Monday, we walked to the Merseyside Police headquarters. We met the director of community relations who arranged our days here in Liverpool. The morning started with a presentation from the Merseyside Joint Control Center. They are a collaborative control/ call center responsible for police contact and dispatch, fire control, blue light planning, and special event planning. Half the building is dedicated to fire, and the other half is dedicated to police. You can tell which side is which from the paint (blue for police and red for firefighters.) The two departments quickly segregated themselves after they were moved to the new facility despite the attempt to be collaborative. The control center received on average of 600-800 of the 999 or emergency calls a day. They also receive between 1,500-2,000 of the 101 or nonemergency calls a day. Of all the calls, 1,200-1,400 require police to be deployed. We then visited the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service Heritage and Education Center. It was a museum of firefighter history. There were fire engine from the past 100 years on the lower level. Including the engine that our tour guide was driving when he met his wife in the 1960s. He is a third generation Fire Bobby, and his mother was the first person to be able to call the station to “report a fire.”Since police are called Bobbies, the firefighters are called Fire Bobbies. The upstairs was a museum of helmets, bells from reduced ships, and more fire station
paraphernalia. After the fire museum, we had a presentation from the Football (Soccer) Police soccer. They are responsible for controlling football fans. They gather intelligence and give our bans. When a person is banned from football, they are require to surrender their passport for away games and stay clear of the stadiums for home games. The final visit was to the eagle eye surveillance room. They use the automatic license plate reader to track criminals. It is kind of scary how many cameras are used and how easy it is for the analysts to track the cars. We returned to the headquarters and walked to the hotel in the rain. We did ate dinner and did laundry. While waiting to get my clothes from the dryer, I met a couple from Canada. They were confused by the laundry since it required an app to pay. I payed for them with the app, and they paid me back with coins. While figuring out the payment, the woman revealed that she grew up in Fairfax, VA. I proceeded to show her my GMU shirt. She then mentioned, that she went to JMU for school and I mentioned that I lived near Harrisonburg. Small world. We then shared our ice cream place from Monday with the rest of the group, and 11 of us went. The picture of the lamb thing is called a Superlambanana or Superpeelerlambanana. It was designed in 1998 by a Japanese art student. It represents wool being the largest export from Liverpool and bananas being the largest imported good.