Good Morning everyone,
This is the first chance I am getting to post since my busy weekend last weekend. On Friday last week I did a night shift in Copeland. My plan for the night was to work until midnight but this very soon changed as the night got busier and busier!
I had barely got through the door of the Police station when two of the Sgts and an Inspector came running down the corridor to the vehicle yard. They told myself and two other Specials that they needed us up at a local hot spot sharpish, so as fast as I could I put my kit on, booked on duty and went out to the back yard. The Special I was working with has been response trained so he was able to get us all to the scene quite quickly and safely. On arrival we found out that a male had tried to steal some money from behind the counter of a building society in the middle of the day. Our job was to do traffic control and get witness details. Luckily the male was caught and taken to custody.
We then returned back to the station to get briefed up and head out. I was tasked along with another Special Sgt with going to some local youth groups. This was now in our Specials portfolio so it is our job to attend these groups each week. This allowed us to network with local youths and youth workers, we did get some funny looks as we walked into the groups with the usual "it was him who did it," but everyone opened up pretty quickly to us and we were able to let the youths know we arent just out to "ruin their fun." Due to the vast size of the area we work in we could only visit three of the 9 youth groups in the night.
On arrival back to the station I had some tea that was very much needed. The Inspector then came to see me and asked if I would like to join them on a traffic operation.
Three vehicles left the station in the early evening, I had been paired with another Special who has a lot more service that I do. We plotted up in various areas while the Inspector did some speed enforcement work. Within 2 minutes of being there we had a car travelling at 96MPH in a 70MPH zone. The first group of offices went and spoke to the drive. Next we got a driver doing 106MPH so we stopped him and completed the various paperwork. When we had finished dealing with him another shout came over that a vehicle was doing 131MPH in a 70MPH zone. Needless to say this vehicle was stopped and the driver dealt with by means of reporting him. These speeds were well in excess of the legal 70mph for that stretch of road. We educated all the drivers with some facts about how long it would take them to stop if they had to from those speeds.
We then left the operation and travelled into town. It was relatively quiet night until a local started to argue with both us and other local people. This caused problems for both us and for the local night clubs. This group was dealt with by us and other officers and one male was arrested as a result of what had happened.
At around 1am it was time to head in and complete the various paperwork! This took me up until 3am to do! I feel for my regular colleagues who have much more paperwork than we do. All in all it was a good (but long) night shift. I felt the most important thing I did that night was the education of those drivers, they now understand that they shouldn't be travelling at those speeds and what can happen when they do.
Thanks for reading.
If you are interested in joining the Specials please contact us on 101 or follow us on Twitter @CumbriaSpecials.
Thanks again. Nick.
