move her hand onto her back. Meanwhile, Pete grabbed her other hand, and soon both were tucked neatly away in stainless steel bracelets behind her back.

  I finished my arrest procedure by reading her the police caution, along with the reason, grounds and time of arrest. Pete kept her on the floor by placing a knee on the back of her upper arm; whenever she struggled, he put a little more pressure on her arm and she immediately calmed down again.

  ‘Mike Delta receiving two-six,’ I transmitted via my radio, referring to our call sign rather than my shoulder number.

  ‘Two-six, go ahead,’ came the reply, immediately.

  ‘Still at our last assigned. We’ve just had to arrest a female for common assault. Do we have any spaces back at the nick?’

  ‘Stand by.’

  I looked up at Roger, who was massaging his face with his right hand.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘I think I put a tooth through my lip when she punched me,’ he said.

  I took him aside, out of earshot of Sarah.

  ‘Lemme see,’ I said.

  He moved his hand and grimaced. There was quite a lot of blood in his mouth, but it didn’t look like a particularly bad injury.

  ‘At least it doesn’t look like you’ve broken any teeth,’ I said. ‘Shall I call you an ambulance?’

  ‘Er …’ he said.

  ‘You don’t have to … But we do need to take a statement from you about this assault.’

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ he asked. ‘Arresting her? It’s a bit much, isn’t it?’

  ‘To be honest, mate,’ I dropped my voice so his sister couldn’t overhear me. ‘This was probably the best outcome. It think it would have taken us at least another half-hour to get her out of here, and then she’d probably have come back, so you’d just have had to call out the police again later. This way, at least she’s at the other side of the borough, so perhaps she’ll think twice about coming back.’

  ‘Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think we should change the locks, too?’

  ‘Yeah, definitely change the locks,’ I said to him just as my radio sprang back into life.

  ‘Two-six receiving Mike Delta,’ it announced.

  ‘Go ahead?’ I replied, as I nodded to Roger.

  ‘We have a space reserved for you at the Hyatt,’ the CAD operator said, referring to one of the police stations on the borough that is placed right next to a large hotel.

  ‘Great stuff. Can we get a limo as well?’ I replied, stretching the metaphor.

  ‘Sure thing. On the hurry-up?’

  ‘Nah, no rush. We’re at the eleventh floor though, and there’s no elevator, so we’re going to need a bit of extra assistance getting her down. Our customer is a little bit lively.’

  ‘No worries, the limo is triple-crewed today. They’re not far off, give them ten minutes.’

  ‘That’ll be an hour then, including the walk up the stairs,’ I joked.

  ‘Very funny, Delito,’ the driver of the caged van cut into our conversation, taking my comment as a slur on his slightly chubby physique.

  ‘Hey! Professionalism, gentlemen,’ another voice – the shift sergeant – cut through.

  ‘Received. Sorry, sarge,’ I replied. His response was fair enough: it wasn’t just us and the CAD operators who were listening in; anybody within earshot of a police officer would have heard that exchange.

  ‘Damn right,’ he shot back. ‘You’re buying the doughnuts tomorrow.’

  ‘And a stick of celery for me, please,’ the caged van driver added as we ended the transmission.

  ‘Are you going to stay calm now?’ I heard Pete asking Sarah, who was still on the floor.

  She nodded and mumbled something.

  ‘I’m going to help you up, and you’re going to sit back down on the sofa,’ he said. ‘But I’ve had it with your fighting, and if you don’t keep your cool, you’re going back on the floor, okay?’

  She nodded again, and Pete helped her up, leading her to the sofa. She was suddenly as good as gold.

  It was slightly annoying that we had to wait for the van crew to arrive, but I didn’t fancy my chances in bringing Sarah down ten flights of stairs; it doesn’t take a strong or heavy person to drag three people down a flight of concrete steps, and as I’ve already mentioned, I have a strong preference for keeping myself out of A&E as much as possible.

  I took the opportunity to take an MG-1152 from Roger about the assault, and from Mrs Samson about the events leading to the eviction. For Mrs Samson, I simply dictated the bits that are required on the MG-11 form in the EAB53. Usually, I’ll fill in people’s MG-11s for them whilst they dictate, to ensure it’s all in unambiguous language, but in Mrs Samson’s case, I left her to write down the rest of her statement herself.

  After about 20 minutes, the three extra officers arrived and we were able to take Sarah down to the caged van without incident. We spent a painful hour and a half at custody getting all her property booked in properly. It’s usually pretty straightforward, but it rapidly turns into a rather long procedure of itemising when your prisoner is carrying a plastic bag containing everything she owns, and insists on itemising each individual item of clothing.

  When I put three ‘pink tops’ on the custody skipper’s desk, there were loud protests.

  I’ll save you the conversation that followed, but let’s just say that I, for one, had no idea that there was a difference between a ‘coral tank top’, a ‘rose camisole’ and a ‘salmon crop top’. Apparently there is – and Sarah had all three garments, but exactly zero ‘pink tops’. Go figure.

  Once Sarah was fully booked in, searched, fingerprinted, and shuffled into a cell at the station, I slumped into a chair in the writing room, next to Pete.

  Whilst I had been locked in a battle over the names and precise colours of various items of clothing, Pete had stepped up and finished all the paperwork, like an absolute champion. We were ready to hand Sarah over to the CPU54, who would be interviewing her on tape, and taking her through the rest of the process.

  ‘I’m knackered,’ Pete said, half-sitting, half-lying in a creaky old office chair.

  ‘Me and all,’ I said, and closed my eyes for a moment. ‘Please tell me the shift is over.’

  ‘Actually,’ Pete said, ‘we’ve been relieved. The night shift took over and the skipper has let us off the hook.’

  Awesome.

  ‘Do you want some moral assistance and do that phone call we talked about now?’ I asked, referring to the call to the counsellor I’d advised him to make after the particularly tragic sudden death case.

  ‘You know, I had completely forgotten abou
t all of that,’ Pete said, looking pensive. ‘Nothing like evicting a druggie from her own mother’s house to get your mind of stuff, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, in that case …’ I said, giving Pete an easy way to get off the hook, ‘Pub?’

  ‘You know,’ Pete grinned, ‘I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard since the last time someone suggested going to the pub.’

  We walked over to the alehouse down the road from the police station, and drank all the beer.

  An irate customer

  I had just attended a stabbing incident that had gone terribly awry. We had been forced to shut down a road and call in the cavalry to help secure evidence. It had been a bloody intensive couple of hours and I was exhausted. The area was crawling with people: a couple of PCSOs55 were stopping people from crossing the police line on the pavement, a load of SOCOs56 were doing their thing gathering evidence, the traffic lads were directing traffic, and I was just standing by the side of the road, shattered, not much good to anyone.

  I surveyed the scene. A patch of blood on the road. Blue flashing lights everywhere, interspersed with the odd flashbulb going off as the SOCOs took photos.

  When somebody has been stabbed, the CPS57 will usually try to push for an ‘attempted murder’ conviction. In this case, since the victim was still in intensive care in the hospital, we didn’t know whether he was going to make it – if he died, it would be a murder charge (if and when we found whoever did this). Needless to say, if we want to try to make a murder charge stick, we need to make sure that we get every little shred of evidence we can find – every scrap of fabric, everything an assailant may have dropped, and analyse every drop of blood we can find. As such, the SOCOs get the scene to themselves for however long they want, and the road will remain closed for as long as they want.

  To a bystander, the scene must have looked like utter chaos, but to me it was different. Indeed, I felt Zen-like: there was nothing I could do at that moment. The victim was no longer considered to be in critical condition. I was about four hours into overtime pay, and everything was ‘okay’.

  As always, it was just when I thought everything was going so well that it happened: I heard a lot of shouting and the familiar sound of someone trying to calm somebody else down. Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I walked over to see what was going on.

  A man was standing half out of his car: one foot in the footwell of the vehicle, one on the road. He was leaning over his car door, shouting loudly at a PCSO.

  ‘Fuck you – you don’t have any power over me. I’m running late, and I demand to be told what the fuck is going on here?’

  ‘Please calm down, sir, there has been an assault, and we are trying to find out—’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about your fucking assault. There’s not even an ambulance here anymore! When are you going to open the fucking road? I’m running late!’

  The man spotted me as I was about a car-length away.

  ‘Ah! Finally someone with some fucking authority,’ he said, before turning to the PCSO: ‘Jog on, douchebag.’

  ‘Mate, what’s the problem?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m not your fucking mate,’ he said.

  Now, I’m not actually a big fan of swearing. There’s a time and a place, and the scene of the stabbing of a teenager is neither.

  ‘Hey, pipe down. I’m not swearing at you, there’s no reason for you to swear at me,’ I said, already tired of the guy.

  ‘That prick,’ the man said, nodding at the PCSO, ‘is trying to stop me from getting to my dinner reservation. I’m already half an hour late. Can I leave the keys for my car with you? I’ll walk to Upper Street and get a cab.’

  ‘Umm, no, you cannot leave your keys with me, and I really don’t appreciate you talking to my colleague like that,’ I said to him.

  It’s no secret that PCSOs and police officers occasionally don’t see eye to eye, but I’m generally a big fan of them. This one in particular I knew quite well: he’s smart, hard-working, and became a PCSO as a stepping stone to becoming a police officer. He’s definitely one of the good guys.

  ‘You have no fucking idea who I am, do you? I know your inspector, you know!’

  ‘I don’t really care who you know,’ I said. ‘We’ve had a stabbing, and a fifteen-year-old boy might be dying as you stand here insulting me. Show some respect.’

  With that, the man stepped fully out of his car. He closed the door and squared up to me.

  ‘What did you say to me?’ he said.

  ‘I told you to show some respect. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. The only thing I know is that ever since I set eyes on you, you’ve done nothing but insult my colleague and myself. A kid might be dying, and in order to have a chance of convicting the culprit, we have to do a proper investigation. If that means that we have to keep the road shut for an hour, so be it. In fact, I don’t care if we have to keep the road closed for a month; you’re not getting through before anyone else. There’s an officer over there directing traffic, so you should be through in about twenty minutes at the most.’

  ‘That’s unacceptable. I need to get through now. Why don’t I just park over there,’ he said, and pointed at a bicycle path on the other side of a flower bed.

  By now, I was through being patient with him.

  ‘It’s a twenty-minute wait. You can wait for twenty minutes. Call the restaurant, explain what happened, I’m sure they will understand. If you drive through that flower bed,’ I said, pointing towards the area he indicated he would drive through, ‘I’ll do you for careless driving and criminal damage.’

  I turned around to talk to the PCSO for a second, but the man placed a hand on my shoulder, and turned me around forcibly, so I was facing him again.

  ‘Get. Your. Hands. Off. Me,’ I said.

  He withdrew quickly, but was still too close for comfort.

  ‘Get in your car, shut up and stop causing a scene.’

  ‘You fucking dickholes are all the same,’ he muttered, just loud enough for me and the PCSO to hear.

  ‘Excuse me? What was that? You have exactly three seconds to get your arse back in your car, before I arrest you for a breach of the peace,’ I said, and to demonstrate I meant it I took my handcuffs out of their holder.

  The cars in front of his started to move. He stared at me for several long seconds; it looked briefly as if he was going to pull back and take a swing at me. Or perhaps I was wishing that he would take a punch at me, because by now I was itching to arrest him.

  I leaned forward, my nose nearly touching his.

  ‘Three …’ I said.

  ‘Two …’ I made a clicking sound with my handcuffs.

  ‘One …’

  ‘Fuck you,’ the man finally said, and climbed into his car. As he drove off, he very nearly ran over my foot. The PCSO had run his number plate through CAD58 and PNC59, but it had come back clean.

  I turned to him: ‘You okay?’

  He nodded and shrugged.

  ‘What a cock,’ he observed.

  It was my turn to nod. We walked back to the crime scene together.

  Stopping and searching

  ‘We’ve had a report of a group of six youths fighting with knives in Guy Street Park, descriptions to follow,’ the familiar voice of the CAD operator crackled on the radio. He paused to take the details from the 999 call in progress before relaying: ‘We have one IC360 male, around five foot five, wearing a black hoodie and a red baseball cap. We also have an IC3 male, skinny, around six feet tall, wearing a dark tracksuit with a large Nike logo, and an IC1 male wearing jeans and a red sweater. Several knives have been seen. More descriptions to follow.’

  ‘Show Bravo Alpha one-zero-one,’ the skipper transmitted on his radio, signifying that we intended to respond to the call. ‘We’re a Blunt serial, one plus two plus four.’

  In this transmission, the skipper had conveyed to the CAD desk that we were the unit tasked to combat knife crime on the borough at that time, and
that there were seven of us: an inspector, two sergeants and four PCs.

  ‘There!’ shouted Jim, pointing between two buildings. The driver pulled the carrier to a halt, before throwing it into reverse and backing up so we could take another look. Sure enough, someone fitting the description came into view: dark tracksuit, large brand logo, dark skin colour, on a bicycle. He was coming towards us, but when he spotted the huge silver Sprinter van with ‘Police’ written down the side, he abruptly changed direction.

  ‘Out!’ shouted the skipper, and four of us piled through the sliding door at the side of the van. We headed into the council estate, whilst the van left to cut off any escape at the other end of the estate.

  As I turned the corner, I was suddenly faced with him. He was talking to someone over a fence. He started when he saw me, but he had stopped his bike with the front wheel sticking through the black metal of the fence and couldn’t easily get away. He dismounted the bike and started to walk away from us, quickly, leaving his bike behind.

  ‘Excuse me, mate,’ I said after him.

  He kept walking.

  ‘You! In the tracksuit! Please stop!’ I called.

  He pretended not to hear me.

  I started running, and my colleagues followed suit. He didn’t slow down, but he didn’t speed up either, so we easily caught up with him.

  ‘Stand with your arms to your sides,’ one of the PCs said, as we surrounded him. ‘You are being detained for the purpose of a search; we’ve had some reports of someone fitting your description—’

  He didn’t get to finish his well-practised stop-and-search spiel before being interrupted.

  ‘Fits my description? You mean he’s black, yeah?’ the suspect shot back, and moved one of his arms down from his Jesus-on-the-cross pose.

  ‘Don’t move, keep your hands out to your sides,’ the PC said, grabbing his arm and moving it so that it pointed straight out to the side again. I then started the search.

  ‘What’s your name, mate?’ I asked him.

  ‘I ain’t your mate, but it’s Hakeem,’ he replied.

  I continued my search.