A TEAM west Wales of police officers have been commended for putting their own lives at risk to save a man who was threatening to jump from a roof.
The Dyfed-Powys Police colleagues spent several hours in a tiny attic space trying to talk the man down, while he both attacked them and threatened to throw himself to his death.
Police had been called to Carmarthen on May 15, 2019, to carry out enquiries linked with a wanted man. On arriving at the scene, the man smashed his way onto a roof with a knife and could be seen running across the tops of four properties.
During a protracted incident, and in testing circumstances, officers ended up kicking through the roof to bring the man to safety. Their decisive action and composure ensured a safe resolution to a highly dangerous situation.
In recognition, 12 officers attended the force’s commendation evening on Tuesday, January 28.
Looking back at the incident, firearms officer PC Scott Patrick, said: “I have been in the job for 23 years, and this was by far the hairiest incident I have been involved in.
“Two of us were called to relieve the officers inside, and we went into the attic hatch where Inspector Reuben Palin had been for a few hours talking to the man on the roof.
“This man was on recall to prison, and obviously didn’t want to go back. He was highly emotional and the fear wasn’t that he was going to jump as he was threatening, but that actually he was going to fall off the roof as it was dark and quite slippery.”
Making the treacherous situation even more difficult to deal with, the man took out a Kinder Egg stuffed with drugs and consumed the contents. It was unclear what he had taken, but within minutes he became drowsy and his speech was affected.
The officers knew they needed to get him to safety quickly.
“He had pulled himself through a very small hole in the roof, and Reuben got him to put his leg back through so we could grab hold of it,” PC Patrick said.
“We didn’t know how he would react, but when he knew what was happening he started thrashing around and throwing his weight back.
“Three of us were holding onto his leg, and he started trying to take his trousers off to get away from us. It was exhausting trying to keep hold of him, and we were getting into a really precarious situation – it was boom or bust.”
The three officers were working in testing conditions – cramped into a small and dusty attic, and working by moonlight. They knew they would need to break through the roof, and PC Patrick motioned for colleagues below to pass up a saw.
“I grabbed it and cut through the batons, then kicked the roof through to get to him,” he said. “It was outside our normal working practice, but he had told us he’d taken heroin and sleeping pills, and it was getting really dangerous.”
PC Patrick tried to reason with the man, but he got more irate and picked up pieces of broken slate from the roof to use as a weapon.
“He started using it as a knife, coming down towards my neck,” the PC said. “I took out my taser, and he clenched enough for us to grab and cuff him. It was a massive relief to get him down after all that time.”
The man was helped out of the attic and was taken to hospital for treatment, while officers regrouped for a full de-brief.
“For me, the decisive moment was when Reuben made the call to go from a constant dialogue with the suspect, to saying under his breath ‘grab his leg’. He was the hero of the moment. If the man had fallen, he would have done himself catastrophic damage, and Reuben’s call was pivotal in ensuring we got him down safely,” PC Patrick said.
In recognition of the decisions made under tough conditions and swift action taken by all involved in the incident, the following officers have been commended for the parts they played:
Operational firearms commander PC Emyr Thomas, PC Glenn White (retired), PC Scott Patrick, Inspector Reuben Palin, Chief Inspector Jonathan Rees, Sgt Phillip Jones, PC Matthew Roach, PC Elinor Evans, PC Mike Andrews, PC Samuel Phillips and South Wales Police officers PC Julian Knoyle and PC Steven Fox.
