What has happened to our Police Force?

[indiegirly]

If someone burgles you, there are no policemen available to come to your house. If there is a disturbance on your street and somebody is attacked, there are no police available to come out.

If you speed on a motorway above 70mph, there is always a policeman with a gun to catch you.

Does anybody else think we have lost our Police Force and gained Traffic Wardens in return??

[Pippa68]

Yup ~ it appears that the Police have been instructed to go out & grab as much money as they can in one day....maybe they are on OTE wages ;o)

[stoo_pid]

Have to disagree I'm afraid. When I was mugged in London a couple of years ago 2 police officers were with me within a few minutes of me phoning them. A few months later in my home town in Suffolk a mate & I apprehended a sex attacker - again the police were there within minutes.

[johnlambert]

A radio presenter had his house broken into while he was there, he phoned the police who said they had no-one in the area and couldnt help, he said ok i've got a gun i'll go downstairs and shoot them.

Guess how long it took the police to arrive at his house? less than 2 minutes, and they let the burglars go and arrested him.

How mad is that?

[waimarie]

Hi indiegirly. So you live in Humberside too?

[Grunty]

Where have you seen "a policeman with a gun" checking the 70 m.p.h. limit on a motorway?

Are burglaries, disturbances or speeding most likely to kill someone?

[lady_p_gold]

Have you been burgled then indiegirly? In which case did you contact the police ? And did they say " I am sorry nobody can come" and nobody ever came ? Perhaps you could confirm this.

[mightyWBA]

The Police in Weatherfield are red hot.They always arrive within 30 minutes,and all crimes are solved,with the villan apprehended in about a week.

[Fish the Mod]

A few years ago when I lived in Wood Green , I came home from a party one summers morning and saw someone trying to break in the front door of the house across the road. A bit worse for wear, I called the Police and waited. My Mum got up and asked who was I calling at 6 in the morning. Look, I pointed to the male youth now trying the back gate. "Oh thats John, thier son said Mum, he must of lost his key. I went out on the street and John saw me and said' Bloody hell,Iv'e left my key behind. I laughed and said ' Guess what Ive done and before I could answer, I was drowned out my the roar of three Police vans and two cars ( no sirens just lights) bursting into our estate. Within seconds we were both surrounded pushed up against a wall. I manage to convince the Police what had happened and by now the whole street was out including Johns Mum and Dad. I went to bed and woke up in the afternoon convinced it was a dream. I met John a week later after trying to avoid him and we both had a chuckle but we both agreed the Police must of just had a quiet night that morning.

[flashpig]

We still have a police force.

Only called them once, I got smacked about the head on a night out. They were with me fast and were a lot of help. More than they needed to be, considering it was just a random, boozy, 'lets punch someone in the face' thing. In my defence, I wouldn't have called them were I not spitting shards of teeth. I might have needlessly pushed up the crime figures there. Sorry.

Maybe I was being looked after when someone else was being beaten or stabbed or robbed, but it was worrying to me and they calmed me down, made sure I got home, and I got a follow-up phone call and some letters and stuff (which was embarassing because it all felt a small thing in the day, at home and sober)

I got a top service, 10/10.

P.S. "If you speed on a motorway above 70mph, there is always a policeman with a gun to catch you." Always? Have you only gone over 70 on the motorway once, or do you just have a string of bad luck? So many people speed that only a tiny fraction must be caught. Anyway, if you don't do it, you can't get caught.

[lady_p_gold]

We are all waiting ......

[indiegirly]

Well, some mixed views here.. No, I have not been burgled, I read an article about a man who was, and he was in the house with them.. nobody could come. Kind of similar story to johnlambert's story, where the owner or the house then threatened to stab the burglar and all of a sudden there were police available.

I am not saying that they are doing a bad job, i'm just saying that I think that priorities need to change.

[flashpig]

They should change their priorities so that they care less about people killing each other and more about burglaries? That's all it sounds like with this radio presenter...

Radio presenter says "I'm going to murder someone with a gun", police are there in less than 2 minutes to arrest him. Top job, well done police.

[lady_p_gold]

Well there was probably a lot more to it and unless you knew the full story .. what probably happened is this. When you report a burglary it goes onto a screen and then a dispatcher has a long list of things which he or she then has to prioritise. If it is an appointment for an officer to call and take details of a burglary then an officer will not be sent while there are other things going which they need to attend urgently. However if someone then called and said they were going to shoot a burglar etc. of course then it would be changed to an emergency situation and an officer would be sent immeidately. So when someone was told that nobody could come that is probably what happened, they would have got to him eventually to take details. The police are stretched very thin and sometimes there just are not enough to go round and someone has to make the decision as to what to do with the officers they have available.

[agnabeya]

In my home (rural and a little isolated) about three years ago - I heard noises on my roof around 2am.
I was terrified and called the police station 10 miles away.

They arrived in about 5 minutes (must have been in the area I hope they weren't speeding:-)

- searched my grounds -
the nice policewoman made me tea and calmed me down -
and the chap came in after finding a wildlife on my roof.
A fox had chased a squirrel into my attic.
They both went round my property looking for weak points in my security and gave me advice.
They couldn't have been more helpful.

As for speeding - have you ever had to deal with the aftermath of a high speed impact?
Have you really no idea of how dangerous speeding is?
Why does everyone trivialise it as unimportant?

PS- the squirrel was still in residence when I left that house last year........