Northern Constabulary

Speedy response to gun crime

Alerting firearms teams to reports of gun crime is faster than ever.

Police officers responding to firearms incidents need to depend on swift and reliable communication when dealing with potentially lethal situations. Imagine the challenge faced by the Northern Constabulary, which covers a massive and remote area of the UK. In fact, it’s a sixth of the landmass of Britain, consisting of the Local Authority Region of Highland and the Island Authorities of Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles. With teams of officers spread over a wide area, every second counts in answering reports of gun crime.

Sending messages directly

Northern Constabulary originally used a paging service from O2. PageOne has replaced the old system, allowing the operational commander to send text messages directly to his officers. Constable Graham Findlater, Firearms Instructor, explained: “We run three groups of armed officers: Instructors; Armed Response Vehicles, each with two officers; and a Tactical Firearms Unit. Together these units consist of 27 qualified firearms officers, all available for immediate call-out. “Should an incident be reported by a member of the public through an emergency call, and the presence of firearms is known or suspected, the first line of response is the Armed Response Vehicles, of which two will attend any single incident. “If, unhappily, another firearms incident occurs elsewhere in the force area, it is our task to contact members of the Tactical Firearms Unit, ensure they are close enough to an armoury in order to be issued with a weapon, and arrive at the scene with enough support to deal with the situation.

Assessing the response

“Communication is of the essence. We must understand the nature of the problem, assess the level of response and ensure officers are contacted and can respond.” In the event of a firearms incident being reported, the type and scale of response is discussed with a tactical advisor. Once the necessary level of response has been assessed, the operational commander will use PageOne messaging to send a text message to whichever teams or individual members are required.
This can be activated by simply calling one telephone number or accessing the system via the internet. The call is picked up and the alert transmitted to the pagers and mobile phones of whichever officers are selected. The selection process or list of officers on and off duty is maintained in a series of call lists, which also identify the preferred method of communication, mobile or pager. Those Armed Response Vehicle officers responding to the incident call into the force operations room to receive further instructions and confirm their arrival times. Tactical Firearms Unit officers need to visit the nearest armoury and sign out weapons before attending the incident.

Northern Constabulary:

• The force needs to contact officers quickly in an emergency.
• Introducing PageOne messaging has helped the force to alert officers swiftly and efficiently.
• Administrative tasks can also be scheduled.

Saving time and resources

“All our qualified officers have pagers and mobile phones, so we can contact them one way or another,” said Constable Findlater. “The PageOne system saves time and resources, and has the added benefit of being a useful general communication tool for everyday use. “For example, firearms officers need to re-qualify about every six weeks and I use PageOne messaging to book them in for their next test. General administration and meeting information can also be communicated over the system, which has proved to be highly reliable. “We recently had an incident when we had an internal communication issue, but thanks to PageOne, our ability to contact the officers, get their responses and have units at the right place at the right time remained unaffected. “Such has been the success that I am talking to other departments in the force with a view to extending the capabilities of PageOne messaging to different policing functions.”