PC David Copperfield

As a regular reader of The Policeman's Blog I would like to take this opportunity to wish Stuart Davidson, aka PC David Copperfield, every success in his new career with the Canadian Police at Edmonton. It is one of life's major decisions to uproot your family and move overseas to start afresh. I admire his courage and tenacity in facing up to such a challenge. By now he is probably unpacking his cases and hopefully his computer too! He has done a great service in facilitating The Policeman's Blog and I am heartened to learn that he will resume posting once he has settled into his new home and police career in Canada. In the meantime, special praise and many thanks are due to PC Bill Sykes for filling the temporary void caused by Stuart's absence. Your postings are brilliant Bill so I am hoping that you will be able to continue contributing together with Stu so that we can get a factual and well balanced picture of life in today's British and Canadian Police Service, as opposed to the politically correct official pronouncements we read in the press and see on television. Congratulations to both of you. A link to The Policeman's Blog is provided at the foot of this page.

The unorthodox but effective saving of a Skunk in distress

Cop Uses BB Gun to Save 'Jarhead' Skunk
By Associated Press
Fri Oct 5th.2007

CARROLLTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - These are the salad days for one lucky skunk. Officer James Kellett said a skunk whose head was stuck in an empty salad dressing jar wandered into the police station's parking lot Thursday in Carrollton Township, near Saginaw and about 80 miles north of Detroit.

Kellett wanted to serve and protect the white-striped weasel, but wasn't interested in any resistance _ spray or otherwise. So he grabbed a BB gun used in hunters' safety courses and shot at the jar from about 40 feet.

The shots cracked and shattered the jar, leaving a glass collar around the skunk's neck. With its head free, the skunk ran off.

"I didn't want to use deadly force, and it is a residential area," Kellett told The Saginaw News. "The way he was when he took off, he was able to eat, breathe and spray _ and do anything else skunks like to do."

Kellett didn't get much in the way of gratitude, but he's grateful the skunk didn't spray. And the makers of T. Marzetti's salad dressing are sending the officer coupons good for free dressing as a reward.

A Bridge Over Troubled Water!

A friend of mine in USA has sent me these amazing pictures and story. I couldn't resist sharing it with all of my friends in bloggosphere:
News article in local paper Oct. 5th, 2007
A brown bear under a bridge on Highway 80 near Donner Lake, California - he went to sleep on a ledge and then authorities put a net under him and shot him with a tranquilizer dart and he fell into the net. They then took him off the bridge and released him.

Survey on a point of law

I have received the following message from a former London Metropolitan police officer who is seeking the assistance of both serving and retired police officers as follows;

I am an ex Met officer, now in my 3rd year of a full-time law degree. I have a research project underway and I really need the views of serving officers on one specific question (regarding s139 CJA 1988). I have created a small and very basic website which poses the question and allows officers to vote yes/no to the answer.

The site is http://anorhack.com (no’www’ – that’s important)

I’d be hugely grateful if you could pop a link to it on yr blog. For statistical purposes, the more replies I get, the better!

Thanks

Phil Bowles