Last week I had a much more exciting day than the usual shift at my writing desk, after being permitted to shadow a Metropolitan Police response unit for an afternoon and evening in central London, as part of the police ride-along scheme.
After meeting my sergeant contact at Paddington Green Station I went through a series of checks and disclaimers – understandably a fair bit of bureaucracy involved due to the potential dangers – then was fitted with a bulletproof vest and invited into the daily group briefing before officers’ shifts begin.
Ride-alongs have generally been more widespread a scheme in the United States, however UK police forces have recently become keener to implement the practice here, perhaps due to lapses of public trust in law enforcement.
It presents an unobstructed view of a police shift – dealing with offenders and victims, statement taking, arrests, even the form-filling back at the station if you’re that interested. As a fan of police procedural TV shows – BBC’s The Met by chance the most recent – the opportunity of being a solo spectator in a live and unedited episode was never going to be refused.
After meeting my sergeant contact at Paddington Green Station I went through a series of checks and disclaimers – understandably a fair bit of bureaucracy involved due to the potential dangers – then was fitted with a bulletproof vest and invited into the daily group briefing before officers’ shifts begin.
Ride-alongs have generally been more widespread a scheme in the United States, however UK police forces have recently become keener to implement the practice here, perhaps due to lapses of public trust in law enforcement.
It presents an unobstructed view of a police shift – dealing with offenders and victims, statement taking, arrests, even the form-filling back at the station if you’re that interested. As a fan of police procedural TV shows – BBC’s The Met by chance the most recent – the opportunity of being a solo spectator in a live and unedited episode was never going to be refused.
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