[Closed] More armed police..

Willy waving.
Dangerous willy waving at that.

Probably to protect their identity if involved in counter terrorist operations and presumably the safety of their family etc.

Why would they use officers involved in covert/undercover operations in a press stunt?

Why do the other armed officers not wear balaclavas then?

It's bloody cold out there and we don't want them sneezing at an inopportune moment.

I knew there would be a good reason.

It is so the police can't photograph them at demonstrations.

Even I didn't think we'd be seeing paramilitary deployments in London this quickly after she took over. 😕

Why would they use officers involved in covert/undercover operations in a press stunt?

That's what [i]they[/i] want you to ask....

Makes you think.....

The 'C-Men' really, is that what's they're calling them? Did no one check that?

Absolutely hate it. That's wannabe SAS that. Someone in the Polis must be tugging themselves furiously at robocop, the Keanu SWAT bus film and coverage of US police operations.

It's a horrid sight.

Great mixture, the metropolitan police service who act like they are above the law and a new paramilitary style uniform to attract some more hardcore thugs to join them. What could possibly go wrong?

I don't know if they're the same ones as we had in our riot kit, but the balaclavas we had for that were Nomex, same as the long johns and long sleeve tops worn under the overalls, for not singeing ones beard during petrol bombing. Thats why riot police have them (whether that's always why they wear them I couldn't say, but that's why they issue them). Not sure if that's the same kit those firearms ones have, but could be?

Phew, for a second I thought they were sending them in without big ****-off sniper rifles! But they've got that covered too

Or perhaps just anti terror police in a very likely target ( London) and will never come in contact with normal people going about normal business. No danger here, what do you think they will do? Take over London?

history is full of leaders who gladly use the fear of violence and terror to gradually shift consent away from civil society and into their own hands. This stunt is an expression of a government looking to capitalise on self-propagated fears of terror to remind us who's in charge. I don't think people plotting to blow themselves up in public places give two shits about a few balaclavas and I don't think this silly parade is being carried out for their benefit.

"Scary or comforting?"

Well I guess if they are dragging you out of your car, scary. If they are arriving to a shopping centre or where you're hiding from someone on a killing spree....comforting.

Complete waste of money & resources.

Fin. Won't happen. And I don't fear them or those in charge. Again, they will never come in contact with normal people doing normal stuff. Reminding us who is in charge? How many were there? How many millions of Londoners? It is a response to the world we live in and the situations that arise - Germany and France. If the government did nothing and something happened, they'd be blamed as well. Not everyone running the show is out to crush ' the little people ' .
Should do a British version of the look though, it is very American.

Two recent abduction attemps suggests the enemy is within so you can understand the need for anamosity in certain circumstances.

as above a huge waste of cash and resources, they cant be on duty every day on every street looking for nutters with a grudge, and what about us northern plebs surely we need protection from southerners who might emigrate upwards.

Thought Northerners were harder than shandy drinking Southerners?

history is full of leaders who gladly use the fear of violence and terror to gradually shift consent away from civil society and into their own hands. This stunt is an expression of a government looking to capitalise on self-propagated fears of terror to remind us who's in charge. I don't think people plotting to blow themselves up in public places give two shits about a few balaclavas and I don't think this silly parade is being carried out for their benefit.

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I assume we've just been keeping Smeato in reserve for this sort of thing?

Do remember there are many high profile polititions with more time on thier hands recently, and the need for a new career.
Does one of those masked police officers speak of WiffWaff and the other speak of Brexit rather passionately?

It's a difficult balance to achieve armed policing in today's climate. If you take the international threat out of the equation, then the amount of armed officers is generally proportionate to the internal threat from firearms in the uk. But adding in the scale of international terrorist threats and capability shown at Paris and similar then that's a much bigger step up in the game. The reality is that such incidents are being carried out with very powerful weapons fired by persons who are well trained and accurate. The jump up to counter that and have some form of response to an incident is big when coming from the internal uk threats so to speak. The police need a capability to deal with such threats as frankly they will be the first to be called and first to attend. Let's be honest you don't dial 999 and ask for the army.

It's not scaremongering it's just the reality of it.

No need for the police to go all paramilitary. Why bother with body armour, ballistic helmets, assault rifle? If my family are in a shopping center with a couple of terrorists on a shooting spree I'm quite confident the old British way of the wooden truncheon, the firm voice and staring down the suspects will soon get things under control.

fisha - Member

The police need a capability to deal with such threats as frankly they will be the first to be called and first to attend.

Yup. But having that capability, and having it out on patrol, is not the same thing. And don't say it's a deterrant, you can't deter suicide attacks with the threat of death.

It reminds me of when Blair decided to deploy tanks at heathrow, to deter, um... A suggested threat of surface to air missiles being fired at airliners. Which tanks would have no capability to do anything about. Any questions "what will these actually achieve in the event of this suspected attack" was met with be pure, be vigilant, behave, be afraid.

they do seem a little bit too tooled up - the army seem to get by with smaller weaponary than that and are sniper type rifles really appropriate for someone patrolling at ground level in amongst crowds?

It's a ticking-off exercise combined with the scare-the-public-and-let-them-do-what-they-want tactic.

It's bloody cold out there and we don't want them sneezing at an inopportune moment.

they should all have moustaches then, like in the old days when you weren't allowed to shave them off.

Well yes, I agree. Overt patrol in balaclavas ain't really the best face of policing. But for the sake of international media I think a balaclava is fine to protect identity. If it were my face id wear it cause I wouldn't trust the media to be able to blur out the faces. I'd rather not be visible in the first place. I don't think they would patrol like that anyhow unless there was a need for it.

As for deterrent, again I agree if someone is hell bent on martyrdom then it may not deter them. However there is still the need to be effective against such weapons should it happen. Wooden batons ain't gonna cut it, mores the pity.

I'm perfectly happy for the Police to have every necessary resource (including balaclavas) to protect the public. Inviting the world's press to have a look at some paramilitaries in a speedboat has nothing to do with adequately resourcing Police to tackle major emergencies, it is simply showing off.
My main concern is that this says nothing about plans for dealing with terrorist emergencies, it's just a handful of scary looking geezers with guns. I hope we're not being sold a dummy by a government more concerned with being seen to be doing something than actually doing something.

It's a statement of intent.

A show of force & readiness - no more, no less.

Some of you need to get out more!

Some of you need to get out more!

To be honest I'm more worried by the tone of the "Reader's Comments" than the balaclavas.

thegreatape - Member
I assume we've just been keeping Smeato in reserve for this sort of thing?

He's kept in the hill at Coulporf, only to be deployed when a banjo-ing is absolutely necessary

My main concern is that this says nothing about plans for dealing with terrorist emergencies, i

And give the bad folk all the strategies and intelligence of the plans held ?????

At a big event in Paris last month, with a very heavy police presence, I came running round a corner and bumped into two huge, very heavily armed police officers. I, needless to say nearly sh!t myself and nearly dropped the extremely expensive piece of equipment I was carrying. They found it very funny, and continued to play "boo" with me for the rest of the night.

Personally, I'm glad they are there to put themselves in "harms way" but very sad that this is now the world we live in, all because a few men wanted to stop the price of "gas" going up a few cents.

fisha - Member

And give the bad folk all the strategies and intelligence of the plans held ?????

Whereas of course having our armed response units out on patrol, visible and easily tracked, gives nothing away.

How soon before I can buy a used motorbike off them?

I feel safer already. Was Ross Kemp involved?

Never buy a used police vehicle.

I think they are a necessary evil , a small well trained well equipped and highly mobile unit to respond to a particular threat . As long as that is what they are and remain in is far better than the alternative of either relying on the SAS to travel from Hereford while a guy with a truncheon and a taser plays for time or trying to tool up every PC and hope we don't descend to American levels of incompetence with guns.

they do seem a little bit too tooled up - the army seem to get by with smaller weaponary than that and are sniper type rifles really appropriate for someone patrolling at ground level in amongst crowds?

The police aren't restricted by the Geneva Convention

I did know a Merseyside armed officer who failed an All Arms APWT, but that was down to a bad choice in kit

TurnerGuy

they do seem a little bit too tooled up - the army seem to get by with smaller weaponary than that and are sniper type rifles really appropriate for someone patrolling at ground level in amongst crowds?

I'm going to take a wild guess that the sniper rifle isn't for patrolling around at ground level. After recent events it really doesn't take a lot of imagination to imagine scenarios where it might be useful.

"This stunt is an expression of a government looking to capitalise on self-propagated fears of terror to remind us who's in charge."

Normally I'd agree (tanks outside Gatwick in the early 2000's was a classic example) but giving armed Rozzers motorcycles strikes me as a pretty reasonable step to take given the MO of recent attacks in Europe.

When I saw it on the news I thought it looked more like a seen from a movie and thought it quite comical. Then you think

1. How high up in the government was involved involved in putting on this show of lunacy
2. Not at all London centric
3. It's a sad situation when we need more armed Police to protects us, when it was our own Mr Blair who got us in to this shit in the first place 🙄

it's to keep the peasants at bay come the revolution.

Long long overdue. We need 10,000's more armed police and/or army on the streets. As we spend a lot of time in Paris we are used to seeing all the police being armed and now fully armed soldiers walking through the parks, guarding all Jewish schools and Synagogues and patrolling the streets.

We need 10,000's more armed police and/or army on the streets.

Not really, there's a much easier & potentially cheaper way.

The police aren't restricted by the Geneva Convention

I don't think the Geneva conventon would have concerns about any of that weaponry.

jambalaya - Member

Long long overdue. We need 10,000's more armed police and/or army on the streets. As we spend a lot of time in Paris we are used to seeing all the police being armed and now fully armed soldiers walking through the parks, guarding all Jewish schools and Synagogues and patrolling the streets.

I can't understand why France seems to have a problem with terrorism then.

Nor can I understand why without 10,000's more armed police/army on our streets, which is long long overdue, apparently, we don't have more terrorist attacks in the UK than in France.

It's almost as if armed police/army on the streets makes no difference.

struggling to understand what the alternative is from all the nay-sayers and those 'disturbed' at the sight of armed police officers (ah didumms). Of course we're doing what we can to deal with potential terrorists before they act - but guess what- this isn't a Tom Cruise film like Minority report. We're never going to be 100% effective at stopping every single attack, so for those odd few the slip the net then we need a plan B to deal with the situation on the ground and having a few trained and armed police chappies around seems a perfectly reasonable and sensible plan to me and a minor relaxation of our freedoms - it's a million miles away from a police state so lets not get ahead of ourselves. Lets leave the professionals to do their job. The average joe on the street knows nothing about national security - we are completely ignorant, so our opinion means little at the end of the day. I'd rather have the piece of mind that when I do visit London or a big city with my family I stand a 90% chance at least of leaving alive. The terrorists have got us on the back foot at the moment, but we'll catch up and get ahead and neutralise the threat - it's inevitable and only matter of time. Until then a few armed officers on the street are a welcome sight to me.

Of course we're doing what we can to deal with potential terrorists before they act

The terrorists have got us on the back foot at the moment, but we'll catch up and get ahead and neutralise the threat

Apparently the security forces have the ID's of between 2000 & 3000 active terrorists or sympathisers. They'll probably know the whereabouts of a fair few of those as theyr'e keeping tabs on them.

[i]The police aren't restricted by the Geneva Convention[/i]

The have the Human Rights Act and the IPCC to bear in mind. And the business of every shot being accounted for. Poor sods with single shot G36s taking on nutters with AK47s, willing to spray and pray.

I thought the armour parked by the airport was because they contained the unit's coms, and added a little security theatre.

Even with more armed police I still find it heartened that the man involved in the knife attack yesterday was tasered and arrested.

He'd have had 50 bullet holes in him if it had happened in the US.

Guns are fine as long as they are used as a last resort.

Nothing more than a PR exercise. There really is no way to effectively stop terrorism. I can think of at least a dozen scenarios* where no amount of armed police would make a slightest bit of difference to the outcome of an attack. And I realy haven't given it much though!

(*I'm not a terrorist neither do I have any plans to become one, in case MI5 are reading... 😉 )

"Long long overdue. We need 10,000's more armed police and/or army on the streets."

😆 As predictable as it is idiotic.

There really is no way to effectively stop terrorism.

There is when you know who they are. Ok not stop it completely but you could certainly effectively make an impact.
As I said,

Apparently the security forces have the ID's of between 2000 & 3000 active terrorists or sympathisers.

We need 10,000's more armed police and/or army on the streets.

Not really, there's a much easier & potentially cheaper way.

Cloning ?

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One mans Empire is another mans Rebel Army.

A big dollop of security theatre for sure, but on the other hand increasing the capacity to respond to stuff like we've seen in Europe seems like a reasonable step to take and I guess this is what that's going to look like in practice. And just saying the existing set up is enough is never going to fly- it's not just politicians wanting to be seen to be doing something, they do actually have to reassure the public that they [i]are[/i] doing something and in that context pointing out how rare these incidents still are compared to other more realistic risks is never going to fly.

That said it's pretty depressing to think that people as heavily tooled up as this might be a routine sight on the streets in the UK. I don't think the police are all trigger-happy thugs, but it does still seem like a step towards a militarisation of the police like they've seen in the US and that's a worrying road to go down. Escalations like this rarely seem to get toned down when the need has passed, and with the populist politics we've seen lately who would be pushing for a 'weakened' capability anyway?

As for deterrent, I reckon there might be something in it. Potential suicide attackers might not be bothered about dying but they might be bothered about being stopped before they've actually done what they set out to do. What the actual likelihood of these SWAT types actually being able to do that by getting on the scene in a minute or two is is another story I suppose.

[I]It's almost as if armed police/army on the streets makes no difference. [/I]

Probably, except if we look over the otherside of the Atlantic ffect seems to be far more deaths (of both citizens and police)...

And 10,000's more? Seeing has France has always armed its police then we can only surmise that it'll make FO difference, except see above.

scuttler - Member

Absolutely hate it. That's wannabe SAS that. Someone in the Polis must be tugging themselves furiously at robocop, the Keanu SWAT bus film and coverage of US police operations.

It's a horrid sight.

Whilst I agree with you, they might not be so "wannabe" when they were investigating the Jean Charles de Menezes killing it was thought that Special Forces might have taken part, it was all a bit gory for Police work.

At the time the Police said that the Military weren't involved, they can't just go about like that without Home Office approval, but later they changed their minds, some military personnel were involved in an advisory role, and then they changed their mind again, some military personal were involved on the ground, but it was okay, because they were on secondment to the Police, so not military per-se, that day anyway.

The Met's firearms teams have been and are still being trained by the military, and I believe it a direct result of this that they're seemingly suddenly so keen to shoot people, several times in the head for little provocation, they're becoming more paramilitary.

I wouldn't be surprised if some members of the C-Men are on 'secondment' from the military, but at least they're not going to be routinely deployed on the streets, only if something happens.

C-Men

*chortle, fnarr etc.*

The Met's firearms teams have been and are still being trained by the military, and I believe it a direct result of this that they're seemingly suddenly so keen to shoot people, several times in the head for little provocation

The British Army had to exercise great restraint in Northern Ireland in the face of great provocation so I do not think the above statement is valid. I acknowledge that this restraint broke on occasion with tragic results but, in the main, a high degree of restraint was demonstrated.

I'd rather have the piece of mind that when I do visit London or a big city with my family I stand a 90% chance at least of leaving alive

I'll take a wild guess here. Since Bombay, the days of 'contain and wait for the green chopper' may be over. There might just be a requirement to move in actively, to avoid more victims being killed. In which case two in the head would become a standard to avoid leaving a live one behind yourself.

As we spend a lot of time in Paris we are used to seeing all the police being armed and now fully armed soldiers walking through the parks,

and that's somehow a good thing?

So what's the answer? Do we carry on as normal & for how long before enough's enough. (like we haven't had enough already)

Long long overdue. We need 10,000's more armed police and/or army on the streets.

You really are a chimp.

The job of the Army is combat; you put soldiers on the street, they will kill people because that's what they do. As for 10'000 armed police... dearie, dearie me.

like we haven't had enough already

had enough of what?

This seems relevant...

... not sure about the 84 tons, though.

So all the armed police will be in Russel Square?

So everywhere that lorries can go we'll have armed police?

Chimp.

like we haven't had enough already.

had enough of what?

Never mind. Forget it.

Poor sods with single shot G36s taking on nutters with AK47s, willing to spray and pray.

You are far more likely to hit your target with aimed rapid single shots, get far less stray bullets hitting people, and conserve ammunition should an engagement be prolonged.

Nutters spraying and praying watch too many films. As do people who think it's effective.