November 2016
Dear all,
It’s been a very busy time for the South East Area Command over the last few weeks with some very high call volume days around the Halloween weekend and 5th November.
The joint operation between CEC, Fire and Rescue Service and Police Scotland for Nov 5th worked well again this year with the early removal of some large bonfires reducing issues for the night around Moredun and Gilmerton. Other than a couple of firework throwing incidents in the run up to the night, there were no significant incidents of concern for us and thankfully no serious injuries relating to fires or fireworks.
The new community policing model is working well and it’s already paying dividends both on the nightshift, where we have more Response officers available, and also during the day where the community policing teams are carrying out significant work to tackle local community problems.
Work in the last two weeks alone by the funded officers and community teams has involved:
World events have again impacted upon us resulting in various demos, vigils etc. I was personally involved in work around the removal of the Indy Camp which went peaceably for the Messengers at Arms and other demos have included:
protests at Russian and French Consulates relating to Syria and the Turkish Consulate regarding the treatment of Kurds.
As you would imagine we try as best as we can to get on the front foot with these. This week we were looking closely at Social Media following the election win for Donald Trump and yesterday saw the first protest in Edinburgh when 200 gathered at St Giles and then marched to the US Consulate.
Clearly, given the controversy that surrounds his future presidency, this may be an area of growth business for us, which may have various impacts going forward. Thankfully yesterday, given the wider resource pool we have in Police Scotland, I was able to pull in additional officers from outwith Edinburgh at short notice to manage the march and demo (NB. the city was already policing the rugby, football, a parade and numerous incidents at the time).
The most significant incident since my last update, involved a stranger attack on a lone female in Salisbury Place. Incidents like this are rare in the City but given the circumstances it was imperative that we carried out a robust enquiry. After some painstaking work around wider CCTV by officers and detectives from Public Protection Unit, a male residing out with the UK has since been identified for the crime and moves are afoot to bring him to justice.
Our focus and efforts around housebreaking continue and once again it topped our most recent 'Your View Counts Survey' as the most significant concern for residents. This week alone 3 separate individuals were arrested in South for housebreaking and 2 others, who have broken into houses recently in SE, received lengthy custodial sentences. The overall impact in SE continues with a significant 38% reduction in the crime meaning 156 less house broken into. We won’t be complacent though and our nightshift have been running operations in recent weeks to look at targeting offenders and patrolling recently targeted areas.
Winter City will be our divisional policing response to the festive period. Planning is at an advanced stage and we will have additional officers out on patrol in the City Centre over the period to ensure the safety of visitors to the city and the general public.
Winter City will feature on our Twitter and Facebook updates and recently we’ve been looking at refreshing our account and training more officers in their use to keep the local community updated more regularly regarding ongoing incidents and crimes.
If you haven’t been following us yet, I’d encourage you to do so as the account provides a handy overview of the variety of work and issues we deal with each week.
Twitter: @EdinPolSE
Hopefully you have found this update and the update from your local community Inspectors helpful, however, should you require any further information don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Regards,
Mark
Chief Inspector Mark Rennie
Local Area Commander - Edinburgh: South East
Edinburgh Division
Police Scotland
Howdenhall Police Station
9 Howdenhall Road
Edinburgh
EH16 6TF
Direct dial: 0131 658 5237
E-mail: mark.rennie2@scotland.pnn.police.uk
Website: www.scotland.police.uk
Twitter: @EdinPolSE
Your view Counts Survey: www.scotland.police.uk/yourviewcounts