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Hi, i dont know if anyone has already brought this one up before. But what is Lestrade division? If robbery/burglary wasnt his division (Moriarty’s case) why did he deal with the Waters gang?

wastingyourgum:

sherlockmeta:

Hello! Thank you for your question! I talked to Labelle about this, who is a genius, and here is our take on it:

LESTRADE AND THE WATERS GANG

Lestrade is a detective inspector for the CID in the Metropolitan Police Service.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.

CID officers are involved in investigation of major crimes such as rape, murder, serious assault, fraud, and any other offences that require complex detection. They are responsible for acting upon intelligence received and then building a case.

As a CID officer, he would deal with the robbery of the Waters gang as it is in his jurisdictional area.

NOT MY DIVISION

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As for Moriarty’s case in TRF, when Lestrade he says “Not my division”, he means because it is the Tower of London that has been broken into- it’s not the MET’s division. Because they don’t police that part of London.

The City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, including the Middle and Inner Temples. The force responsible for law enforcement within the remainder of Greater London, outside of the City, is the Metropolitan Police Service, a separate organisation.

Scotland Yard is the MET, not the City of London. By not our division, he means this crime was committed in the City of London police jurisdiction, not in the MET’s jurisdiction.

He’s talking about the separate divisions within the city.

Hope we helped!

Much love xx

Lucia

I answered someone asking (almost) the same thing in a post a few weeks ago.

Here’s the bullet points:

  • Lestrade is not only in CID, he’s clearly in the Met’s Homicide & Serious Crime Command
  • A string of related, high-value armed robberies like those carried out by the Waters Gang, would definitely fall under their jurisdiction.
  • Sally only initially tells him “There’s been a break in” – implying someone’s house has been burgled or similar – which would be a crime for ordinary CID not the H&SCC and Lestrade is therefore correct to tell her it’s “not our division”. She may as well have told him about a car being illegally parked. Once he hears where the break in is, that’s a different story. High profile target = Serious Crime.
  • The Tower of London is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, not the City of London so it is Met jurisdiction (and even if it wasn’t, someone trying to nick the crown jewels would almost certainly be passed over to the Met’s H&SCC by the City of London CID.)

tl;dr Lestrade doesn’t need to find his division; his division is Homicide & Serious Crimes.