🎆🎆🎆COVER REVEAL 🎆🎆🎆
Are you ready to save a life?
#TheFallen
is out in paperback on August 29th.
And you can preorder your copy here:
(p.s. Top Secret Tip: Book 3 in the series will be out in the New Year)
This is Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole
He was known to his friends as Jimi
He was 20 years old
Yesterday, he gave his life to save the life of a complete stranger
And I don’t have words to describe how extraordinary I think he is
Rest peacefully, you brave, beautiful young man...
Today I am remembering PC Andrew Harper, killed on duty on this day three years ago.
Thinking of Lissie and of all who knew him best and loved him most.
Rest peacefully mighty man.
On March 1st, a white teenage girl was stabbed to death in London. In the days that followed, I lost count of the number of calls I had, asking for media interviews.
On March 22nd, a black teenage boy was stabbed to death in London. And I haven’t had a single call from the press.
I find Covid and lockdown and grief and uncertainty incredibly challenging, but...
I wear my mask
I keep my distance
I wash my hands
I work from home
I’ve had my first jab
And I don’t attack police officers.
An off duty Special Constable has given Glenn Hoddle a fighting chance...
An on duty Police Constable risked his own life in an attempt to rescue the occupants of a crashed helicopter...
They represent the very best of who we are and what we can be.
You see a police officer in real trouble. Do you:
(a) Wade in to help them?
(b) Use your phone to call for help (there may be a genuine reason for not being able to help yourself)?
(c) Start filming?
If you answered (c), you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror...
Dear
@SkyNews
,
I've just checked your UK News Homepage.
There are three obviously negative stories about policing on there.
But not one single mention of the astoundingly brave Met officer who has been stabbed today.
It's almost as though you couldn't give a damn...
I just don’t think that today is the day for ‘not all men’, or ‘not all police officers’…
Today is a day to be horrified.
To be angry. Really, really angry.
To be deeply distressed.
To ask as many questions as need asking.
To remember.
Her name was Sarah.
Today, I am remembering PC Keith Palmer GM.
Murdered on duty five years ago today, defending the Houses of Parliament from a terrorist attack.
Rest peacefully mighty man.
On this day in 2017, these three men risked their lives confronting armed terrorists on London Bridge.
They'll tell you that they were just doing their jobs.
I'm telling you that they're absolute bloody heroes.
PC Leon McLeod QGM
PC Wayne Marques GM
PC Charlie Guenigault GM
Ok, so let’s address this. I’m 23. I came from little. I need to protect not just my future but my family’s too. To do that I made a decision at the beg of 2020 to start investing more in property. Please don’t run stories like this alongside refs to ‘campaigning’.
Please have your first jab.
Please have your second.
Please have your booster.
Please wear a mask.
Please keep your distance.
Please think of others.
Please do your bit.
If you realise that you’re not able to celebrate an England win without breaking stuff or scaring the living daylights out of people or generally behaving like a complete numpty, the rest of us would be grateful if you just stayed indoors...
#ItsComingHome
I am not for one moment suggesting that the murder of a white girl should somehow matter less.
But I absolutely am suggesting that the murder of a black boy should matter a whole lot more...
If you are a police officer and you see things or hear things from colleagues that aren't right, but you don't say or do anything about it, you are part of the problem...
Silence is collusion.
The headline reads:
“Lone police officer rugby tackled suspected Reading knife attacker.”
For more than 25 years, I worked with heroes.
Absolute bloody heroes.
Enough already of the criticism of police officers...
Yes, there have been a couple of individual cases where things could have been better handled - but isn’t that true if life?
Mostly, they are a bunch of bloody heroes doing the very best they can in unbelievably testing times.
Dear
@MarcusRashford
This is Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole
He was known to his friends as Jimi
He was 20 years old
Yesterday, he gave his life to save the life of a complete stranger
I wanted you to know his name
An economist as Chancellor
A Housing Minister who grew up in social housing
A state-school-educated Schools Minister
A Health Secretary who owes his life to the NHS
A KC as Attorney General
A Prisons Minister with years of experience in the field
People with lived experience...
Four years ago today, a police officer gave his life protecting politicians of every party.
Four years on, is it asking too much for politicians of every party to speak out in unequivocal support of good policing?
The police officers who are stopping and searching our young men are the same police officers who are fighting desperately to save the lives of our young men when they’ve been stabbed. They’re not different people.
Somewhere out there today, a respected company will get itself in a right old mess with its portrayal of policing... Meanwhile, up in Scotland, two officers will be in hospital, receiving emergency medical treatment for serious stab wounds. They define what policing really is.
Home Secretary, that is exactly what every neighbourhood did have in 2010, before your government cut 44,000 officers and staff from policing in 🏴 & 🏴
As part of the new
#BeatingCrimePlan
we're launching today, every neighbourhood in 🏴&🏴 will have contactable, named police officers, who know their area & are best placed to tackle persistent crime & anti-social behaviour.
Making your streets safer.
👉🏽
Somewhere out there this week, a police officer went to the aid of a stranger in distress...
Now that officer is very seriously ill in hospital.
God forbid we ever take our Coppers for granted...
I choose my side...
It’s with the women and men standing on the thin blue line.
Not with the people gathered in crowds, refusing to wear masks, behaving like buffoons.
Dear
@NHS
You saved my mum’s life 3 times.
You saved my sister’s life twice.
You looked after me during the worst days of my life.
You looked after my dad during the last days of his life.
And, today, you vaccinated me.
I simply wanted to say thank you.
If you sincerely want better policing, the relentless demonisation of the women and men who do the job has to be just about the worst approach you could possibly take...
While politicians continue to tear one another & the country apart...
Police officers will keep on policing;
Nurses will keep on nursing;
Teachers will keep on teaching;
Ordinary people will keep on doing the very best they can;
All of them needing & deserving so much more...
Today, I am remembering PC Andrew Harper of Thames Valley Police who was killed on duty on this day in 2019.
Today, I am thinking of Lissie, his widow, and all those who knew him best and loved him most.
Rest peacefully mighty man.
I’m sorry, but this statement simply isn’t true.
- 44000 officers/staff cut (2010-18)
- £billions cut from budgets
- Neighbourhood policing cut
- Dogs cut
- Horses cut
- Air Support cut
- Real terms pay cuts
The damage done to policing by politicians is beyond calculation
Our support for our brave police officers is unwavering and we will always ensure they have the resources and powers they need to fight crime and protect the public
Horribly misleading headline from the Telegraph. The ‘mistake’ is entirely the Government’s:
- the mistake of austerity
- the mistake of cutting 44,000 officers & staff
- the mistake of dismantling neighbourhood policing
This is on the Government. All of it.
Everywhere out there today, doctors, nurses, paramedics, police officers and so many others will take a deep breath, dust themselves down and go again...
We owe them all a profound debt of gratitude.
Today, I am remembering WPC Yvonne Fletcher, murdered outside the Libyan embassy on this day in 1984. She was 25 years old.
Rest peacefully, you beautiful human being.
Family conversation about Coronavirus at kitchen table...
Me to children:
Is there anything you want to ask?
Wife to children:
“I want you to know that I’m not scared”
Eldest child to wife:
“You’re drinking a lot of alcohol and singing a lot of opera for someone who isn’t scared”
A knife-wielding man has been jailed after a group of off-duty officers rushed to intervene as he attacked another man in
#Southwark
Shocking footage demonstrates "the heroism shown by these officers is nothing short of exceptional" as they separate the attacker from the victim.
Don’t boo the Italian anthem.
Don’t sing offensive songs.
Don’t get drunk if you can’t handle your drink.
Win or lose, don’t be a tosser…
#ThreeLions
#ENGITA
#ItsComingHome
It is deeply unfashionable to be standing up for policing at the moment.
It is more important than ever that we do so.
(Never as blind apologists, but as those who understand that policing is a heck of a job and that those who do it are deserving of our endless gratitude.)
I see we're back to criticising the police again... At least, that's what some of us seem to be preoccupied with doing.
Me?
I think they're a bunch of absolute heroes, doing the very best they can in completely unprecedented times.
I'd rather spend my time thanking them...
More urgent than Brexit:
1) Murders of children on our streets
2) Murders of women by their partners
3) Human Trafficking
4) Unchecked rise of extremism
5) Rising homelessness
6) Rising need for food banks
7) Inadequate MH care
8) Chronic underfunding of public services
Thank you Cress.
For your kindness.
For your support.
For your friendship.
For your love for the girls & boys in blue.
For your service.
I wish you incredibly well for whatever the future holds.
Suggestions for police officer wellbeing:
1) Briefing as a team (in person, not remotely)
2) Double Crewing
3) Canteens in police stations
4) Debriefing as a team (in person, not remotely)
5) Enough officers to get the job done
All things my generation of PCs took for granted...
A question for all those who have been vocal in their complaints about the police response to the pandemic.
Is there anything you would like to say about this?
Since people seem to be talking about it today, my opinion on the subject - based on more than 25 years in policing:
Domestic Violence is terrorism on an epic scale, a disease of pandemic proportions and the single greatest cause of harm in society.
I can't read the details emerging from the trial of those accused of murdering PC Andrew Harper. It's too much.
But I can remember him.
And I can think of Lissie.
So that is what I will do.
During the course of our lives, most of us will be exposed to extreme trauma on 3-4 occasions.
During the course of their working lives, police officers and paramedics will be exposed to extreme trauma on 400-600 occasions.
#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek2021
Dear
@SkyNews
Please could I politely ask you to amend your headline to reflect the fact that this happened in America.
And please can you stop trying to undermine police-community relations in this country.
Thank you.
This is Joziah.
In April, his dad was killed in a car crash on his way to work as a detective.
His fellow officers didn't want Joziah to be alone on his first day of kindergarten.
So they did this.
Have been speaking on the phone to my 77-year old mum.
She's a cancer survivor, a transplant survivor, a diabetic with heart problems.
She's in self-isolation and has spent her morning out in her garden, planting bulbs.
Which seems to me like the perfect thing to have done.
It is a matter of great regret to me that, in more than 25 years as a police officer, I never made use of the term ‘Bat-Shit Crazy’ in a televised briefing...