Scotland Yard Called In?

lonestarlibrarian

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So, Character A lives in a little village in East Sussex in 1929.

Character A is shot in the woods near his home.

The police of the nearby larger town get summoned to deal with the problem. Foul play is immediately suspected.

Does Scotland Yard get called in automatically, or is there some other layer of regional police who would be summoned under the circumstances?
 

cornflake

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So, Character A lives in a little village in East Sussex in 1929.

Character A is shot in the woods near his home.

The police of the nearby larger town get summoned to deal with the problem. Foul play is immediately suspected.

Does Scotland Yard get called in automatically, or is there some other layer of regional police who would be summoned under the circumstances?

Why wouldn't the locals investigate themselves?
 

cornflake

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I assumed that was known but... yeah, as Curlz says, just in case this isn't evident, Scotland Yard is just the name of the hq, same as like, 10 Downing is short for the PM, Scotland Yard is short for the London cops.
 

EMaree

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Yeah, as others have said, there'd be no reason to get London MET Police in for this. Sussex Police would handle a small local shooting incident.

Also it's pretty rare for anyone outside of the 101 Dalmatians to call the MET Police "Scotland Yard". They're just the MET Police in modern parlance, maybe the 'Metropolitan Police' in 1929 but you'd need to check if it was common to shorten it.
 
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waylander

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The only reason I can think of is that Sussex police need expertise they don't have, maybe the case has international/diplomatic connections and they don't have anyone who has worked a case like this.
 

lonestarlibrarian

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Thank you very much! I had a lot of bits of books swirling around from stuff written in the time period, but no specific titles bubbling to the surface for me to sit down and check. :) At least one of them had given me the impression that when a capital crime or something was committed, it automatically brought in officers from elsewhere with a higher level of experience--- but their summoning must have been related to some other variable.

I appreciate the help!
 

cornflake

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Same as here, and as above, a department can ask another for assistance in a specific, but there'd be a reason. Also, detectives in smaller areas can have lots of experience, either because they've been on the job a long time (even small areas, and Essex isn't SO small, have big crimes), or because they came from other departments and moved to a smaller town or whatever.
 

EMaree

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Yeah, just keep in mind that Sussex Police is BIG. You might be setting it in a little village but they'll still have the whole Sussex area for support, unlike say Inverness (Scotland) in the late 90s where they'd occassionally call up firearms officers from London for serious mysterious shootings because they didn't have many local firearms officers with pistol experience (though we had plenty with shotgun experience, and if they were active pre-Dunblane then much wider experience than that).

East Sussex includes Brighton, which has always been a massively popular and populous destination. They'll likely get all the experience they need from Brighton, at the furthest.
 
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