Scotsman.com Living - Rounding up the weekend warriors
JUST a few hours ago, she was in her bedroom at her parents' home in South Queensferry. There, she carefully selected her trendiest T-shirt, jeans and jewellery for an afternoon - and evening - out in the city centre, hanging out with friends and maybe, if they can find anyone to sell to them, swigging a few sneaky underage drinks.
That excited anticipation has long since disappeared.
Fifteen-year-old Samantha and her friends did manage to lay their hands on a bottle of illicit vodka. Now it's 10pm and she's sitting in the back of a police van, sobbing her heart out, after she and her friends ended up fighting on a bus in an argument about a boy. Samantha's actually luckier than one of her mates, who's been hauled off to the police station - she's just on her way home to face her unsuspecting mother.
Her self-pitying wails, though, firmly establish that she feels anything but fortunate. "It's my own fault for drinking, I know that," she moans to the officers, then inadvertently admits she was also drinking the night before. "I just want my mum.
" Then she starts crying again.
The round trip to drop the errant child off at home - a respectable house where she and the police are greeted by a shocked and concerned mother - lasts an hour, taking two officers off the streets.
But it's hardly unheard of on a Saturday night in the centre of Edinburgh.
"Yes, this is a fairly typical incident," sighs Pc Stuart Foulner, one of the officers assigned to deal with the city centre. "We'll probably see something like this most Saturday nights. Last night we had an even younger girl who was in almost the exact same situation.
"
TROUBLE: A brawl at this Cowgate bar is typical of the sort of incident officers deal with every weekend. Pictures: STUART COBLEY
Earlier in the evening, inside Gayfield Square Police Station as the team prepare for the night ahead, the screams and shouts of revellers on Leith Walk are a little muted, although the full moon is clearly visible through the grimy windows. "It does seem to do something funny to people," one officer admits.
But it doesn't need a full moon - a clear, crisp evening near payday is quite enough to keep the police busy. On an average Friday or Saturday night, between 5pm and 7am the following morning, the city will see more than 400 reported incidents, most in and around the city centre between 10pm and 4am.
The hotspots are the Cowgate, Lothian Road, George Street and the Omni Centre.
As well as regular officers and CCTV, these areas are patrolled from midnight onwards by extra police known as City Centre dispersal teams. The aim of the highly visible police presence is to reduce trouble and have a bank of officers ready to respond.
"Overall this is a very safe city," insists Chief Inspector Willie Wills.
"But the one common denominator we see in incidents on a Friday or Saturday night is alcohol. People are people, and while I'd love to see the day when everyone can go out and have a quiet drink without feeling the need to get in fights, sadly a minority of people are not there yet."
Upwards of 40 officers cover the city centre - 18 of whom are paid for by Edinburgh City Council - among them the team led by acting sergeant Scott Oliver.
Scott, 34, has been on the force 15 years and tonight he will head a roving patrol.
The first wave of trouble is generally caused by underage drinkers, something recently underlined when a video showing the Burger King at the east end of Princes Street being trashed by a group of drunken teenagers was posted on the internet.
While such an event is unusual, alcohol-induced fights among youngsters are a common occurrence.
Club Ego, which runs events for under-18s, often sees problems with teens arriving drunk, while on Princes Street Burger King and McDonalds have now started employing doormen to tackle drunken teenagers.
As expected, just past 8.30pm, crowds of mostly young teenagers are congregating around the east end of Princes Street.
Scott and his team, heading out in the "Battle Bus" - an appropriate nickname for a vehicle packed with riot gear, which also has its very own cage for unruly prisoners - join officers checking the youngsters for alcohol. At the back of the St James Centre, there's a shout in the darkness, an order of "stay where you are," and a brief yelp from some cornered kids.
The three 14 and 15-years-olds are given a warning as their carry-out, a bottle of vodka and few cans of lager, is confiscated.
Their details are taken and they are given a warning before being sent on their way.
"The aim really is just to stop them drinking," says Pc Craig Fogg, the reporting officer for the Burger King incident. "If they don't get drunk, it can prevent a lot of trouble before it starts.
"The incident at Burger King was unusual. I was gobsmacked when the video went up on the internet, but it was actually really helpful and let me find witnesses I didn't even know I had."
Then it's on to the Royal Mile, where the street is busy with tourists and locals.
But for the police it is the closes which are of interest, as they are ideal spots for youngsters to congregate and drink - there is light, shelter from the weather and few residents.
"Just last week we found a group of kids here with about 30 litres of alcohol on them," says Pc Dara Gleeson, as he searches the nooks and crannies of the close with a torch. "There were probably about 20 kids, and they had alcohol stashed everywhere.
Generally most of them are OK if you treat them properly, talk to them and just try to tell them that they shouldn't be doing this. Inevitably one or two will give you cheek, try to act big in front of their friends, but it's just something you've got to deal with."
At Advocates Close, everything seems quiet, but halfway down the call comes over the radio about a fight on a bus in Princes Street and there's a mad dash back to the van before, lights blaring, it shoots off through the traffic.
Less than a minute later and the team is on the scene. The bus has gone, having ejected the troublemakers and the three 15-year-olds, Samantha and her friends, are clearly drunk, and were fighting with each other. As they try to explain to the police what happened, one gets violent and has to be restrained, then, after refusing to calm down, she is put into the cage in the van to be taken back to the station.
While there she repeatedly batters the glass and demands to be let out, shouting and swearing before passing out briefly. The police give a wry smile, and admit they regularly see this type of behaviour.
Samantha, as she does on her way home, spends the whole time sobbing.
During all this, a group of tourists wander over and, seemingly oblivious to the chaos around them, ask how to get to George Street. One officer stops taking a statement from a hysterical teenager to give directions. Then three drunken men in their late 20s come over and start shouting abuse at the girls, and the police have to firmly tell them to move on.
Calls are coming in thick and fast but for the next hour two officers will be transporting Samantha back home.
Midnight passes and the team moves down to the Cowgate, where the street is thronged with people heading from bar to bar and club to club.
As they pass Chasers bar, a clearly unhappy punter is shouting and gesticulating at the bouncer.
Then he starts swinging punches and the three officers are immediately out of the van and over to assist the doorman.
In the subsequent melee, two young women get in on the act, one screaming at the men trying to restrain her, punching and kicking.
Over the blaring dance music coming from inside the bar there's a sound of breaking glass and screaming, and, as more people get drawn into the fight, the three officers have their hands full.
Within minutes another van full of officers pulls up, while the two city centre dispersal officers for the area also lend a hand.
And it's needed. While the man who initially started fighting has been handcuffed and is now calmly chatting to police, the woman who was with him, also in handcuffs, is still screaming abuse and kicking out at anyone she can.
Another woman, who didn't even seem to be involved in the fight, has started shouting at officers. Both women are 21, barely over five feet tall and dressed in sparkly high heels, short skirts, with perfectly styled hair and little handbags.
Their language isn't quite so pretty, though, and amidst the expletives both are pushing, shoving and kicking the burly police officers.
Eventually they are handcuffed, arrested and put, kicking and screaming, into the vans.
A crowd has gathered to watch the unexpected cabaret, but for the police its a painfully routine incident.
"These people are just like the kids," says Scott.
"It's just that they are a little older and are allowed to drink.
"It appears that a girl inside the club was attacked, and she has been taken away in an ambulance - she's missing a clump of hair and has a pretty bad cut above her eye," he says.
"I don't think anyone was hit with a bottle," he says, as the bouncers sweep up broken glass.
"It seems that when they were all fighting a table went over and so lots of glass got smashed.
"It is always folk about this age that are getting into trouble with fighting, and it's the girls just as much as the boys," he says.
After dealing with an incident outside Siglo, barely 20 metres from the last incident, the officers seem to get stuck in the Cowgate, dealing with one brawl or row after another.
As they arrest two young men at the back entrance of Espionage in front of a jeering crowd, a girl dressed as a nun staggers up and asks if she can get a lift home, because her feet hurt. She is holding her shoes, brown leather heeled boots, and moving very unsteadily.
Wearily, Scott points her up the road.
"Why don't you try a taxi?"
The streets are still mobbed as the officers take the two men into custody. But when they re-emerge 20 minutes later, the town seems strangely quiet, with just a few stragglers wandering home.
With the pubs and clubs emptied, it's cut-off time for trouble.
"Now I can go home and hopefully get a good night's sleep," says Scott cheerfully.
FOR officers on the city centre beat, Saturday nights tend to be action-packed.
Here's just a few of the other calls acting sergeant Scott Oliver's team dealt with - or had to pass on to fellow officers.
A call comes in about an incident in Gorgie, where three people have been injured in an apparent knife attack. This will require the presence of specially trained officers, many of whom work the city centre details, and so resources will be spread that bit thinner.
Calls come in about disturbances on Lothian Road, but acting sergeant Scott Oliver, leader of one team of city centre officers, is forced to leave that to another team to deal with - he already has his hands full dealing with three drunken teenagers.
More youngsters are stopped outside McDonalds, with one officer saying he spent "about half an hour" tipping away all the alcohol he found on them.
Pc Craig Fogg, the reporting officer for the Burger King drunken rampage, a short film of which was posted on the internet, has managed to get another arrest outside the fast food restaurant.
This time, a slightly older teenager has drunkenly tried to barge his way past the doorman within a few metres of the onlooking officers.
"No more Burger King jobs for you," jokes Scott. "People will start to think you've got shares in the place.
"
Scott's team head out, sirens blaring to deal with a brawl on Castle Terrace. Before they get there, they are diverted to an incident on the Cowgate.
As the team passes Siglo on the way to the Castle Terrace fight, two men lunge out into the street, fists flying at each other, spilling from the pavement across the road.
They are both lucky not to be run over by the approaching police van but, for the drunken punter who assaulted the bouncer, his luck runs out as he is handcuffed and hauled into the station.
The man who was fighting, no older than 25, smartly dressed in a casual shirt and jeans, and much the worse for drink, is taken to St Leonard's police station while Pc Dara Gleeson and Pc Iain Wallace question another young man at Siglo who has been found with an unknown white powder.
A call comes in about a fight at Espionage.
Officers move as quickly as possible through the drunken crowds now swarming over the road. By the time they get there, the fight has evidently moved on.
Seconds later another call comes through about a fracas - at the back entrance to Espionage.
Traffic cones thrown on to the road slow down the progress of the team and there are other officers on the scene when they get there, although they welcome the assistance.
As crowds of people look on, some cheering and shouting, two young men are put into the van, charged with assault and breach of the peace.
Calls come in about trouble breaking out in Market Street and George Street.
Scott and his colleagues, however, are dealing with arrests from Cowgate and have to leave these calls to their colleagues.
Was Operation Abseil, which targeted under-age drinkers, a sensible use of police resources?
Keywords: City Centre, Burger King, Princes Street, George Street, Police Station, Scott Oliver, Lothian Road, Pc Dara, Pc Craig, Craig Fogg
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