I called the police after an accident, then the surprise message came

– I think, unfortunately, it’s a picture of how it turned out. We have poorer local police in much of the country, contrary to what the reform should actually provide, says Lene Vågslid, Labor Party justice policy spokesperson and chair of the justice committee in the Storting when she learns of the episode with the Finnskogen descent.

She believes that the police reform in which the Labor Party participated has not delivered at all what was promised and that the poor implementation of the reform is to blame for the fact that the police often have no police patrols to dispatch when something happens in areas where there are pigs.

Unable to drive

The story of the descent begins in the depths of Finnskogen, a rescue car has just gotten a car that had got into the gutter again on the road. But Anne Kathrine, who drove by, sees that the lady who has been driving does not seem to be in a position to drive a car.

She says the car rescuer has already called the police, but received the response that they don’t have a chance to come, they didn’t have a car to send.

– Let her drive

The driver is said to have behaved strangely and Anne Kathrine directly asks her if she has been drinking.

– Yes, they say.

He also asks if he has drunk alcohol.

– Yes, they say.

Then Anne Kathrine also calls the police and gets the same response as the car rescue worker:

– Then I call 112 and get in touch with a lady. It also says they have no cars to ship. She has a driver’s license, so you can let her drive, says Anne Kathrine.

Then the woman must have started driving back and forth between the cars that had gathered on the road.

– And then all of a sudden you backtrack all the way into the ditch, completely without further ado. Then she was back on the road and nearly collided with the crane that was standing right in front of her, says Anne Kathrine.

The police arrived at two hours

Innlandet Police District Operations Center Chief Morten Bjerkestrand confirms that it took almost two hours before they had a car at the scene. The woman was later deprived of her driver’s license for health reasons.

The police do not want to comment on what was said in the telephone conversations with the reporters until a complaint case created about the incident has been processed.

– If this is the new reform, then it is a tragedy, says Anne Kathrine.

– It’s an impossible situation

TV 2 has previously shown how firefighters and ambulances had to disarm a man with a knife in Lom because the police were unable to come.

In Mehamn’s murder, ambulance personnel had to wait more than an hour for the police to arrive before they could go to the victim.

The Storting will now consider the government police report. A report where one of the objectives is two policemen for every 1,000 inhabitants, at the same time that tighter budgets are announced.

At the same time, it is announced that police budgets will be tighter in the future:

The growth of police budgets will not continue. More tasks and demands for greater volume and quality of services will also need to be met by the police with more efficient use of resources and new ways of solving tasks, the report says.

– Police chiefs in various districts must hire more police officers to meet a target number, while being informed that no more money will come, says Lene Vågslid.

– It is a completely impossible situation, several police districts have blood red numbers and are not understood by the conservative government, a total of 7 justice ministers have not been understood for now.

He does not stand

Nor does the leader of the police union, Sigve Bolstad, believe that the government has succeeded in following up on the intentions of good local police.

– We have already said before that the population has been deceived in relation to this reform. We support him, says Bolstad.

– The promise means that you have to allocate more money than they allocate. In the police report, they themselves say that the geographic operating units should be strengthened, while saying that no more money will go to the Norwegian police. It’s out of the question.

Demanding budget situation

Three police leaders with whom TV 2 has spoken agree that it is demanding that budgets go up.

– The way our future looks financially, we have to cut costs and it also means that in some areas we have to reduce the number of employees, says Einar Sparboe Lysnes, deputy chief of police in the Troms police district.

– If we get less money, there are signs about it, then the priorities will be different, says Police Chief Johan Brekke in the Inland Police District.

– We have a project in 2020 that will go into 2021 to try to free up 100 million in our budget that we can use to buy new cars and be a little more advanced in the shoe and be part of a development. It is clear that public budgets will be reduced in the future. We must be prepared for them to do that and then we must do what we can to provide the public with the best possible police services with what we always have, says Ole B. Sæverud, chief of police in the southeast police district.

Weakened trust

Center Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum believes that trust in the police weakens when they are unable to attend.

– In Norway, we have great trust between the police and the people and if you have a police force that only comes a few times, over time it will make it more distant and it is fundamentally negative, says Slagsvold Vedum.

– Who is responsible?

– It is the government, with the Progress Party and the Labor Party that voted for this reform. Fortunately, the Labor Party has now started to turn around and see that this centralization was wrong. And then I hope, at least, that more government parties start to see that centralization, that’s not what Norway needs, we need proximity.

FRP: – We must prioritize more

Now the deputy leader of the Progress Party, former Justice Minister Sylvi Listhaug, says she also wants more funds to get better police coverage in the districts.

– Part of the crime is now in the data, so we have to have people there. But I think the signs that have come in that there is too little staffing in some districts, we should take seriously, says Listhaug.

But do the police get enough money?

– We must give more priority to the police. They have been given more than 3,000 man-years so far and we believe we must prioritize more if necessary or re-prioritize resources. Because it is important that people feel safe in daily life in Norway, believes Sylvi Listhaug.

– Here there is no prestige in this on the part of the Progress Party, we are concerned about the safety of the people, so that it works.

Denies there are fewer police in the districts

Secretary of State Thor Kleppen Sættem (H) at the Ministry of Justice does not agree that the local police reform has led to poorer police coverage in the districts.

– No, I completely disagree with that, says Kleppen Sættem.

– But we have not achieved the strengthening of the current police that people see in the patrols of the city and the countryside. We have not succeeded in the way we expected,

– Are those who think they see fewer police officers in the districts wrong?

– The correct thing is that we have not managed to provoke the strengthening of the visible police officers, that is, those we see on the patrol. There have been no poorer staff than before, but we have not achieved the strengthening we wish we had. And that’s why we are so clear that what is now a priority in the future, yes, getting more patrols out, says Kleppen Sættem.

– But we must also, with 18,000 employees, be able to bring more resources to the streets where people in cities and towns see the police more visibly. That is the ambition, there will be a strengthening of the police also in the coming years, but we cannot expect the growth of personnel that has been in recent years to continue forever.

Anne Kathrine Ødegård, who was standing on a deserted forest road with a car that did not dare to pass, is upset that the police do not have sufficient funds for police patrols in the districts.

– It does not work, the police must meet, she says.

– If they have very little money, they must obtain funds.