My brother has been a member of the civil nuclear constabulary — a section of the British police force that exclusively guards the countries nuclear sites — for some time. The job itself is very mundane and quiet most of the time. The force has never fired a shot in anger in the more than 60 years it has been in existence and usually averages under 25 arrests nationwide per year. It does, however, have some stories from the past that are quite alarming. This one, in particular, was told to my brother’s training group by their firearms instructor.

This story happens in 2004, in a post-9/11 world that’s also seen a sharp increase in suicide bombing incidents. There are two types of guards at Britain’s nuclear sites: the true civil nuclear police who are a well-armed and well-trained force who wear full ballistic protection and carry a range of firearms, and the onsite security staff who are employed by private security firms, are not classed as police, and are armed with at most a baton and pepper spray. The security staff serves as gate guards and interior checkpoint monitors, whilst the police do roaming patrols on and around the site.

The security firm decided its employees needed training in how to handle a credible suicide threat, and thus had one of their offsite employees approach the front gate of a nuclear site wearing a fake bomb vest. Unfortunately, it slipped this company’s mind to inform the multitude of highly-armed police onsite that this was going to be happening.

This man approached the gate wearing a large coat, and when confronted by the security staff, he shrugged off his coat to reveal a very convincing bomb vest and started shouting at the guards. As this occurred, one of the police officers arrived behind him in a patrol vehicle and after stopping, quickly exited the vehicle, shouted a warning, and got as far as cocking his rifle to open fire when the guy spun around screaming, “Training exercise!” repeatedly whilst throwing himself on the floor with his arms outstretched.

The police officer held his fire, and after a rather tense period, the actor’s identity was confirmed and he was allowed to get up and remove his outfit. The police officer, incredibly, was reprimanded and dismissed for holding his fire. At the hearing, when he said he could have killed the man, his superior simply responded that he should have.

The instructor finished this story with the warning that the constabulary expected deadly force to be used against persons who were deemed a credible threat to life or the facility, and if anyone present felt they would be unable to pull the trigger they should get up and leave now. Three people of the 25 present got up and left.

So far my brother and every other member of the force has shot nothing but training targets. I hope their presence at Britain’s nuclear sites as a force in being is sufficient to ensure that it stays that way.

Years ago, circa 2010, I worked as door staff at a fairly rough nightclub. We had a policy that every person through the door had to be searched with a wand and be subject to a bag check. I searched a woman and found a baggie of white powder in her purse. I confiscated it and turned her away; she began ranting and screaming at me but her friends escorted her away. I put the bag in our drug safe to be turned over to the cops and carried on with work.

A little while later, a police car drove up and two officers got out. The woman from before came storming back up and started screaming again. One of the officers said, “We have a report that you stole a mobile phone.” I was mystified as I didn’t even have a phone on me, but then the woman started ranting at him about me stealing from her.

A light bulb flashed on in my brain, and I radioed the manager to bring the baggie out. When she did, the crazy woman snatched it and started waving it at the police, telling them to arrest me for theft. The look on their faces was priceless as they arrested her and tested the powder; it came back positive — for what I don’t know, but the little pack changed color. It turned out that she had called 999 and the operator had misheard what she was ranting about and thought she said mobile. Gotta love drunk idiots!

(At the pool, there’s a new cleaner. We see him hanging around our locker and my suspicious mother decides to change our locker code when he leaves. When we go out, we hear a couple of swimmers complaining at the window.)

Swimmer #1: “Our clothes have been stolen!”

Swimmer #2: “We think he’s one of your cleaners.” *provides physical description* “He was looking at the lockers strangely.”

Ticket Seller: “All right! I’ll get him for you.”

(She comes back with the cleaner in question.)

Ticket Seller: “You’re suspected of stealing from some lockers.”

(The cleaner sees us and thinks we were the ones complaining about him.)

Cleaner: “I didn’t steal anything from you! You had changed your code, anyway!”

Swimmer #2: “Uh, we were complaining.”

Mother: “But how do you know we changed the code?”

(It’s a busy night at the 112 call centre, with calls coming in nonstop. I answer the next call.)

Me: “Good evening, police—“

(A small voice interrupts me.)

Child: “Where’s Mommy?”

(She sounds no older than three or four years old. Mostly when small children call, they are playing with the house phone. The child starts crying.)

Child: “I don’t know where Mommy is!”

(In the background I can hear a baby crying.)

Me: “What’s your name?”

Child: “[Child].”

Me: “Hello, [Child]; who do I hear crying?”

Child: “That’s my brother; he’s still very tiny.”

Me: “Sweetie, are you sure Mommy isn’t home? Is Daddy home?”

Child: *sobbing* “I can’t find them anywhere!”

Me: “[Child], just stay on the telephone. I’ll help you, and together we’re going to find Mommy. Where do you live?”

Child: *whispers the name of a Dutch city*

Me: “Do you know what street you live on?”

Child: “No.”

(The baby has stopped crying. While I keep chatting with [Child] about her teddy bear, I ask a colleague to trace the call. The phone number is registered to an address in the city [Child] mentioned. I dispatch the nearest surveillance car to check on [Child].)

Me: “[Child], could you please go upstairs and look out the window? Do you see a police car?”

Child: “No.”

(The surveillance car checks in to tell me the former inhabitants of the address we found have recently moved and the neighbours don’t know their new address. While I am on the phone with [Child], a colleague gets a call from a man who sees a small child in the window of a house with no lights on. Concerned, he’d rung the doorbell, but no one answered. My colleague immediately sends the surveillance car to the address.)

Me: “[Child], do you know how to read?”

Child: “No. Wait, I see a police car!”

Me: “Can you open the door for the police and give them the telephone?”

Child: “Yes.”

Officer: “We’ve got them. The parents aren’t home. We’ll take them with us.”

(Later that night the parents came to pick up the two children. They had been to the movies. They couldn’t get a babysitter but thought the kids would be okay alone because they usually sleep through the night. The parents got a very stern talking-to and child protection services were notified.)

(I have a personal cell phone, which I am using to play a game while my four-year-old has a snack and uses her tablet. While playing my game, I see a call coming in and I answer it. Nearly right off I realize it’s a scam used before, but using a different system.)

Me: “Hello?”

Scammer: “Hello, this is [unintelligible name and heavy accent]. I’m calling to let you know your netbook has a security issue.”

Me: *thinking of the old Windows version of this scam* “Oh, no, that’s terrible!”

Scammer: “Yes, ma’am, you should check your netbook and make sure its security is running.”

Me: “Will do.” *gets out my WINDOWS laptop and boots it up, letting them hear the Window’s obvious boot-up noise* “What should I do?”

Scammer: “You need to open your security and see if it’s working.”

Me: *pretends to do that, while instead just clicking on the desktop* “Oh, no, it’s not! What do I do?”

Scammer: “Do you see the CTRL button and a button that has four squares on it? Press those two and R together, then let go.”

Me: *hits G, H, and T, doing nothing to my laptop* “A pop-up came up…”

Scammer: “Could you tell me what it says, ma’am?”

Me: “Yeah, it says, ‘Congrats! You are being scammed!’ You people aren’t bright, are you? That was WINDOWS you heard boot up. Not netbook.”

Scammer: *starts swearing*

Me: *puts the phone to daughter’s ear*

Daughter: “No, no, no, no, no! Bad! No!” *wagging finger at phone* “Bad! No! No, no, no!”

Me: *laughing* “Good girl.” *brings the phone back to my ear* “Might want to remove my number; I’ve got plenty of tricks up my sleeve.” *hangs up* “Hey, [Daughter]. Want some ice cream off for telling that bad man, ‘No, no, no’?”

Daughter: “Yeah!”

(Oh, well. Another scammer to mess with, I guess. I hate scammers.)