Part One of My Caller's Guide.

The police are often lambasted in the press for not arriving at incidents quickly enough, or not bothering to go at all. This is not the police's fault. What people fail to understand is that once you are at an incident, even if it is just a report of a minor theft, you CANNOT LEAVE. If you redeploy mid-incident, you will come into work the next day to find that the minor theft has been turned into a crime report under your name, you will spend the next two months trying to track the victim down to get their statement, by which time there will be zero chance of catching the offender and the crime report will remain under your name forever.

It is a competitive world for the member of public who desires police presence NOW. In this day of under-resourced areas and stressed out police officers snowed under with paper, the public has to make it worth our while to attend their incidents. Try to make your call sound more appealing by elaborating on the truth. Here are ten ways to report day-to-day incidents that will get the police rushing to your door straight away:

1. You get home and have been broken into: "I think the burglar is still here."
2. You see a scrap between drunks: "There's a fight and both parties have knives."
3. You have detained a shoplifter who is sitting quietly in the security office: "He's kicking off!"
4. A minor car accident has occurred and you want the police to see it to help your insurance claim: "The other driver is refusing to give his details, is drunk and about to drive off. Plus, the road is blocked and a child might be hurt."
5. You had an argument with your partner: "My partner has just assaulted me and is now trying to kill me."
6. Your garden wall was vandalised by an unknown offender: "There are kids outside with weapons threatening to break into my house."
7. You are lost, drunk, and want a ride home: "I'm being followed by a stranger down a dark alley."
8. You kicked your football through a neighbour's window after repeated warnings not to bounce it off the glass and now she/he won't give it back: "The old woman next door hit me!"
9. You are going through a bad breakup and don't want your ex-partner's new boyfriend anywhere near your children: "My daughter said she was sexually abused at her mother's house."
10. You just had a fight with an equally drunk friend of yours and warned him you'd call the police so you are: "I've just been stabbed."

I attend calls like these on a daily basis and invariably the description NOT in quotes is the reality when I arrive. With competition like this, the public cannot expect the police to attend incidents described, "There is a car with no tax on my road", "There are kids doing something kid-like in the school grounds".

The moral of the story? If you aren't prepared to compete with the mountain of exaggerated "urgent" calls we get each day, don't bother to pick up the phone. Who is to blame if we don't attend? You are, for not making your crime sound exciting enough.

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