Confessions of a Police Constable

by Matt Delito

  15 Road Traffic Collision

  16 Gravity Friction-Lock Baton

  17 Push To Talk

  18 ‘Blues’ are the flashing blue lights. ‘Twos’ refer to the two-tone sirens used on police cars (the ones that kids normally ape when they run around the house shouting ‘neeh-naah-neeh-naah’).

  19 Diplomatic Protection Group

  20 Slang for sergeant

  21 CPR is short for Cardiopulmonary resuscitation; it’s also known as ‘heart massaging’ or ‘chest compressions’.

  22 Emergency Life Support

  23 Automatic External Defibrillator. It’s like those paddles they use in hospitals to ‘shock’ patients back to life, except more suitable for carrying around with you in an ambulance.

  24 Members of the Public

  25‘Bodies’ is police slang for prisoners; not, as some people assume, people headed for the morgue.

  26 Officer Safety Training

  27 CS is technically o-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile – but the letters C and S refer to Corson and Stoughton, the two Americans who discovered the compound.

  28 Personal Protection Equipment

  29 Mobile Data Terminal

  30 Computer Aided Dispatch

  31 Police National Computer

  32 Armed Response Vehicle

  33 Saying the Q-word to mean ‘the opposite of busy’ is bad luck in this job; whenever someone exclaims, ‘My, is it quiet today’, it invariably means that the rest of the shift descends into a shitstorm of historical proportions. The last time someone mentioned the Q-word over the radio, the riots broke out a few hours later. QT stands for Quiet Time.

  34 Traffic police

  35 ‘Tug’ – to pull a car over.

  36 Immediate Capture of Evidence for Front Line Officers – or, as most people would call it, a camera. I love that sometimes the acronyms they come up with (‘ICEFLO’) are the same length as the words they replace (‘camera’). Only in the Metropolitan Police …

  37 A police officer who’s been in the job for a long time; usually a term of endearment.

  38 Personal Radio

  39 Technically, an assault where the attacker is intending to cause Grievous Bodily Harm.

  40 Crown Prosecution Service

  41 Crime Reporting Information System: the computer system where we log all criminal incidences. When you report a crime and you’re given a Crime Reference number, it has been issued by our CRIS system.

  42 SOCO. Like CSI, but more British.

  43 Officer Safety Training

  44 Forensic Medical Examiner

  45 Borough Support Unit

  46 Crime Reporting Information System

  47 Automatic Time Recorder: an automatic stamping machine that is calibrated to only ever stamp the exact time it was used, along with a code for the police station that did the stamping.

  48 Case Progression Unit: officers who deal with cases currently in process.

  49 Crown Prosecution Service

  50 Senior Management Team

  51 Officer Safety Training

  52 MG-11 is the name of the Witness Statement form used in the Met.

  53 Evidence and Action Book. A handy little 34-page booklet that has loads of aide-memoires in it, so overworked and slightly stressed police officers can do their jobs better.

  54 Case Progression Unit

  55 Police Community Support Officers

  56 Scene of Crime Officers

  57 Crown Prosecution Service

  58 Computer Aided Dispatch

  59 Police National Computer

  60 African / Afro-Caribbean (see Identity Codes in the glossary)

  61 Push To Talk

  62 Aka Facebook Raping – to change someone else’s Facebook status or information without their permission or knowledge. As a general rule, ‘fraping’ has nothing to do with actual sexual assault. However, because our police crime systems have filters in place, whenever we write ‘Facebook rape’ in a police report, especially when it refers to victims of crime under the age of 18, it sets off all sorts of extravagant alarm bells over at Scotland Yard. But that, as they say, is a) a story for another day, and b) SEP (Someone Else’s Problem).

  63 Senior Management Team

  64 Witness statement

  65 The Metropolitan Police public order branch

  66 Form 54 is filled in when a Met vehicle has to be taken off the road for any reason: anything from a broken indicator bulb to a blown engine results in a car being 54’d, and it can’t be taken out until the problem is fixed by a Met-approved mechanic.

  67 Helicopter Emergency Medical Service: the London Air Ambulance charity

  68 Evidence and Action Book

  69 Senior Management Team

  70 Specialist Firearms Officers (SFOs)

  Epilogue

  Being a police officer is one of the most incredible jobs in the world.

  It makes me laugh and cry and worry about the state of humanity. It encourages me to push myself beyond what I once thought was possible. It keeps me on my toes.

  I’ve fought for my life. I’ve fought for the lives of others. I’ve saved lives, and I’ve felt people’s heartbeats weaken and ebb away.

  You can’t do this job without investing something of yourself. For some officers, it’s impossible to leave the role behind even when they’ve taken their uniforms off – but whatever happens, you have your colleagues around you, and my team members have become some of my best friends. Sometimes, in my more sentimental moments, I can’t help but think of my colleagues as my band of brothers. A good thing, when your life occasionally depends on being able to trust them, and vice versa.

  Policing can be stressful and emotionally draining, but it can also leave you buzzing. It can leave you feeling that you, personally, have contributed to making a tiny slice of London just a little bit better. Safer.

  I remember the job I used to have. I remember sitting behind a computer screen all day, trying to sell people things they didn’t want, in exchange for money they didn’t have. A time when the measure of my success was a figure on a balance sheet at the end of each quarter. I’d take home a bonus (usually less than I, but more than my boss, felt I deserved), get pissed on ludicrously expensive wine and celebrate my ‘successful’ life. But all the while, I was miserable, because in the grand scheme of things, nothing I was doing really mattered.

  Today’s Me is embarrassed at the Me I used to be.

  There are plenty of blogs on the Internet that are devoted to explaining how terrible it is to be a police officer, both in the Met and elsewhere. If you are one of those bloggers, I say: mate, if your current police job really is as bad as my pre-police job, quit. Get out of there. There are loads of people who are dreaming of donning a uniform and making a difference. If you hate it so much, make room for those who haven’t yet burned out.

  Being a police officer might not be the perfect job; given the hours we work and the mind-boggling amount of shite we have to deal with – well, let’s just say you wouldn’t become a police officer for the money. As in any large organisation, the bosses often ‘don’t get it’. There’s too much paperwork, too much health and safety, and too many new initiatives that spectacularly (and occasionally, hilariously) fail to reflect what it’s actually like to be a police officer on the streets of London.

  And yet, as I’m writing this, after coming home at the end of an absolute nasty-euphemism-for-female-genitalia of a shift, I’m sitting back with a cold beer, and thinking I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Today, I made a difference.

  I hope you liked my book.

  Stay out of trouble.

  Matt Delito PC592MD

  Glossary and abbreviations

  54 – Form 54 is the form you fill in when a Met vehicle has to be taken off the road for any reason: anything from a broken indicator bulb to a blown engine. Hilariously, we are not allowed to do any maintenance on the cars: we’re not allowed to change a fuse or light-bulb; we�
�re not supposed to jump-start a car that has a flat battery; they have even taken our jacks away so we can’t change a flat tyre. It’s doubly ironic for the traffic coppers who have been trained to take a car apart to look for stolen or illegal parts or modifications, so clearly have all the mechanical skills needed to replace a little fuse. A car is said to be ‘54’d’ when it is waiting for a repair.

  124D – Form 124D is the domestic incident form; this is what is filled in when we go to domestics. It’s also used as radio slang for domestic incidents – ‘Delito, can you go to a one-two-four’ generally means that I’ll be dodging kitchen knives the rest of the shift.

  5090 – A 5090 is a form, in triplicate, that is used when we do a stop and search. Some officers are able to do these on electronic devices these days, but most of us are still stuck with the forms. To ‘do a 5090’ is to do a ‘stop and search’ or ‘stop and account’.

  ABH – An ‘assault occasioning Actual Bodily Harm’, which means a serious assault resulting in non-trivial injuries.

  AED – Automatic External Defibrillator: a machine that can be used to reset the beating pattern of somebody’s heart after a heart attack – kind of like those paddles they use on TV (after they scream ‘CLEAR’, and you hear a zapping sound), except they’re automatic, and a lot less dramatic.

  AFO – Authorised Firearms Officer: the guys armed with loud weapons (guns) and sparkly weapons (tasers).

  ATR – Automatic Time Recorder: an automatic stamping machine that is calibrated to only ever stamp the exact time it was used, along with a code for the police station that carried out the stamping.

  Airwave – The system we use for our personal radios.

  Angler – A burglar who uses a stick with a hook on it to steal things. Usually, anglers try to steal car keys that are left near the front door – they use their hook to grab the keys through the letterbox.

  ATGATT – A motorcycling term meaning: All The Gear, All The Time. It refers to riders that choose to wear all their protective gear, even for very short rides, resisting the temptation to pop to the shops in their T-shirt and jeans.

  Black Rat – Traffic police. So named because black rats eat their young, and traffic police will go after other police officers in traffic because they should know better. For a while, many police officers would place a small ‘black rat’ sticker in their rear windshield in the hope that other officers wouldn’t pull them over. However, since that rumour took hold, lots of people started putting black rat stickers on their cars, and now you’re as likely to get pulled over with such a sticker as not.

  Body – Police slang for someone who is arrested. ‘To get the body’ means to be the arresting officer. ‘We’ve got loads of bodies in this shift’ means that lots of people have been conveyed to custody.

  Brass – Anyone ranked Superintendent or above.

  CARB – Collision and Accident Report Book: the little yellow booklet we fill in when we come across, er, collisions and accidents in traffic.

  CHIMP – see PCSO

  CPR – CardioPulmonary Resuscitation is an emergency procedure which is performed in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person in cardiac arrest.

  CPU – Case Progression Unit: officers who deal with cases currently in process.

  CR – Crime Reference number (see CRIS)

  Crimint – Criminal Intelligence is a database that keeps intelligence (intel) on all information we get from our informants. It’s quite clever, and ranks the intel based on how reliable it is (ranging from ‘known to be false’ via ‘from a usually reliable source’ to ‘known to be true because I saw it with my own eyes’).

  CRIS – Crime Reporting Information System: the computer system onto which we log all criminal incidences. When you report a crime, you’re given a Crime Reference number issued by our CRIS system.

  CSI – Crime Scene Investigator: usually called SOCOs in the Met. Some SOCOs will routinely refer to themselves as CSIs, because of the TV show, and because they believe it makes them sound cooler. To be fair, it kind of does.

  Custodian – The helmet-hat-thing that male Metropolitan Police officers are issued.

  DPG – Diplomatic Protection Group: the specialist officers, usually AFOs, tasked with protecting dignitaries, VIPs, heads of foreign states and other diplomats.

  EAB – Evidence and Action Book: a handy little 34-page booklet that has lots of aide-memoires in it, enabling overworked and slightly stressed police officers to do their jobs better.

  Early Turn – Working the early shift.

  ELS – Emergency Life Support. In the Met, officers aren’t taught ‘first aid’ as such. If we come across anyone with an injury, we call an ambulance, and our job is simple: we do what we can to keep the victim alive until ambulance arrives.

  F506 – (only when written) Someone who is five foot six inches tall (see also M167).

  Flat Cap – The hat Met officers are issued for duties where wearing a Custodian is not appropriate.

  FME – Forensic Medical Examiner.

  FPN(E) – A traffic ticket where you, in addition to having to pay a fine, end up with a number of points on your licence.

  FPN – Fixed Penalty Notice – a traffic ticket.

  GBH – Grievous Bodily Harm: an assault where the attacker is intending to carry out serious or even life-changing injuries.

  GFLB – Gravity Friction Lock Baton: the extendable batons police officers are issued.

  Grade – Calls we attend are ‘graded’ based on how urgently we need to get to the location. Grade E or Echo is ‘within 24 hours’. Grade S or Sierra is ‘within the hour’. Graded I or India means ‘however fast you can get there’. Our target within our borough is within 12 minutes of the call being logged in the system.

  Graveyard Shift – The night shift.

  GTP – Good To Police: areas where people are friendly to police. This also refers to shops that give a discount to uniformed officers.

  Gun – In radio protocol a ‘gun’ is anything that can propel a bullet: rifles, cannons, handguns or homemade devices for propelling bullet-like things are all referred to as ‘guns’.

  Guv – Any officer with the Inspector rank or higher.

  HEMS – Helicopter Emergency Medical Service: aka the London Air Ambulance charity. They have a helicopter and a load of rather fast ground-support vehicles, and only deal with trauma incidents: traffic, stabbings, shootings and falling accidents, mostly. If you have any spare money kicking about, give some to HEMS; the number of lives they save every year is absolutely astonishing.

  Hendon – ‘At Hendon’ usually refers to the Peel Centre, also known as Hendon Police College. It is a huge training complex that serves as the main campus for the Metropolitan Police. It includes the advanced driving school, a load of classrooms and a series of gyms and training facilities. Interestingly, it is referred to as ‘Hendon’, even though Colindale tube station is much closer to the training centre itself.

  IC – Identity Code: see Identity codes.

  ICEFLO – One of the most ridiculous acronyms known to man. It stands for Immediate Capture of Evidence for Front Line Officers. It is much easier to just say ‘Camera’, which is what this means.

  IRV – Incident Response Vehicle

  Job – Police officers don’t tend to refer to police as ‘police’. Instead, we call it ‘job’. If you’re asking somebody else if they are also a police officer, you’d ask ‘Are you job?’ A police car is a ‘job car’. A police dog is a ‘job dog’. A police-issued mobile phone is a ‘job phone’. You’ll have spotted the pattern by now.

  K9 unit – Dog unit: A hilarious pun on the word ‘Canine’, I’m sure. Shoot me now.

  Knife – Much like anything that propels bullets is called ‘gun’, anything with a sharp edge or point is called a ‘knife’ when you’re talking on the radio: this includes machetes, swords, injection needles, s
crewdrivers and corkscrews. If it cuts or stabs, it’s a ‘knife’.

  LAS – London Ambulance Service

  Late Turn – Working the late shift.

  M167 – (only when written) someone who is one metre67 centimetres tall (see also F506).

  MDT – Mobile Data Terminal: A computer built into police cars. It contains (often inaccurate) maps, and is used by CAD operators to send tasks directly to our cars.

  Met – The Metropolitan Police

  MG-11 – The MG-11 form is used for general witness statements, whether taken from a victim, witness, informant or another police officer. It is always referred to as an ‘MG-11’, even though ‘Em Gee Eleven’ has one more syllable than ‘Witness Statement’, so you’re not actually saving any time by using a form number rather than a description of what you’re doing. If all of that makes perfect sense to you, you’re ready to be a Metropolitan Police Constable. Congratulations.

  MOP – A Member of the Public. Basically, anyone who is not a police officer.

  Motorcycle Roadcraft – see Roadcraft

  MPS – Metropolitan Police Service

  Nick (noun) – usually ‘The Nick’: the police station.

  Nick (verb) – to arrest somebody.

  Non-Res – Non-residential: usually refers to commercial properties, such as in the context of ‘non-residential burglary’.

  Old Sweat – A police officer who has been in the job for a long time. Usually a term of endearment.

  OST – Officer Safety Training: all training we get in being able to defend ourselves, perform arrests and assess various risks.

  Panda – A police car, so called because they used to be black and white, which made them look a little bit like panda bears. The name stuck.

  PB (also PPB) – see Pocketbook

  PC – Police Constable: see also Ranks

  PCSO – Extra uniformed people out there that can help be the police’s eyes and ears, and take some tasks off our plate, but who ultimately don’t have police powers (like powers of arrest etc). Sometimes referred to as CHIMPS, an acronym meaning Completely Helpless In Most Policing Situations. A bit cruel, perhaps, and I do think PCSOs are very useful, but ultimately, it’s rather annoying when we have to go help out people who have ‘Police’ printed on their chest, without having the powers usually associated with the word.