This is a long thread, but everything you need to know about the Police.. 😁😁

🧵 1/4. Although written by an Inspector in the Met. Who got into a little bit of trouble. You may recognise some similarities.

Enjoy.

“This blog post was BANNED by the Metropolitan Police!

Today’s policing is nasty and brutish. And short, ever since the height requirement was abolished to provide employment outside panto season.

This is a guide to policing in the real world. This is everything you need to know about the boys and girls in blue.

I’ve been a police person for loads of years, so know what I’m talking about. I’m also a proper senior officer, so I’m never wrong.

The police contain two sorts of people — men and women. I have worked with both during my career. Police officers can be readily identified by other police officers. The trick is to look for the ones balancing a silly pointy hat on their head. Others will have a variety of pips and crowns or stripes on their shoulders designating rank. The higher the rank, the higher the level of self-regard. You are promoted by people with even higher levels of self-regard than your own.

In London, the rank structure is slightly different to elsewhere. We have Commanders. Nobody knows what Commanders do, but they all live together at headquarters. Above Commanders are Deputy Assistant Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners and the head honcho, the Commissioner. All these people want to be the Commissioner, so they spy on each other and tell the Commissioner tales to get one up on each other.

Commanders and above get their own cars with a driver. When they get promoted, they are given a shiny catalogue and model cars to push around to help them choose. The cars are fitted with blue lights hidden in the front grills and two-tone horns in case anyone ever needs a Commander on the hurry up. Nobody ever needs a Commander on the hurry up.

Each London Borough has a Chief Superintendent in charge. They are known as Borough Commanders but are not Commanders. They just like the name because it is the best one. They are in charge of the Senior Leadership Team which consists of Superintendents and Chief Inspectors. The Chief Inspectors all want to be Superintendents so make the tea all the time and are the designated drivers at Christmas and birthdays.

The Senior Leadership Team used to be called the Senior Management Team (SMT) but they were often mistaken for the Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) so this was changed. Senior officers are far too important to deal with dog poo.

The SLT meets every two weeks in a secret location where they wear flowing robes and blame Inspectors for everything.

Police officers also wear different coloured helmets in public order situations. If you want to lob a brick at an Inspector, aim for the red helmet. He’ll be well behind the lines, so have a good throwing arm. You’ll need some kind of projectile launcher if you wish to hit a more senior rank. They will be surrounded by runners and advisers though, so if hitting a sycophant is good enough, you’ll have quite a wide target area. Be careful not to hit the fire brigade by mistake. It might wake them up.

Some police officers don’t wear uniform. Some are engaged in deep level covert undercover work, so even a small piece of uniform can lead to disaster. Shoulder epaulettes on white shirts are a dead giveaway in gang circles.

Standard plain clothes work is somewhat different. Here, an officer will don a North Face jacket, blue Levi jeans and Timberland boots. White-faced and with cropped hair, they will then stand outside Brixton tube station wondering why nobody is offering them drugs. 2/4. Police conduct surveillance in plain clothes. It would be silly not to. Lower level more amateur levels of surveillance are easily compromised. A colleague spent ten hours in the back of a van watching a drug dealer’s address. Exiting the van after seeing no activity of any sort, he was surprised to see ‘POLICE SURVEILLANCE VAN’ spray-painted across the side. The van remained in use for another two years as no one could agree what budget a complete re-spray should come from.

On another occasion, a suspected car thief was arrested and taken into an unmarked police van by officers in plain clothes. His somewhat novel defence at court was that they claimed to be members of the Provisional IRA who were going to kneecap him. His argument was that pretending to be members of a proscribed terrorist organisation rendered his arrest unlawful. This was his lawyer’s argument in reality. The defendant was of very low intelligence and slept with his mother as we discovered when raiding his house one morning. His defence was found to be ridiculous, and he was convicted. No police officer would ever act in this way. Even for a laugh.

We once tried a new technique of overt surveillance when following a Northern Irish paedophile. He had been asked to leave Northern Ireland by concerned local citizens in balaclavas, so had moved to London and changed his name.

We followed him for most of the day, peeking around corners then ducking back when he turned, talking into our armpits and walking around shops directly behind him. He called 999 on several occasions telling them that he was being followed by the police. A juvenile and silly operation, but at least he wasn’t sexually assaulting children or being shot by Republican terrorists.

About an eighth of the Met is made up of CID officers. In this role you attempt to charge people with crimes. If you can’t find anyone to charge, you use juju magic and pretend it didn’t happen. CID are intellectually superior to uniform officers, and are expected to never leave the building until it’s time for the Freemasons outing to the seaside.

Detectives used to have to get people to admit to a long list of crimes they may or may not know anything about. This practice has ceased until something less obviously open to corruption is found. CID officers used to smoke roll-up cigarettes in the office and start drinking at 1 pm. These practices have also ceased. The CID used to be an attractive proposition for the hobby drinker who enjoyed fitting up slag, but those days are sadly long gone.

There are a number of specialist detective squads who are known as ‘squads.’ The most famous is the Flying Squad.

They used to take out old school East End blaggers. Now they are mainly concerned with promising footballers nicking cash from Group 4 trucks then crashing their stolen mopeds. Innit.

The murder squad never close a case. They just forget about the ones they haven’t solved. The more wooden officers get to go on Crimewatch and say ‘Yes Kirsty, that’s right’ for no reason. Murders are categorised as A, B or C.

Cat C murders are where someone kills someone else then wanders to the police station to tell them all about it. The suspect will be locked up and ready to go before the HAT car is called. The HAT car is the Homicide Assessment Team. They come out and suck their teeth like a cowboy builder before deciding whether the case is glamorous enough for the murder squad. The proximity to the weekend is also a factor when all the detectives will be on double time.

Cat B murders are where the murderer is known, but we don’t know where he is. He can often be tracked down by someone dressing up as a postman and knocking on his door. If you do it in police uniform he’ll hide in the loft.

“A Powerful Lesson” @RJH_397 👍🏻

🧵 1/6. This is a powerful lesson…

A high school class is learning about the Salem Witch Trials. Their teacher told them they were going to play a game. 2/6. “I'm going to come around and whisper to each of you whether you're a witch or a regular person. Your goal is to build the largest group possible that does NOT have a witch in it. At the end, any group found to include a witch gets a failing grade."

Did you know? ⚓️ 🚢

🧵 1/7. The passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia. The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought Captain John DS. Phillips, the result. 2/7. The Warrimoo’s position was LAT 0º 31’ N and LONG 179 30’ W. The date was 31 December 1899.

“Know what this means?” First Mate Payton broke in, “We’re only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line”.

Military Humour - Navy Courage ⚓️@DrChrisParry

🧵 1/6. A Russian, an American, and a British admiral were having a drink on an American aircraft carrier. They were talking about the bravery of their sailors.

The Russian said, “I will demonstrate the bravery of our sailors.” 2/6. He calls a sailor over & says, “Jump off the ship. Swim under it & climb back up.”

The sailor promptly salutes & jumps off the flight deck, swims under the ship, climbs up the davits & stands in front of the admiral & salutes.

The Russian says, “Gentlemen, That is courage”

🧵1/11. The reason we wear a poppy; 🌺

On November 7th, 1920, in strictest secrecy, four unidentified British bodies were exhumed from temporary battlefield cemeteries at Ypres, Arras, the Aisne and the Somme.

None of the soldiers who did the digging were told why. 2/11. The bodies were taken by field ambulance to GHQ at St-Pol-Sur-Ter Noise. Once there, the bodies were draped with the union flag.
Sentries were posted and Brigadier-General Wyatt and a Colonel Gell selected one body at random. The other three were reburied.