Day 4, day out with the Bobbies

         On day 4, we started off with  the Central Communications Command, this is where the Metropolitan Police Department (the London Police) organizes all of their major operations, be it monitoring riots/protests,  to the Queen's Jubilee/state visits/ the Olympics, to events like the terrorist bombings of their Underground (subway system) and their buses in 2005. We got a general brief of how everything works their. The we visited their special operations room, where they have access to over 23,000 cameras, 3,000 owned by the met, and 20,000 where the met has access. This building is also one of three where 999 (the UK version of 911) calls come in from within London.

 After we were done in that building, we went  on a hike to find Mike Messinger Hall. This building plays a special role for the London Police. This building houses a cafeteria which is the base for feeding all of the officers when they go through the events mentioned above. They may run hundreds to thousands of officers in this rather small cafeteria, use feeding trucks to get everything to their officers on the streets, or both. After we looked at discussed all of that, we went in for the days' main event, we checked out the mini dojo (I say mini since even though they use it at times, they have larger ones too) where they train officers  in self-defense techniques. This training is especially important in the U.K., since as mentioned in a previous post, the vast majority of officers here do not carry firearms. For the most part they carry on their person: CS spray (chemical spray, not mace, it kind of induces a minor allergic reaction), baton, or asp, handcuffs, and a radio. Web  did walk through with training devices for 3 out of the 4 items just mentioned. which one did we not use? Well, I recommend the Metropolitan Police start to use a modified older model Nokia, what we refer to as brick phone, for a radio so they can use all 4 items.    


      Quick note about the title of the  post, Sir Robert Peel, who also went on to become Prime Minister, essentially started the London Police Department, which was essentially a first in the world, so their officers' nicknames can from his name, Robert-Bobby.