Op Broad Oak from the ground level

So Operation Broad Oak gets its official launch today and I wanted to talk about what this means on the street level. During this week I will be out and about being part of the team that will be enforcing this new zero tolerance to ASB in the Town Centre. 

As a way of showing what this means I thought it may be useful to show what I did yesterday, and talk about my plans for the rest of the week.

During the morning I was speaking to the Manager at Churchfield Road Sainsburys about a problem shoplifter they are dealing with and we outlined our teams desire to help them, by targeting the worst of their problem shoplifters. 

From there I have been spending a lot of my time trying to sort out the abandoned flat near Morrisons. This has been taken over by drug users and it is an active crack den during the night and leading to lots of complaints. The land lord has secured the door once, last week, but this was quickly destroyed. We are now working with the landlord to secure a long term solution.

On the Mount itself I found 3 street drinkers with open cans of alcohol, these were issued CPWs which is the first step of working towards a Banning order which will mean they are arrestable just for being in Acton Town Centre. 
This is key to Operation Broad Oak. What we are seeing is that once we hit about 10 pm each night the Mount becomes a chaotic place, and the drinkers and drug users are essentially partying through the night.

So where we have given the street drinkers who are basically well behaved, and appear to us to be quiet street drinkers, warning words and many chances. This is no longer the case as we have seen footage of these same drinkers, causing carnage in the same location at night.
I also took some calls over the radio where there were reports of drug users in Woodlands Park and during the process of moving them on I found a male who is banned from Acton. So he is going to court for that.

I was also approached by a woman from Hillside who stated that there are still issues with Lime Bike Guy stealing parcels. It appears they are not being reported. He has an Criminal Behaviour Order banning him from Acton, so if he is filmed stealing your parcel we just need the footage and a statement and he can be charged for these offences. The courts take the fact that some people ignore their orders very seriously. So please support us by contacting us if you have issues with him. 

I will try and do more of these as they appear to be a generally taken positively. 

One negative that did happen yesterday was as I was leaving Woodlands Park, I was called over by one of the drug users. He passed on his concerns about one of the group who he felt was vulnerable. I took notice of what he was saying and thanked him for beinging it to my attention, as I parted we fist bumped and went on or way. As I went back towards the police station, a woman who had seen this interaction and was horrified that I had fist bumped this man. She was clear he was one of the worst drug dealers and that officers should not be fist bumping them. I explained I try and treat everyone with dignity and respect, but she was still unhappy and stormed away shouting things have changed since the old days. 

I think things have changed. These people also live in Acton and deserve to get a fair service and treated with respect no matter who they are. Earlier that day I was stopped by some school kids who wanted to know about stop and search and one of them wanted to be searched. I didn't actually search him, but I went through the process of pretending to search him, telling him everything I would say if we were actually doing the search. I know I treated him with the same positive attitude that I did the drug dealer who had concerns for his friend. 

I can be pretty forceful and indeed unpleasant when I need to be, but we learn when that is necessary and when it is not.

Any way I am very positive about Operation Broad Oak it has started really well and I think we shall see results. 

Enjoy the sun

PC Dave Loveday

P229934@met.police.uk