Manchester England Police Tweeting Every Distress Call Today

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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Manchester England Police Tweeting Every Distress Call Today

In an effort to show all that "modern policing" does, the Greater Manchester Police force is publishing details of every call that it receives today on Twitter.

We are in the future. This is web 3.0. Information is so now freely available and easily distributed that it is now possible for one of the largest police forces in the United Kingdom to publish details of each call that it receives. Chief Constable Peter Fahy of the Greater Manchester Police force is using the promotion to show the public all that "modern policing" entails. It's not all bang bang and bobbies chasing robbers; police now deal with a lot of social problems, domestic disputes and possible health issues. Due to the technical limitations of Twitter, the force is Tweeting over three accounts: @gmp24_3 [http://twitter.com/#!/gmp24_1]. The 24 Tweet-fest began at 5am Manchester time this morning.


"Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up," said Chief Constable Peter Fahy. "However the reality is that this accounts for only part of the work they have to deal with."

The promotion is a part of a plea from Fahy to change the way Manhester funds its social services. From his point of view, the police often begin the process of helping people and he thinks that public funding for social services should be split amongst all agencies.

"We see time and again the same families, the same areas and the same individuals causing the same problems and these people are causing a considerable drain to the public purse," Fahy said.

"Instead of the public sector organisations having separate pots of money we could spend it more efficiently it were one big pot. This could be achieved by working together more effectively, by joining up and sharing the responsibility of the issues that we are all dealing with."

Politics aside, it's just generally funny to see some of the calls that the police are handling today. One of my favorites so far are:

call 1069 bag of sand obstructing traffic in Oldham

I wonder if that is related to the previous call:

call 1068 [http://twitter.com/#!/gmp24_2/status/27335457681] bag stolen in street in Oldham

Quick! Someone is stealing bags of sand and putting them in the streeet! Call the cops!

Source: Greater Manchester Police [http://www.gmp.police.uk/mainsite/pages/42B60B1DA0B3A6B1802577BC00184C53]

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Dogstile

New member
Jan 17, 2009
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Yeah, most people see the police as evil "only there to ruin fun" assholes here in britain. It'd be nice if those people looked at some of the stuff they did.

I have a great respect for police, even if they do occasionally catch me drinking in the woods with friends.
 

Eri

The Light of Dawn
Feb 21, 2009
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"children stealing sweets" Ahahahahaha

A lot of these are hilarious
 

Baldr

The Noble
Jan 6, 2010
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call 1436 tent erected on church grounds in Rochdale

We have a winner.
 

Jonesy911

New member
Jul 6, 2009
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I dont really like the police, they're like the governments own private army that pretends to like you but then the moment you do something the government doesn't like the police are "forced" to arrest you.

EDIT: Ok I just realised that was totally irrelevant. Also on topic these tweets are hilarious
 

Baldr

The Noble
Jan 6, 2010
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I watch the show cops, I know couldn't do what they do on a daily basis. I would throw anyone running their mouth in jail.
 

C95J

I plan to live forever.
Apr 10, 2010
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yeah, I heard about this too, live 2 and a half hours away from Manchester.

My guess is that it would be pretty busy there...
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Greg Tito said:
Manchester England Police Tweeting Every Distress Call Today
We were checking it out earlier: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.238633-Follow-the-Police

You missed this beauty:

Call 613 silent 999 call received - baby playing with phone. Call handler gave advice

And this strangely worded one.

Call 605 officers to deliver a death message
 

crotalidian

and Now My Watch Begins
Sep 8, 2009
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On a side note to this, the police in England (and I assume worldwide) get a lot of very silly requests so it may also serve to embarrass people into not calling the police with trivial problems.

Talking about things like 'my child is refusing to go to school' or 'I have a flat tire' hopefully will help there too
 

qbanknight

New member
Apr 15, 2009
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Somehow that seems like a breach of privacy to some degree, nothing that can violate US law though, I'm not sure how is that affected by UK law
 

Baldr

The Noble
Jan 6, 2010
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Invasion of Privacy? How? There is no identification makers besides town/city. Most Cities in the US publish arrests with names in the newspaper and other crimes, online I can find mugshots of every arrest taken today in my city. This is nothing.
 

Simalacrum

Resident Juggler
Apr 17, 2008
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Hey cool! I live in Manchester now as well :D (studying at the University of Manchester, Japanese studies :p)

Wooooh! Go Manchester! XD
 

Weaver

Overcaffeinated
Apr 28, 2008
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Man, if stuff is on the road where it shouldn't be here in Canada I just get out and move it to the side.
 

Dangerbean

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Jan 18, 2010
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yup, whenever I see a one tonne bag of sand in the middle of the road I just hop out of the car and lift it out of the way!
 

Hr Habberdasher

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Aug 31, 2010
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AC10 said:
Man, if stuff is on the road where it shouldn't be here in Canada I just get out and move it to the side.
you my friend have obviously never come across a big bag of sand.
 

electric discordian

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Apr 27, 2008
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I live in Manchester and to be honest this explains why they never respond to a domestic disturbance or indeed a robbery. They are too busy tweeting!
 

Weaver

Overcaffeinated
Apr 28, 2008
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Hr Habberdasher said:
AC10 said:
Man, if stuff is on the road where it shouldn't be here in Canada I just get out and move it to the side.
you my friend have obviously never come across a big bag of sand.
Well, never in the middle of a road.