A day in the life of a real police officer rather than a fictional one - great stuff for my police procedurals

This article was posted on my good friend fellow blogger's website Inspector Gadget.  He said that he wanted senior police officers to read it and  and think about it and 'not just curl their lips with derision, or excuse it all as nonsense, but to really think deeply.' I think everyone  should read it and think about it. Plus it's great background for my DI Andy Horton police procedural crime novels.

Here's the article from Inspector Gadget.

"On Tuesday morning (before I went to bed) after a bank holiday weekend of unbelievable overstretch and under resource, I wrote a quick list of what we had achieved over the period on my Response Team.

1. We saved one life (elderly person trapped behind closed doors on death’s door, rescued by a double crew who booted the door).
2. We found a three year old boy who wandered off near the lock on the river at the edge of Ruraltown. The parents were wild with worry and shock. The child didn’t drown because we found him, in the dark with no air support).
3. At least five suicidal people saved or found in one way or another.
4. Numerous fights and drunken disturbances stopped or prevented, including one with the usual Samurai Sword.
5. A fatal road accident dealt with, a family informed and supported, major roads closed and reopened.
6. Thieves caught and arrested on numerous occasions, the same for youths committing damage and a stolen car chased and stopped with two in custody.
7. Three mental health patients dealt with, two child protection cases and a kidnapping (not the international sort; the usual domestic drunken false imprisonment kind).
8. We drove something like 2,400 miles on Emergency Status, had two officers assaulted and put something like 25 criminals through custody (just our team on our shifts).
9. In addition to this we responded to something like 160 calls for assistance; we parented half the kids on the Estate, sorted out what can be loosely be described as the “Intimate Partnerships” of the parents of the other half, doctored people, social worked people and generally cleared up the mess resultant of 60 years of dependency culture.
10. We enjoyed every minute of this unique and challenging job..

So far so good. But imagine my distaste when the only way in which any of this was recognised at all was a curt email from the Superintendent (hastily sent after the Bank Holiday) reminding me that my Team Performance Objectives for the ‘Performance Plus’ review had not been submitted quickly enough! We hadn’t completed enough ‘Customer Satisfaction Forms’ and to cap it all, I hadn’t completed my ‘Quality Assurance’ telephone cold-calls in time!"

My God it sounds like DCI Lorraine Bliss in my Horton crime novels! 

Thanks to all serving police officers and those in the emergency and health care services. Some of us fully appreciate what you do. Saving lives and helping others is Citizen Focused enough for me.