Weapons found in playground.

[Mrs Magpie]

Least it wasn't porn like my day in Brixton.

You could find a Fiesta or Escort under any playground bush.

In my younger day it was "Health & Efficiency"

 

[tippee]

Tbf it's a playground on an estate, close to where Mrs M lives. I wouldn't be too happy about effectively posting my address. It's extremely unlikely you'd take your children to play there unless you lived on that estate, and if you lived on that estate it's extremely likely you would have heard about it already.

fair do's

 

[agricola]

If you are going by the person who answered 0300 123 1212 ... it's not the "police" who are not interested ... it's some fuckwit, uninterested member of civilian staff at a distant call centre. They're absolutely fucking shit.

Contact the local Safer Neighbourhood Team (via Met website) or, better still, put them in a clean plastic bag and taken them to the station tomorrow and demand to make a complaint about the fuckwittery you've been told over the phone.

Actually, the person who answers that line is either in Bow, Lambeth, or Hendon, may well be a police officer (and if they arent are a civilian employee of the Met) and probably used to do exactly the same job at IR or the individual borough control rooms, though of course they were less "fucking shit" there because colleagues actually knew them as people, and not as the faceless voice of Metcall.

As for the response, it is correct that a call as you described would - as long as the knives are not left on the playground - recieve the lowest level of priority for an officer to call around and collect them, which - given limited numbers of officers and higher priorty calls - may well be several hours / the next day. The advice to throw the knives away after 24 hours is wrong though, you can use the number DB mentioned in his rant if you want to complain against the operator who took your call.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Thanks, not my call though, my friend's call. I think it may have been a civilian though. He had great difficulty in understanding her (she speaks clearly) and she had to keep repeating works like 'playground' and 'bark' because he didn't understand what she meant.

I think she rang Brixton Police Station directly.

 

[agricola]

Thanks, not my call though, my friend's call. I think it may have been a civilian though. He had great difficulty in understanding her (she speaks clearly) and she had to keep repeating works like 'playground' and 'bark' because he didn't understand what she meant.

I think she rang Brixton Police Station directly.

It has probably still gone through to one of the callcentres - all the public numbers for the individual stations (apart from the SNT ones) do now. She should definately do this if the operator couldnt understand playground and bark, and they should be able to listen to the original call and speak to the operator / contact their line manager in order to speak to the operator (if they arent at work) as a minimum.

 

[detective-boy]

Actually, the person who answers that line is either in Bow, Lambeth, or Hendon, may well be a police officer (and if they arent are a civilian employee of the Met) and probably used to do exactly the same job at IR or the individual borough control rooms, though of course they were less "fucking shit" there because colleagues actually knew them as people, and not as the faceless voice of Metcall.

Please let us in on the massive proportion of cops at the Metcall centres ...

I have lots of personal experience of Metcall. And of the switching centres that went before them. I didn't think things could get worse. Sadly they have. Just two weeks ago six calls failed to get me through to the Roads Policing Policy Unit even though I had it's webpage in front of me and on two occasions spoke to a supervisor. They simply denied it existed. On another occasion they did not know that you had a Deputy Commissioner and were unable to connect me to his office. These are not isolated occasions. I would estimate that about 80% of my use of the Metcall centres is fail.

They are shit (as a service provider, not at individual people, I suspect the training and support is the principle cause). Failure by serving officers to either recognise how poor the service is, or to acknowledge the damage it causes to police - community relations is an absolute disgrace.

 

[detective-boy]

As for the response, it is correct that a call as you described would - as long as the knives are not left on the playground - recieve the lowest level of priority for an officer to call around and collect them, which - given limited numbers of officers and higher priorty calls - may well be several hours / the next day. The advice to throw the knives away after 24 hours is wrong though, you can use the number DB mentioned in his rant if you want to complain against the operator who took your call.

As well as the advice being wrong, the disinterested attitude was also wrong. The latter is probably more important than the former. Someone has taken the trouble to call the police with some information about knife crime. Even a total fucking idiot must be aware that the police are currently requesting information about knife crime at every opportunity. Even if it is the most fucking useless information since the old King died, a police employee should be thanking the caller, providing accurate advice and information and doing so in a positive manner.

Instead they seem to have a "what the fuck are you bothering us with that for" attitude unless the call is about a fifteen person shoot out ...

 

[TopCat]

People salt knives all over the place. Plus bottles and so on. Stop and search has lead to this. There always seems a way for the bad guy.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

To be honest, I don't think this is about stop and search at all. I think this is about the playground being regularly used in fights between youths and the knives have been stashed there to be used later in a fight.

 

[internetstalker]

Good grief. What kind of loathsome scumbag hides weapons in a kids playground?

the same kind of loathsome scumbag that stabs people!

 

[detective-boy]

To be honest, I don't think this is about stop and search at all. I think this is about the playground being regularly used in fights between youths and the knives have been stashed there to be used later in a fight.

I think the point was that people have taken to stashing knives where they may need them rather than carrying them with them ... which (a) suggests that police stop and search activity is having an effect (which is a good thing I would suggest) but (b) (as with most proactive / preventative activity) it has led to an alternative issue (which is bad news) ... but overall I think it's probably better that the bad guys have to go and find their knives (if the good guys haven't found them first) rather than just pull them out of their pockets - if nothing else it puts in a short cooling off / escape period.

 

[Lit Up]

Remind me why people live in Brixton again?

 

[subversplat]

Remind me why people live in Brixton again?

Free knives for under-8s!