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I like to think of myself as a good citizen, I work, pay my taxes, give to charity, don't break the law and try my best to be respectful to all people regardles of their beliefes/backgrounds and so on.

In 28 years I have never been arrested and have helped the Police on a few occaisions where my job at the time has called for it. My only blip was a parking ticket for having two wheels on the kerb outside my own house, I paid the ticket within the hour.

As such I expect the Police to take it seriously when I phone them to report a potentialy serious crime, oh how naive of me.

I returned home from work to Casa Squilverine to see a large articulated lorry with a battered looking mustard yellow shipping container on the back. I thought it was a bit odd because I live in a fairly quiet part of town where the roads are a bit small for such a vehicle. As I drove past it things got stranger. All over the pavement where about 15 televisions, 8 or 9 fridges a couple of mini moto's and some other electricals, all of which were obviously second hand. Surrounding them were a group of 8 or 9 very dodgy looking gentlemen of the foriegn persuasion.
There was clearly no way these guys and what they were doing was legitimate so I phoned the Police to report this. I spent a good 10 minutes giving them descriptions of the blokes, the lorry and the contents (bear in mind the lorry was also full of kit which I couldn't make out). I said that it would be worth them checking out the whole operation as it screamed stollen goods and he assured me that there were people on the way.....

1 hour later and the lorry has gone, so have the dodgy blokes and all that is left are a few trashed electrical bits.

What I find hard to understand is that at 6pm on a Tuesday (hardly a day or time reknowned for criminal activity) the Police were unable to send a single car to check out what potentialy was a haul of stollen electrical goods and possibly some illegal imigrants too.

I may send a complaint tomorrow, but will probably be told my call was not a priority as somewhere, someone has shouted names at a fat kid so they had to send in the riot squad.

So asides from venting my spleen what experience have you had when dealing with the Police? Any stories of good or bad dealings will be interesting to hear.

When seconds count the police are only minutes (or hours evidently) away...

My first house me and my ex brought was in a fairly dodgy area, not that bad but wearing a suit to work got me noticed.

Our shed was broken into, lock on the back gate was broken and a small wooden door at the front of the property was wrenched off its hinges. the police were notified about all incidents, never had an officer come round.

Things came to a head when my ex called me at work, she had come home early and found a pole driven through the front door.

Obviously I went home to calm the ex down called the police and...nothing..all we got was a phone call from a police support unit.

To a certain extent I can understand why police may not respond to non critical non life threatening incidents particularly as they are under pressure from a multitude of groups to get things done right but a physical response may have deterred one of the crimes and maybe I would not have found spike through my door.

Funnily enough a guy I used to work with had to get the police to come to a burglary in progress in his house by saying he was going to chase the crims with a knife! (they gave him a ticking off but left it a that due to him being a new father and obviously wanting to protect his baby who had just come home)

Mr. Burning wrote:Funnily enough a guy I used to work with had to get the police to come to a burglary in progress in his house by saying he was going to chase the crims with a knife! (they gave him a ticking off but left it a that due to him being a new father and obviously wanting to protect his baby who had just come home)

I always remember a similar story of a guy who kept having his garden shed getting broken into and his gardening equipment stolen. One eveninh he notices a noise coming from the garden and sure enough he spies two crims trying to get the padlock off, he phones the Police and says "if you get here now you will catch them in the act!" they reply that they don't have any units available for the next 4 hours, fed up with their lack of support he says "fine then I'll get my gun and deal with it myself" before slamming the phone down. 8 minutes later a van and two armed responce cars draw up to the house and arrest the two crims who are trying to make off with the guys lawn mower. A rather annoyed Police sergeant confronts the home owner and says "I thought you said you had a gun" to which the man replies "I thought you said you didn't have anyone available for the next 4 hours"

Not sure if it's true but it made me laugh

Ouch...sorry, fellas. The only time I've ever had to call "The Man" (s)he showed up very quickly and tried very hard to catch the perpetrator (I suprised someone trying to steal the hubcaps off of a co-worker's truck in the parking lot).

They're probably overworked and understaffed...or they're lazy, thuggish louts who don't care about anything but driving fast and beating the crap out of people. Gotta be one or the other!

Mr. Burning wrote:My first house me and my ex brought was in a fairly dodgy area, not that bad but wearing a suit to work got me noticed.

Our shed was broken into, lock on the back gate was broken and a small wooden door at the front of the property was wrenched off its hinges. the police were notified about all incidents, never had an officer come round.

Things came to a head when my ex called me at work, she had come home early and found a pole driven through the front door.

Obviously I went home to calm the ex down called the police and...nothing..all we got was a phone call from a police support unit.

When I was 6 or 7 something similar to this happened to my parents and I.

At the time we lived in a suburb dominated by elderly people, and social conservatives; all focused around a megachruch with many similarities to Rick Warren's Saddleback Church. We had moved into town at the behest of the Church council that employed my dad. They wanted him to start a congregation in town (he specializes in new ministry); reasoning that the presence of a megachurch made for a good opportunity to present alternatives views (my father is part of fairly liberal denomination).

We were there for a year, and everything was going pretty well. My dad's congregation was steadily growing, and making headway on a number of the points of emphasis laid down by the governing body; primarily abortion and women's outreach. Then, on New Year's Eve, we had a brick thrown through our front window. Not a small thing, but I remember my parents chalking it up to drunk kids, which seems reasonable given the timing. They called the police, obviously, but no one showed. Two weeks later, after the window was repaired, the incident repeated; only this time it was wrapped in a note referring to my father as a 'fething baby-killer'. Again, there was no response from the police. That window was broken 11 times in all, and all but the first included some form of derogatory or threatening note related to my father's ministry. Never got a response from the cops outside of an incident report for insurance purposes.

As soon as the congregation was on its feet, my dad took a different job and moved us to a different suburb.

I work in a hospital and we have been told that if we really need the police to turn up we need to say that we fear for our safety (despite the fact that a hospital is probably somewhere that really does need protecting due to all the people who cannot protect themselves because of illness etc), otherwise there is a good chance that they will either not turn up or will take forever.

We had a stash house next to my parent"s place in Canuckistan. There had been a grow -op across the alley and family friends had a grow-op busted on their street one Christmas afternoon. Anyway, my old man and the rest of the last of the summer wine gang decided to play cops and watch this house next to ours. It definitely was suspicious, no one was there, the guy who bought it paid like 30K over the asking price and took possession within a week, different cars showing up in the middle of the night, license plates being moved from car to car regularly, etc. Everyone in the neighbourhood had pretty much had complained about the place (they never mowed the lawn or shovelled the walkway), but the cops did sweet FA.

Help the Police, beat yourself up.

Wait the Police were pretty popular. i don't see why they need our help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aENX1Sf3fgQ&feature=channel

Frazzled wrote:Wait the Police were pretty popular. i don't see why they need our help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aENX1Sf3fgQ&feature=channel

Now you've got "don't stand so close to me" going through my head.

squilverine wrote:I returned home from work to Casa Squilverine to see a large articulated lorry with a battered looking mustard yellow shipping container on the back. I thought it was a bit odd because I live in a fairly quiet part of town where the roads are a bit small for such a vehicle. As I drove past it things got stranger. All over the pavement where about 15 televisions, 8 or 9 fridges a couple of mini moto's and some other electricals, all of which were obviously second hand. Surrounding them were a group of 8 or 9 very dodgy looking gentlemen of the foriegn persuasion.

Well there's your problem, can't get away with being so un- politically correct these days, especially to the police. I believe nowadays they prefer 'travellers.'

Nevermind, lesson learned.

Only time I ever called the cops was when I was like 12.. friend of the family drove me home from our shore house about an hour ahead of my mom and the rest of the gang. We got back and there was a strange car in my driveway. So I got scared and called the cops, they came and hauled it away. My mom got home and saw all the cop cars and freaked and thought I died or something, so she ran in like "WTF DOOD?" and I told her about the car, totally forgetting that a work friend of hers was at the shore too and turns out it was her car that got towed outta my driveway. My sister laughed and called me a noob. Or whatever the word for that was back in 1984...

Can't expect the police to turn up everytime some thug threatens you, or steals from your house.
They can't be in two places at once, and theres all these people taking photographs to question.

The only two times I've ever dealt with the fuzz were satisfactory enough. Both were responses to burglaries, both got responses within ten minutes, but neither instance never led to any arrests. Unfortunate, especially as we knew who did it.

The worst I ever experienced in police incompetence happened a few years back in March.
My wife and I were sitting in the food court area of a local mall that overlooked the parking lot and talking about how nice the weather was.
At that point I saw a pickup slowly approaching and as it got closer, I noticed the guy driving had no shirt on. I joked to my wife that the man must have thought it was summer already and we had a good chuckle.

About three seconds later we saw that the guy was actually naked and masturbating as he was driving.

I immediatly called the police, giving them a description of the truck, license plate number and what the driver looked like as he drove slowly around the same area of the parking lot.
It took a while for the police to show up, and it was only one car that arrived.
I was on the phone the whole time and told the dispatcher that the officer was about 50 feet behind the truck. I was told that things were under control and to expect a call as soon as the man was caught.

About 5 minutes later I got a call and was told to meet with the officer outside. When I went, I found that the dispatcher had told the officer that the guy was behind him, so the cop turned around and went in the opposite direction, allowing the perv to escape.

The guy was never caught.

If I'd said instead there was a teenager drinking a beer, there would have been at least 5 cars on the scene within a minute instead of the time it took one cop to show.

Another time I had to deal with the police was when I lived in New Orleans and had wrestled an armed robber to the ground before he had a chance to shoot a co worker at a hotel I worked at. I held him in a joint lock for about 15 minutes before the police showed up to take him away.

The guy couldn't walk very well after being held for that long and the cops had to pick him up between them to carry him away.

Commissar Molotov wrote:Ouch...sorry, fellas. The only time I've ever had to call "The Man" (s)he showed up very quickly and tried very hard to catch the perpetrator (I suprised someone trying to steal the hubcaps off of a co-worker's truck in the parking lot).

They're probably overworked and understaffed...or they're lazy, thuggish louts who don't care about anything but driving fast and beating the crap out of people. Gotta be one or the other!

...Or it might be a bit of both.

Necros wrote:My sister laughed and called me a noob. Or whatever the word for that was back in 1984...

Thought Criminal?

I was once stopped by an officer for riding my longboard in my own neighborhood. He threatened to confiscate my board if he caught me again. I am very fortunate as my neighborhood is the last place you would look to catch someone breaking the law. Nothing more serious than the occasional tp-ing occurs regularly. Now why would this cop be patrolling this quiet suburban neighborhood when he could be better spending his time busting drug dealers and such in the city? Do police have nothing better to do then bully kids who don't wear helmets?

48 mins long, but it will blow your mind.




28 mins long, but it's an actual Officer speaking just after the above guy, also reminding you talking to the Cops is the most pointless and dangerous thing you can do.

at squilverine

This is the story you were thinking of.

How to Get the Police to Respond Really Quickly


Did you hear about the guy who called the police because he saw some people stealing things out of the shed in his back yard? The police asked him if they were in his house and he said, "No." Then the police said that all units were busy and he should lock his doors. They would send someone as soon as they could.

The guy hung up, waited 30 seconds and called back. "I just called you about the people stealing things out of my shed. Well, don't worry about it, I shot them."

In less than five minutes, police cars screeched into his driveway, sirens blaring, and caught the thieves red-handed.

"I thought you said you shot them," said the officer.

"Thought you said no one was available," he replied.

serves them right, police seems to be not very interessted in upholding law and security any more.
in germany its the same, if you see vadalism or theft, cops are seldom quick at the scene of crime.
hired cops, though not the kind that to be interessted in overal protection, are specially fast if its their contract clients property...

A quick update on the situation...

3 hours after my post I got a knock at the door from 2 PCSO's, for those not in the UK they are like pretend Police, they have a uniform and are sent out to take statements, ironicaly they are supposed to free up proper Police so that they can respond to reports of criminal activity!
I asked them in and they proceded to ask me all the same questions I was asked by the guy I talked to over the phone. Even they were suprised that no one bothered to take a look at the time.
The best part of it was they scribbled down a reference number on a crappy post it note and asked me that if I saw this happening again to take down as many details as I could, including photos if possible! Bit of a cheek considering that is what they are paid to do and should have done at the time.
At least I know my tax money is being well spent between them and the local lesbian pipe smokers outreach group

Sounds like the sort of story one of you fleet street newspapers would love to hear about.

Should have called the fire brigade and said that the house the truck was in front of was on fire.
Guaranteed arrival within minutes, the 'bad guys' are pinned in, everyone in the street comes outside to see what is going on.

Shenanigans ensue.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Sounds like the sort of story one of you fleet street newspapers would love to hear about.

Should have called the fire brigade and said that the house the truck was in front of was on fire.
Guaranteed arrival within minutes, the 'bad guys' are pinned in, everyone in the street comes outside to see what is going on.

Shenanigans ensue.

Followed by the criminals being let off because you illegally rang the fire brigade and you being locked up for 50 years for it.

Gwar! wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Sounds like the sort of story one of you fleet street newspapers would love to hear about.

Should have called the fire brigade and said that the house the truck was in front of was on fire.
Guaranteed arrival within minutes, the 'bad guys' are pinned in, everyone in the street comes outside to see what is going on.

Shenanigans ensue.

Followed by the criminals being let off because you illegally rang the fire brigade and you being locked up for 50 years for it.

You could make sure you weren't illegally calling the fire brigade.

I was on work experience at a pet shop for what turned out to be a very eventful week.
On the second day, I took my "new" mobile phone with me, which I had only gotten recently. As you can probibly tell, I didn't return home with it. We discovered it had been stolen within an hour of the shop opening. The police turned up pretty quickly, had a look around, petted a kitty and left, telling the owner and myself that there was nothing they could do, despite us only having one person go in and out of the shop since opening.

Simple. Go ring the fire brigade from a public phone, and give a false name.

@ gwar!:

creeepy!!! now i made up my mind: never ever vistit the united states, cause its not good for ones health. instead i wont leave my home and stay at the kitcvhen table with my hands folded over the surface for anyone to see...

well in america not eaven this would help it seems....

I used to live in a council flat (many years ago) with some very loud annoying people (Afghanies I think) wrestling and stuff into the middle of thie night. It wasn't fun and this would upset my then at the time girlfriend terribly.

Eventually we phoned the police as knocks on the door proceeded by shouting at them didnt resolve anything.

We were told to keep a diary of the noise for evidence. This wasnt acceptable to me as we had already put up with the issue for a number of weeks.

I phones the police due to the noise the following evening and was so pissed off when they said they couldnt send anyone out to us. So I threatened to go up there with a baseball bat if they didnt come out immediately. They tried to convince me not to and in the end I just put the phone down in anger.

The police arrived in Two minutes, dealt with the situation and I never experienced noise from upstairs again.

You do realize most of these stories are from the UK right? RIGHT?