Tell me again why we have police ?

Anonymouslemming

A little background - we have a number of stormwater drains in our road. The covers for these go missing on average every 3 to 6 months. Their absence poses a real threat to all road users, and we've got a school down the road so there are often children riding quite close to the pavement who suffer the most when these go missing. I know, I know - think of the children, but this time I reckon it's legit. I've come close to hitting one of these myself through my own fault of letting a car push me to close to the edge of the road, but at least I am aware that they are missing as often as they are there, so I avoided the problem.

Today I am working from home because we're having some building work done, and the builder called me in to point out some blokes in a van merrily stealing these drain covers.

I immediately called the local doughnut shop, only to end up in the long wait. I swear, hold times at police stations are now as long as they were in SA when I left. When I eventually got through to someone, I was told that I could not report the crime as it wasn't my property being stolen - I was told to call the council and get them to report it. I explained that we had just witnessed it happening and had the registration details, etc. so then he went off on one about why didn't I call 999. No thanks for calling the police, just a loud moan for calling the wrong ones - nice way to encourage community participation.

Anyway, I eventually stopped wasting my time with the police and called the council - they've taken the report and will being ignoring the problem immediately.

You'd think that just weeks after an elderly lady was beaten to death about 300m from my front door, the cops would at least _pretend_ to care, but you'd be wrong.

Long story short - if you're cycling in Beckton, stay in primary - don't go near the edge of the road!

scalamanga007

Where abouts in Beckton are we talking?

Clever Pun

it's not the cops fault, they being pushed onto the streets to be seen, while 1 or 2 poor sods have all the paper work to do. it's the governments facade of policing

He was massively unhelpful granted, but he's right you should have rung 999 for that

Mithras

People stealing street furnishings to sell on for scrap....your neighbourhood patrol teams have more import things to do..
Like 7 C(ommunity) D(evelopment) L(eadership) P(rogramme) booklets and 6 Essays to go with it to bother actually doing something about crime in the area. Not to mention filling in action plans on the computer and then putting all that evidence into thier Personal Development Review so that they can show somebody up at the top that they are competent to be police officers!
No time too fight crime!

Anonymouslemming

Mithras wrote:

People stealing street furnishings to sell on for scrap....your neighbourhood patrol teams have more import things to do..
Like 7 C(ommunity) D(evelopment) L(eadership) P(rogramme) booklets and 6 Essays to go with it to bother actually doing something about crime in the area. Not to mention filling in action plans on the computer and then putting all that evidence into thier Personal Development Review so that they can show somebody up at the top that they are competent to be police officers!
No time too fight crime!

You left out all of the translations into different languages !

Anonymouslemming

scalamanga007 wrote:

Where abouts in Beckton are we talking?

Down near Royal Albert DLR - one of the roads off of Stansfeld road.

Anonymouslemming

Well, when I've reported these things missing in the past it's taken weeks to have them replaced. Today, after posting here, I hit writetothem.com and mailed my councilors. I explained both how unhelpful plod had been and the real dangers that these holes pose to all road traffic.

Instead of the normal 2 - 3 week wait, they've been replaced in under 8 hours. I've never seen the likes of it before.

Seeing as I'm quick to whinge, I thought I better post this too

fossyant

All due to the price of steel (or steal ?)

Gambatte

Anonymouslemming wrote:

I immediately called the local doughnut shop, only to end up in the long wait. I swear, hold times at police stations are now as long as they were in SA when I left. When I eventually got through to someone, I was told that I could not report the crime as it wasn't my property being stolen - I was told to call the council and get them to report it. I explained that we had just witnessed it happening and had the registration details, etc. so then he went off on one about why didn't I call 999. No thanks for calling the police, just a loud moan for calling the wrong ones - nice way to encourage community participation.

Write in?
Heard a few of these, not coppers, civilians. Its like trying to get past the doctors receptionist!

nwallace

Anonymouslemming wrote:

scalamanga007 wrote:

Where abouts in Beckton are we talking?

Down near Royal Albert DLR - one of the roads off of Stansfeld road.

Having stayed in the Travel Lodge across from Asda in.near Beckton. I must say I have never been to a supermarket before where.
1) I was the only anaemically white person
2) Seen 2 parking spaces reserved for police cars before

It gets dark awffy early down there in July, I forgot this...

Not seen too may cundies missing covers, Fife council (or Scottish Water or Transco) replaced one recently that had been missing for about... as long as I have been cycling/driving that way

squired

Reminds me of when a friend of mine intervened while two guys were being mugged. He immediately called the police, who told him that he couldn't report anything as he wasn't the one being mugged. He argued that the muggers might still be in the area and next time they might kill someone (one of them had a knife), but they still didn't want to know.

scalamanga007

I work on the industrial estate behind Gallions reach shopping centre, we have had power out all day before because copper(metal) has been stolen out of an open hole near the DLR station. The police told us they cut a live cable to nick the metal out of it. Must be the same people staling the manhole covers.

Gambatte

"Tell me again why we have police ?"

(you ever tried beating yourself up?? :twisted: )

helz

squired wrote:

Reminds me of when a friend of mine intervened while two guys were being mugged. He immediately called the police, who told him that he couldn't report anything as he wasn't the one being mugged. He argued that the muggers might still be in the area and next time they might kill someone (one of them had a knife), but they still didn't want to know.

Oh my god that is unbelievable. I actually feel quite sick after reading that.

Clever Pun

squired wrote:

Reminds me of when a friend of mine intervened while two guys were being mugged. He immediately called the police, who told him that he couldn't report anything as he wasn't the one being mugged. He argued that the muggers might still be in the area and next time they might kill someone (one of them had a knife), but they still didn't want to know.

that's the kind of story you want to send to the current bun and daily hatemail to get some sort of movement going

Belv

squired wrote:

Reminds me of when a friend of mine intervened while two guys were being mugged. He immediately called the police, who told him that he couldn't report anything as he wasn't the one being mugged. He argued that the muggers might still be in the area and next time they might kill someone (one of them had a knife), but they still didn't want to know.

Which reminds me of the (i think) joke about the guy who phoned the police to say there was a man trying to break into his house and was told they couldn't do anything until he had broken in. So he phones back to say that he has retrieved his gun from its locked cabinet and is about to shoot someone trying to break into his house and within minutes gets 7 police cars, an armed response unit, a helicopter...

mrchrispy

i refuse to believe that the police would tell you they cant do anything unless you were the one getting mugged. thats just stupid, what happens if you call saying you've seen a guy killed? "sorry we cant do anything unless you are the one dead....bye!"