Hard News: Another Saturday Night
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Fascinating. I think this sort of direct communication to the public via social media is very valuable. Reminds us of the varied things police have to try and sort out, every day. Including really horrific situations.
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I remember watching UK's Greater Manchester Police do this for a a 24 hour shifts on Twitter to bump awareness - they seem to still be quite prolific. It's like listening to a scanner.
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Report of a female wandering in Waiuku in a distressed state."
I thought Waiuku was in New Zealand?
Syria is a distressed state.
Odd really. The new digital Police Radios prevented us from listening in to the scanners. The Police demanded them. Now they are “broadcasting” again.
Noticed in article photo of man about to bang open a door dressed in black but not wearing a helmet.
Chief Constable Peter Fahy authorised the world-first ahead of next week’s Government spending cuts that could see him forced to cut 3,100 of his 14,000 staff.
Oh dear….is there anything coming in this for NZ??
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
I thought Waiuku was in New Zealand?
Yup, whoever did the broadcasting doesn't seem to have the firmest grasp of the English language. There were several sentences that could've used an editor to clean them up. But whatever, it's Twitter, not my writing class.
As for broadcasting, I didn't see anything in there that would compromise their operational security, more a PR exercise to let people see what the Police's Saturday nights are like. I'm pretty sure that before they started this, they would've drawn up a protocol stating, among other things, that things like "AOS about to raid suspected p lab at 44 Yourarseisraided Street" are Not Appropriate for Twitter.
A lot of Chinese agencies, including police, judiciary, procurate and others involved in law enforcement and justice, are doing similar things on Weibo, and, surprising as it may sound given the Chinese government's well-earned reputation, many of them are actually putting really useful information out there. I'm particularly happy with how the Beijing police, traffic management and weather bureaux and the central seismology bureau are using Weibo. It'd be good to see the NZ Police expanding on this experiment - although obviously staying on Twitter rather than switching to Weibo (although a Weibo account would be good outreach, too... Hey, NZ Police, wanna pay me? I write Chinese reasonably well) - cos you never know, a little more openness and engagement with the community might just help win back a few hearts and minds. But I've spent most of the last 14 years 11,000km away, so take what I just typed with the obvious grain of salt big enough to satisfy the most hardboiled Old Beijinger.... But I remember my parents telling me if I was ever in any trouble I could ask any cop and it'd all be sweet, but now I see them in stab-proof vests, carrying pepper spray and tasers and who knows what else, and it's all a bit jarring.
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NZ Police have been doing this on Twitter for some time on their @BetterWorkStory account. Interesting insight.
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Sacha, in reply to
a distressed state
grammar cop :)
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
NZ Police have been doing this on Twitter for some time on their @BetterWorkStory account. Interesting insight.
Oh, cool, guess I should find a way over the Great Firewall then.
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Cheers for posting this. It's quite revealing in its own right- and the level of violence sticks out.
Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention The Timaru Herald's Police Notebook, which captures the more banal and bizarre mutinae of the local cops' daily occurrences. I would like to think they enjoy contributing to it as much as we enjoy writing it.
Recent highlights include
A 46-year-old Temuka man found a blank cheque, filled it in and presented it to a bank. He has been summonsed to court.
At 5am on Monday, about 20 black-faced sheep were found wandering on State Highway 1 near Saltwater Creek.
The D C Turnbull building in Strathallan Street was entered by someone who apparently climbed the spouting.
Down these mean streets a man must go indeed...
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Russell Brown, in reply to
a distressed state
grammar cop :)
There's not actually anything wrong with the grammar there. And despite the odd error, I think the tweets were actually well written. I know of certain journalists who struggle to frame a coherent idea in 140 characters.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
There’s not actually anything wrong with the grammar there.
True, it's just loose phrasing leaving the tweets a bit too open to creative misinterpretation. Putting "in a distressed state" before "in Waiuku" would've fixed it just fine. But we pay our cops to police, not to write, and occasional infelicitous phrasing aside, it's a pretty informative story.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
bizarre mutinae of the local cops’ daily occurrences.
They're a fractious bunch, those Timaru cops.
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Islander, in reply to
Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention The Timaru Herald’s Police Notebook, which captures the more banal and bizarre mutinae of the local cops’ daily occurrences.
This is a goody!
a)it's mundane police work.
b) it's in family territory & so -fascinating- -
BenWilson, in reply to
I know of certain journalists who struggle to frame a coherent idea in 140 characters.
It probably helps that dispatchers have always spoken in short sentences, lots of stock phrases. Rapid communication is the key.
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Sacha, in reply to
There's not actually anything wrong with the grammar there
Colleagues encountered some creative misinterpretation at a wall in Glenfield ...
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Domestic violence incidents starting to roll in. Unfortunately all to common on a Saturday night.
What's special about saturday night that it occasions domestic violence?
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
What’s special about saturday night that it occasions domestic violence?
Higher than normal alcohol consumption plus having been with the family all day, thanks to the traditional structure of the week? Just hazarding a guess.
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Islander, in reply to
Add in -maybe
*NOT being with the family all day but playing sports (some of which promote aggression) & drinking afterwards-
*being a spectator at such & drinking without eating- -
Matthew Littlewood, in reply to
They're a fractious bunch, those Timaru cops.
Ha! Cute. I should've spotted that typo. I was "off-duty" ;)
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Hebe, in reply to
grammar cop :)
The grammar grump has never been a court reporter: the fact that cops can tweet understandably is amazing. I had extreme difficulty not snorting with glee as the poker-faced young man in blue droned "I was proceeding in a southerly direction on Whatever Street when....." Police back then never walked or drove, they always proceeded.
I like the snapshot of Saturday night on duty: would be curious to see a similar record of Christchurch.
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andin, in reply to
Booze culture? I dont have much to do with it
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But we pay our cops to police, not to write, and occasional infelicitous phrasing aside, it's a pretty informative story.
Police officers have some pretty variable literacy skills - it's been getting better as they tend to employ people with higher education levels now, but it used to be a job that you could get after dropping out of school. I've read some interesting English during my time working for the police.
A shift spent in a police car on a Saturday night anywhere in NZ is a real informative experience. Damn difficult job, particularly where the expectation is that you get it right every time. Wouldn't catch me doing it.
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Obviously, they only tweeted a portion of that night's jobs. It seemed very quiet to me.
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One way or another in my journalistic career I have much to do with the police. I was a police reporter in Sydney in the mid 1960's and subsequently worked in every state of Australia and also spent a couple of years in the UK. In all these places law and order and the frontlines of crime and punishment were grist to a mill which produced many stories. Some of them were big stories indeed. In some instances heads rolled and I can claim credit for breaking a story which led to the Royal Commission which ensnared some crooks including a Police Commissioner and Police Minister. The Minister managed to duck for a time and actually became the Premier of W.A. before his fall from grace. He joined another former Premier (a political opponent) on a prison farm. That story took many months of hard graft and the covert assistance of a very senior policeman who was disgusted by the conduct of his colleagues. In journalism as we know it today NO reporter could devote the time to single-mindedly complete an investigation like this. Today reporters are too few, top harried or insufficiently skilled or determined to undertake the long haul. In 2013 New Zealand (with the exception of Fairfax's Phil Kitchin) we are bereft. As newsrooms shrink so does the appetite for anything that eats up valuable resources which, perforce, need to be harnessed to the demands of instant, "breaking" websites.
In times past we eavesdropped police communications, cultivated contacts within the sworn ranks and occasionally shared a beverage with the cops. We spoke directly to officers about their cases and their methods.
Change has happened -- for the worse -- on several fronts. The police have retired behind a wall of professional spin provided by communications consultants and few if any serving officers believe that journalists can be entrusted with sensitive details and information -- off the record -- but which enables the scribes to understand the often plodding and painstaking course of investigations.
Trust has gone and it is fair to say that many serving police are part of a culture that divides the world into them and us. We are referred to as "civilians" by members of the civilian police service. But the truth is they are not military police or members of the armed forces -- NZDF -- who are properly entitled to make the distinction.
"Safer communities Together" is a great slogan but an ideal hard to realise.
Lest you think me "anti-police" I can honestly report that I have written and reported on the many deeds of police -- the good, the bad, the ugly, the corrupt, the fiercely honest and even the heroic.
It boils down in the end to the age old question, "quis custodiet ipsos custodes"... who guards the guardians?
Let me refrain from discussing the manifest shortcomings of the IPCA... That is truly an area where some solid journalistic investigation would bring numerous matters out into the sunlight.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Change has happened – for the worse – on several fronts. The police have retired behind a wall of professional spin provided by communications consultants and few if any serving officers believe that journalists can be entrusted with sensitive details and information – off the record – but which enables the scribes to understand the often plodding and painstaking course of investigations.
Hi Phil!
As I said, something like this will never be a substitute for journalistic scrutiny. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it was written by a comms person.
But I think this exercise is useful more for what it shows about what goes on outside our view, rather than for anything it says about the police themselves. The constant role of alcohol in particular.
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BenWilson, in reply to
“Safer communities Together” is a great slogan but an ideal hard to realise.
I noticed there were no reports of injuries from overly hot pies, so they're making some progress :-)
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