When Police Officers speak to each other using radios or on the phone they use a code to make sure that the person they are talking to clearly understand what they are saying. This is very important especially when they are trying to spell out somebody’s name or a car’s number plates.

For example M421 ABC, would be spoken as “Mike, Four, Two, One, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.”
And Andy would be spoken “Alpha, November, Delta, Yankee.”

The system they use is called the “Phonetic alphabet” and it helps officers to be accurate with information, particularly if there is bad reception.

The Phonetic Alphabet

A - ALPHA
B - BRAVO
C - CHARLIE
D - DELTA
E - ECHO
F - FOXTROT
G - GOLF
H - HOTEL
I - INDIA
J - JULIET
K - KILO
L - LIMA
M - MIKE
N - NOVEMBER
O - OSCAR
P - PAPA
Q - QUEBEC
R - ROMEO
S - SIERRA
T - TANGO
U - UNIFORM
V - VICTOR
W - WHISKEY
X - X- RAY
Y - YANKEE
Z - ZULU

Try the code out yourself on these examples below:

• Angel
• Taylor
• Sarah
• Lucas
• Natalie
• Buffy
• Cameron
• Summer
• R811 FOL
• PX 74 GTZ
• C132 7HI
• N322 KVW

Now try your own name in Police Speak… “…”