This is one of those weeks when commenting on routine work in the City can seem almost irrelevant in the face of tragic events such as those at Shirley Towers.
Southampton police officers and staff, like many others, consider fire-fighters as good colleagues in keeping the City safe.
The death of two brave men as they tackled the fire was a tragedy and a great sadness.
On behalf of all police officers and staff in the City I offer my most sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of James Shears and Alan Bannon.
My thanks go to all those who have been part of the response to this incident, emergency services, City Council local community organisations and voluntary groups including the Salvation Army and local businesses. It sometimes takes an event like this to remind us of the great community spirit which still exists.
My final thanks and respect goes to the community and in particular the residents of Shirley Towers for their patience and forbearing.
We will continue to work with the City Council to try and get their lives back to normal as soon as possible but I hope it's understandable that we have an important investigation to conduct so we can establish what happened and how those two brave men were killed in the line of service to the public in Southampton. That return to normality will happen soon and I hope my comments here will once again be about more routine issues.
In the meantime it's right to pause and reflect on our colleagues and their ultimate sacrifice.
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