Friday, May 20, 2011

Flames and Carnies in the Yard!

We had the special honor of standing inside the Buckingham Palace grounds during the changing of the guard Thursday morning. It was an experience I will not forget; thank you PC Watson for making it a possibility!

New Scotland Yard was our destination Thursday afternoon and it was really interesting. We were briefed by a Constable and a Sargent concerning Public Order issues in London. The first session dealt with the Olympic planning for the London games in 2012 and all the planning which was going into crowd control and security for the games.

Sear gent Eric Stuart discussed the planning for security for the Olympic torch and his experience during the last games. Both presentations were good but Sargent Stuart transitioned from discussing the torch into security issues for the annual Nottinghill Carnival. His presentation included video footage of past events and criminal activity as well as crowd safety concerns. Having a play by play description of the criminal events really added to the presentation. It is very apparent the MPS is well versed in handling huge crowds and events; it was a great learning experience.

The last presentation of the day came from PC Watson and words cannot adequately describe the powerful visuals he utilized to demonstrate differences between American and English police officers. My eyes are still burning!

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