A Scopee’s Diary

After a lengthy waiting game, finally comes the day of SCOPE - a night shift on Friday! Over excited, I stayed awake in bedchild Sale Inflatable the whole afternoon although it was initially planned to have the store closed from 14:00 and to get some sleep before duty.

Not enough time to greet everyone and try to remember their names, (always a difficult task for me) a job was called through the radio. Rushed to the car with extremely heavy bags (full of gears I imagine), thecheap Inflatable Products first order I was given was to help put my officer’s hat to the back of the car. It’s so obvious that in Wellington city, the capital of wind, hat is for display purpose only. I come up with the conclusion.

For a moment, I was panicking not because of the bar-light was flashing and the siren was wailing, but the way my officer was driving. Powerfully dangerous, definitely not a joy-ride, I shall say, anyone who is carsick will see the end of his/her police pursuing immediately.

Waste no time, communications within/between police is mostly by using of codes. K9 for example, is to have accused on board and back to the station. 10-2 means heading to a scene; 10-3 means available on patrol; 10-7 means arrived at the scene, and so on. Whenever they are free, plus the radio was in silence, my officer always very nice and patient to explain to me what each code means and what was going on.

“10-10, can’t remember who told me that, is to get help, isn’t it?” I didn’t know where that comes from but my officer was clearly not happy. “Don’t want to go there, never and ever, 10-10 means one of us is dead.”

Coincidently, the same day, Dominion Post was front-paged with a story about Police hit the beach to halt boy racers. One out cry of the beach boys was “Police are like sheep…one car drives down and they all drive down.” It’s very true when we 10-7 at a street fight scene, minutes later, the small block were full of police cars. That to me was my first lesson of police culture: you just have to help one of yours, in any circumstance, absolutely no excuse!

Back and K9 to the station, (I heard officers call it ‘base’, another code?) I saw my officers washing their to buy Inflatable Bouncehands right away. Had not got a chance to touch anything other than the hat, yet I washed my hands anyway, thinking this might be part of a standard procedure.

There are too many paper works involved in police jobs even for a drinking and driving offence. Other than checking alcohol level, each EBA (Excess Blood Alcohol, I learned) case officer needs to complete four or five forms on the road and back to ‘base’. So many things to do, my officer have to list all job numbers down and then cross them out one by one. Otherwise, some thing might be missed and police might lose the case I would imagine.
After a short time in producing some forms for the arrest of the arrested, we were on the road again and this time was different with 10-3 radioed to the ‘base’. It surprised me that when in the state of 10-3, police have to obey all road rules. Waiting for green lights and following traffic within speed limits. Meantime, aye on each and every suspicious vehicle and its driver, in many cases even the passengers.

Well trained and experienced my officer would spot problem cars which I see nothing out of normal. My officer made a few pull-overs; none of them end up with no ticket issuing. A car with no WOF/REG, driver couldn’t provide his license, was breaching his Restricted License conditions and fined over a thousand bucks. However, he was not over the blood alcohol limit and was driving normally; I wonder how my officers would see him suspicious?

One can probably tell, most of the weekend late night jobs for police are either alcohol related or caused by a high level of alcohol consumed.

At 01:50 am, we were 10-2 to a domestic dispute which had gone too far frightened a female flat-mate. She called the police, reported an MAF (Male Attach Female, I learned) and rushed to serve the door when we arrived.

The man, barely able to walk or stand straight up, appeared to be cooperative until my officer was about to handcuff him. He started yelling and swearing at my officer as offensive as he could. Despite been stumbled by the effect of alcohol, he held his arms to not to be easy handcuffed.

On the way back to the station, my officer exchanged a few words with him, which got him heated about and become more aggressive. Not only swearing, this time he also spiting and kicking and even threatening to kill my officer. Calling for back up to come, three of us could hardly restrain him and avoid to be spited onto. Pepper spray was used to keep his head down.

This man is a really a scoundrel. He has no respect to women whatsoever. Called to his partner’s place, he had beaten her up (certainly not for the first time) and scared the female flat-mate by twice punching and pushing. When that was seeing under arrest by women officer, he of course would not give up without a fight. This time, I helped to arrest him.

I feel sorry for his partner. Who was equally intoxicated and also refused to cooperate with the police. “Please, don’t do this to us.” She was trying to stop the flat-mate from making a complaint.

The car obviously needs to be cleaned so we jumped onto another one. I was asked to separate with my officer for rest of the night because they were heading back to the property to take statement from the victim. They reckon I might feel bored since the offender was locked in the cell and there would be no drama to be observed. They were wrong.