To think it's little wonder the police are so overworked and under-resourced given all the things they apparently will deal with according to some on here?

[wannaBe]

Not so much a taat but definitely inspired....

I am constantly at some of the posts from people and what they advise people to go to the police for:

someone texts too often? ring the police and have them charged with harassment.

Ex wants to get back together? ring the police and have it logged as abuse.

And the latest one,
the daughter of an op has messaged her dad's ow on facebook... the response from a couple of posters? the ow could go to the police and have the daughter charged.

Do the police have nothing better to do than pick up after people's fallings out on the internet and by text then? would anyone on here really go to the police after such trivial instances?

Yes , there's one at the moment where someone got an unexpected bunch of flowers delivered to her door and is being advised to "log" it with the police in case the would be suitor won't take no for an answer! Even though the op didn't actually "say" no, she said she'd think about it

I saw that one Flogging
I commented on a thread recently about the police not being able to do much in a certain scenario and it didn't go down too well [shocked]

I would love to be a fly on the wall in one of these call centres:

caller: "I'd like to log an incident." operative: "ok, can you give me the details?" caller: "yes, someone sent me flowers. I'd like to log it as, as, as, well, I'm not entirely sure, but just in case he decides not to take no for an answer and ends up being a psychopath."

Is it even possible to just log an incident anyway without wasting a signifficant amount of time taking statements etc? I didn't think it was.

I always snigger when I see people giving this advice and I always want to say "why the fuck do you think the police would be interested in this???"

I'm not that mean though but I do have to sit on my hands a lot...

I think I'm going to have to call 101 to report your post, OP.

These are my favourite:

OP: someone has been parked outside my street for an hour and a half. They have a weird beard.
All of MN: call the cops and get it 'logged', you just never know.

Yes Starling Ask the police to 'log it' in case wannaBe ever starts another thread

You can't be too careful, after all. What if wannaBe turns out to be a psycho serial thread starter?

Don't worry Starling, I've already 'logged' it with them

given the number of people advised to call the police over e.g. nasty texts etc it's a wonder that the whole of aibu isn't a police matter by now.

YANBU, at all. Ditto social services and use of the NHS. I think a lot of people on Mumsnet have led very sheltered lives on 'naice' areas and haven't had much experience of needing contact with the authorities. If you've lived in a bit of a rough area for a while and have had cause to need them you quite quickly become aware that there is a threshold you need to meet to get a response and it is far, far higher than most of Mumsnet realises.

I do think that the SS response has changed over time. I remember not so long ago the general opinion spouted here was "if the person is innocent of any wrongdoing they won't mind SS being involved, after all they'll just appreciate that they're doing their job." err ... I don't think so.

I take these calls. It is difficult to explain to someone that it isn't a police matter as most of the time 'someone' has told them it is. We don't just 'log' stuff, and I wish people would realise that even if we did, logging it doesn't make it true. It isn't evidence. People will ring up and say they have had an accident, the other person admitted liability but they want it logged in case they change their story. Telling us the person has admitted liability doesn't make any difference. It is your insurances job to deal with it. The same applies for so many things.

They are occasions when getting things logged is the right thing to do, but for every day stuff no it's not.

sometimes it does need logging in case it escalates i logged my ex mil for approaching me and abusing me she has a history of escalation and i wanted to gather evidence in case she decided to do this to me i also told my ex if she did it again i would have the police go over and formally ask her to fuck off (technical term ) the police nicely told me i should not have to put up with being sworn at

i think it depends on your experience with her i went to the police with my ex's wife i didn't even though what she did is classed as harassment i know she is a drug user and see saws a lot emotionally and she will leave me alone of course if she rocks up to my house i will be ringing them the girl is nuts

I was gobsmacked when my mum was made to log her wheelie bin as stolen when it went missing - the council wouldn't give her a new one without a crime number.

This was despite her having seen it being 'eaten' by the bin lorry! The bin people hadn't logged it and apparently only the police can sort out this kind of council fuck up.

yes you need a crime number to get a new bin for free if you dont then you have to pay for them in my area

I was told its not the polices job to come out if a rogue snake enters the flat. It did turn out to be someones pet but the polices advice was to go and knock on every door on this half of the estate at midnight to find out whose it was rather than the owner of the snake actually making the effort.

HelenaDove - i was told by the sspca that they dont deal with stray dogs that is a police matter. It was my job to catch the stray dog and take it to the police station.

Somebody took my pen at work. I think i am going to log it with thenpolice in case they take my notebook to go with it.

As someone who works in a police control room the scary thing is the huge number of calls we get about exactly the things you see posted about on. Never a day goes by when we don't get a couple of calls we read and go

I'm sure some people have 101 on speed dial.

People get into all sorts of situations and just don't know how to deal with it.

I am from the Police - yer all nicked!

Police friend of mine was saying the other day most of their day to day is Facebook bullshit.

Her particular irritation was a call out to a home which was under threat of arson.

By a random stranger who posted on the same public thread, didn't know actual names and lived (they thought) in glasgow. This home was in Yorkshire...