Last night I spent a shift with a Metropolitan Police ERPT team in [London, UK,] dealing with 999 calls. It is impossible to explain just how surreal an experience being out with these officers is, the officers are exposed to situations no one should see. Here are my notes from the opening two hours.
As you can see from these notes demand and risk was ramping up just 30 minutes into the shift! These officers and their supervisors are working tirelessly from the briefing, and there are just no easy response shifts, it is fast paced, pressurized and mentally very tough.
I remember sitting in the McDonalds drive thru last night thinking that no one around us is aware of what we have just experienced in the short time we had been on duty; Death and the extreme trauma, multiple times over too. It is harrowing, and deeply impactful. Yet we go on.
When we see officers, we see a uniform, we do not necessary see the human underneath, and we do not see the trauma and hurt behind their eyes, the legacy of calls they may have just attended. We must do more to recognize what officers are doing/experiencing, and support them.
We often hear about officers not tracking stolen phones etc. Officers are managing extreme demand/risk, when there are circa 40 outstanding calls with no units to deploy, supervisors have to prioritize risk; Do you preserve life or track a phone, not everything can be a priority.
Policing is often about making the least worst decision, and in an ideal world officers would attend every call and track every stolen phone, but policing just does not have the resources to do so, officers are breaking under the stress and pressure, could you do what they do?