Treading Water
At
5 Grove Road is a man with a knife who's about to stab his wife. We
know this, because he dialled 999 and told us so. After he stabs her,
he's going to stab his son, then his daughter. And then he's going to
kill the first cop who comes through the door. At the moment, that's
likely to be me. I am therefore waiting at a distance that cannot
possibly be misconstrued as coming through anything, waiting for units
with taser to arrive and electro-shock the man to his sense.It's
Friday night in Blandmore, and while the man at Grove Road considers
his options, a thirteen-year-old robber fresh out of custody climbs the
stairs of a multi-storey car park and stands on the edge of the top
level waiting to be noticed.There's
disorder brewing in the town centre. The 24hr newsagent has been
serving out of hours again and the teenagers are gathering outside it
and scuffling with each other. We've had five or six calls, but every
time we go down there the kids are "fine". The inspector is deciding
whether or not to shut the place down.Three
miles from where I sit drumming my fingers on the dashboard of my
panda, a young wife deliberately writes out a final farewell to her
husband, leaves it on the doormat and goes out without her coat or
inhaler. Finally
the armed unit arrives and 5 Grove Road is surrounded, insofar as one
officer can actually "surround" anything. Negotiators are called.
Tactical decisions are laid out on the table. Some will result in the
deaths of innocent people. Some will bring glory to a brave armed
officer. Almost all of them will result in PC Bloggs sitting alone in
the dark for a further nine hours.At the car park, Kyle Rodgers gets bored of waiting to be noticed, and phones his mum to tell her he's about to jump.In town, the kids start offering cannabis to passers-by.The
negotiators have Mr Kidson on the phone. They establish his basic
needs: the deaths of everyone he knows, followed by his own.Three
miles away, a young husband comes home and begins a frantic search. He
calls the police, but without knowing whether his wife is "high" or
"medium" risk, the police aren't sure how quickly to attend. They set
off slowly and are diverted to a report of a teenager standing on the
edge of a multi-storey car park.Mr Kidson decides that if he only had some cigarettes, he might not need to kill anyone. The
newsagent reports that two younger teenagers have just had their mobile
phones snatched outside. The inspector gets on the phone to the chief
inspector. If they shut down the newsagent, the press won't be good.
If more kids get robbed, the press won't be good. It's a toughie. The
inspector doesn't feel that there are enough police officers in
Blandmore on a Friday night. The chief inspector is adamant that
Something Is Being Done About It.Hours pass. Laws are made and broken. Mr
Kidson stops cooperating with the negotiators. Armed units sneak into
the house and taser him where he sits quietly in an armchair. He'd
fallen asleep mid-negotiation and his knife-hand dropped to the floor as
the armed officers entered, making them think he was about to slash
himself.In
town, thirty teenagers slope off home and make plans to meet back there
the following night. The inspector gets to the scene with closure order
in hand, and wonders what all the fuss was about.
For another eight hours, officers plead with Kyle Rodgers to come down from the multi-storey.
In
the meantime, somewhere by a river, a young wife slides off her shoes
and slips down the bank into the dark cold depths. She doesn't tread
water, and she sinks.
https://pcbloggs.blogspot.com/search?q=treading+water