Blue Beat

The speaker at our Probus meeting today was the Graeme Jarvis, our very own Community Constable.  He told us of his years working in the police force, in roles such as CIB,  Armed Offenders, and Search and Rescue, and working from Palmerston North.   It was time to come back to Levin, and luckily the current role of Community Constable  became vacant.

He feels very strongly about all the scams which flood into local people’s emails, letter boxes, as telephone calls and lately also as text messages.  Sadly, unsuspecting members of the public are still being taken in by these scams.  Constable Jarvis had a whole swag of such letters,  and circulated copies of various letters around the hall for us to have a look at.  These days, copying digital images from legitimate business letter-head pages is easily done, and the mail can look like the real thing.  But if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Don’t be taken in by these unscrupulous scammers, was the message, and never, ever give out banking details over the phone or by email.  

Constable Jarvis enjoys his current position of Community Constable, and likes to be out and about in the local area.  He writes his weekly “Blue Beat” article which appears in the local newspaper, keeping the residents informed what is happening in our home town.  Every day is different, he said, and there was no such thing as a typical day, he never knows just what challenges may occur.

On a lighter note, he showed us what every well dressed police officer has to wear while out and about while on patrol.  The heavy vest had a stab proof layer, is hung with a radio and all sorts of other paraphernalia, and weighs about 8kg – more when firearms are issued.  We were invited to pick it up and see just how heavy it is, so I did.  “Try it on”, he encouraged me, seeing my camera in my hand, “and get your photo taken”.  Yes, it certainly was heavy, wearing that every day would take a bit of getting used to.

Only pretending to be a police woman

Questions came thick and fast, such as how many police officers are there in the Horowhenua area.  About 40, we were told, but they are not all sitting about in the police station drinking coffee.  This number patrol the roads, investigate crimes, go on call outs, and do all manner of things to keep our area safe.  From what we view on the TV programmes following police on patrol, they seem to have their work cut out sometimes.  After answering various questions, Constable Jarvis buckled on his heavy vest, and got ready to go back on the streets.  It was certainly an interesting, informative talk, and our group appreciated him giving us a hour or so from his busy day.   We all learnt something, I’m sure.

 

Community Constable Jarvis