Long
days and even longer nights
The decision is made and the early turn officers
who are trained in public disorder tactics are told to get their kit
together and mobilised to the city centre. The lates trained officers are also
told to get their kit ready should they be required to back up their
colleagues. Not every officer is trained in public disorder tactics so not
everybody can be used; those who aren’t trained are used to fill in where
trained officers have been abstracted. My fellow sergeant and I brief our
officers at 3pm and we go about the normal business of policing, despite the
fact that all hell appears to have broken lose in and around the city. We still
have a responsibility to continue our everyday duties of protecting and serving
the public who live in our area of responsibility, for many communities life
went on as normal.
About 9pm I get the call I need to gather 7 other officers together, all
trained we all need to get kitted up into ‘code 1’ - this is full riot
protection including helmets and flameproof protective clothing - and make our
way to the staging area for a briefing and deployment into the city. The officers
who were mobilised earlier from across the force are struggling to deal with
the levels of disorder that are breaking out right across the centre of
Birmingham. It isn’t long before we are put together with 2 other teams of
officers identical to mine, allocated an Inspector to take command, and sent
into the centre of the disorder.
We now have an
Inspector, 3 Sergeants including me and 21 officers split into 3 vans and
tasked with dealing with 100s of people damaging and looting across the city
centre. We hear reports of the Mailbox being attacked, the Bullring and large
numbers of shops and businesses across the city being subject to random attacks
by large gangs, damage being caused, fires being started and large amounts of
looting. We also experience missile attacks by the rioters, injuring several
officers in the disorder. The scariest report we hear is that groups have
been seen with petrol bombs and heading towards Police lines. We have the
advantage of seeing what has happened in London and start making
arrests as soon as we’re on the ground. On the first night of disorder we
arrested nearly 150 from across the city, seeking to dissuade people from
carrying on their criminal behaviour.
This carried on for 2 days and by
Wednesday all officers on rest days were called back into work and there was
talk of all officers and staff leave being cancelled. On the first night I was
on until 5am Tuesday morning dealing with disorder throughout the city, but
there were also officers still on duty from earlier, they were approaching a 24
hour shift. The following day I again started at 3pm and worked through till
6am. Come Wednesday we had officers working 12 hour night shifts on patrols
throughout the force area providing both reassurance and a visible deterrent to
would be offenders. These crazy hours continued for the rest of the week and into
the following week. Officers on my team worked for 13 days straight, mostly 12
hour shifts with about 24 hours off in the middle of the set, this was repeated
up and down the country in every force.
It is amazing to see what can be achieved when communities come together with
statutory agencies; it brings the communities themselves closer together and
gives them a real sense of purpose and a shared goal, at the height of the
troubles; communities became united in support and worked together to repair
the damage.
All credit should be given to those communities affected for the way that they
pulled together and I also feel that credit should be given to Tariq Jahan the
father of murdered Haroon Jahan who, despite his loss, appealed for calm and
was heard across the nation. I believe that this marked the turning point of
the disturbance; it could have deteriorated so much further.
I hope this has given you a little bit of an insight into my world, as a
serving officer I’d like to take the opportunity to thank my colleagues up and
down the country, the general public for their support and gratitude and
organisations like ROC that supported us in prayer.
The decision is made and the early turn officers who are trained in public disorder tactics are told to get their kit together and mobilised to the city centre. The lates trained officers are also told to get their kit ready should they be required to back up their colleagues. Not every officer is trained in public disorder tactics so not everybody can be used; those who aren’t trained are used to fill in where trained officers have been abstracted. My fellow sergeant and I brief our officers at 3pm and we go about the normal business of policing, despite the fact that all hell appears to have broken lose in and around the city. We still have a responsibility to continue our everyday duties of protecting and serving the public who live in our area of responsibility, for many communities life went on as normal.
About 9pm I get the call I need to gather 7 other officers together, all trained we all need to get kitted up into ‘code 1’ - this is full riot protection including helmets and flameproof protective clothing - and make our way to the staging area for a briefing and deployment into the city. The officers who were mobilised earlier from across the force are struggling to deal with the levels of disorder that are breaking out right across the centre of Birmingham. It isn’t long before we are put together with 2 other teams of officers identical to mine, allocated an Inspector to take command, and sent into the centre of the disorder.
This carried on for 2 days and by
Wednesday all officers on rest days were called back into work and there was
talk of all officers and staff leave being cancelled. On the first night I was
on until 5am Tuesday morning dealing with disorder throughout the city, but
there were also officers still on duty from earlier, they were approaching a 24
hour shift. The following day I again started at 3pm and worked through till
6am. Come Wednesday we had officers working 12 hour night shifts on patrols
throughout the force area providing both reassurance and a visible deterrent to
would be offenders. These crazy hours continued for the rest of the week and into
the following week. Officers on my team worked for 13 days straight, mostly 12
hour shifts with about 24 hours off in the middle of the set, this was repeated
up and down the country in every force.
