Diary of a former Bow Street Runner

"Dial 999 yourself officer"

No disrespect to Diary of a Police Dispatcher, but there are some times when dispatchers/radio operators can beggar belief. This incident, and the other one I'm going to tell you about, both happened on the same division, which is not the one I regularly work on, but over different periods.

The first one did, in fact, happen on the shit I was referring to in my "Why the f*** do I still do this job" post. I neglected to mention it because I was more frustrated and irritated by other elements of that shift. I've resignedly accepted what I'm writing about, although it's only happened twice so far, thus didn't think anything of it when authoring my previous post.

NB: Airwave radios that are personal issue have telephony, insofar as they can dial normal telephone numbers. The alternative to personal issue is pool issue, when radios are in for repair etc. The pool radios do not have telephony capabilities (probably because they can't be audited to each individual user).

On this shift, we ended up, during a rare spot of patrol, on the divisional border. In an industrial area my colleague and I could see that a skip was on fire. I changed my radio channel to the talkgroup that covers that division, and shouted up (on this shift I had a pool radio). I was initially told to wait as comms were busy, then they let me proceed. The conversation went like this:

"There's a skip on fire at xxxx Industries, on xxxxx Road. Could you please call the fire brigade out to this location?"
"Negative. We're far too busy. Can you please dial 999 yourself using your radio telephony?"
*A slight pause as I think "What the hell did you just say?"*
"Negative, I don't have telephony on my pool radio."

The answer to that, in as many rather curt words, was that would I mind dialling 999 on my mobile then or getting my colleague to do it on his personal issue radio, as they were just far too busy up there at the moment. Perhaps they'd like me to run up and down the street waving my arms wildly and shout "FIRE! FIRE!" instead?

My colleague was shocked as he'd never experienced this before, and ended up changing back to our normal channel to shout up a job on a different division, because the operators on the division that should have done it refused to.

It wouldn't be as bad if it was only a one-off. But it's happened before too!

Some months back I worked an operation that involved foot patrol on the same division this incident occurred on, as the operation was run over two divisions. It's good to have a change of scenery. We came across a male with breathing difficulties, so I shouted up comms and asked for an ambulance. Again, I was told that they were far too busy and would I mind contacting 999 some other way.

The end result of that one was, on a busy road during a busy time, motorists would have witnessed the sight of two officers in (relatively) expensive kit, in possession of the most advanced radio and communications technology for many years, doing exactly what the personal radio was meant to bring an end to - taking time out to contact another emergency service, time which could have been spent assisting with the said emergency. Having a personal mobile phone at all times is not optional, it's essential!

It probably isn't entirely the fault of the dispatchers, and it's entirely likely that they're that snowed under and subject to such infintessimal bureaucracy they don't even have a second to breathe. But patrol officers are reliant on radio operators for the performance of certain tasks when on the street. Operators are, in effect, the lifeline of the officer. So when you are told to dial 999 yourself not once, but twice, it does shake your faith in the support network that is supposed to help you.

Thus, the next time you see an officer on their mobile phone in the street, don't automatically think that they're unprofessional and making a social call. The sad truth is that there's a very real possibility they are calling out the ambulance or fire brigade to a job.
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