Armed police

Am I in a minority where I feel that fewer police carrying guns is a good thing? And that the people surrendering their guns are possibly some of the least appropriate to be carrying them?

I never feel safe when I see police officers decked out with sub-machine guns (or any gun, actually) and struggle to see what a machine gun brings to a situation that a Taser doesn’t.

I never feel safe when I see police officers decked out with sub-machine guns (or any gun

I usually feel safer

Having been an armed police officer, I have to disagree with your “struggle to see what a machine gun brings to a situation that a Taser doesn’t”

I wouldn’t want to confront someone with a gun with a Taser.  Tasers are not as effective as I imagine you think they are, they are limited on range, they are not effective against thick clothing, people that are fat or thin, and they are not very accurate either.

struggle to see what a machine gun brings to a situation that a Taser doesn’t.

I’m not a cop or military veteran, but, in cases where I had to deal with criminals armed with firearms, I’d rather have a firearm than a Taser. Sadly, we don’t live in the 1950s anymore, with unarmed bobbies popping round for a nice cup of tea while they did their rounds, or whatever it was they did back then.

struggle to see what a machine gun brings to a situation that a Taser doesn’t.

Have you not seen footage of people hardly effected by a taser?

What range does a taser have?

They are not “machine guns”.

Have you ever heard the phrase “taking a knife to a gun fight”?

The police have a duty of care to their employees, they have to do a risk assessment of their activities, the same as any employer. I would like to see a risk assessment that would allow sending them to deal with a person with a firearm, armed with tasers and batons.

I usually feel safer

I do too.
Don’t get me wrong, the need for a firearm in public is not a Good Thing, but the response to have folk there who can if needed use them to protect us is a Good Thing.

I am really torn and need to understand more about this (live) case to understand why the officer has been charged.

As well as the points above about taser not being effecive in many situations, remember that UK police shoot almost nobody. You read about situations like the recent case precisely because they are so rare in the UK.

There were 18,395 firearms operations in the year ending 31 March 2023, a similar number to the year ending 31 March 2022 (18,257).

Of the 18,395 firearms operations, 92% (16,971) involved an armed response vehicle (ARV), the same proportion as the years ending 31 March 2022 and 2021 (92%).

There were 10 incidents in which police firearms were intentionally discharged (fired) at persons in the year ending 31 March 2023. This number was 4 in the year ending 31 March 2022.

from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-use-of-firearms-statistics-england-and-wales-april-2022-to-march-2023/police-use-of-firearms-statistics-england-and-wales-april-2022-to-march-2023

Compare that 10 discharges with pretty much any other country and you should feel very safe indeed.

I think we need armed police without a doubt.

But I am at a loss as to what the current action is for. Surely if an unarmed man is shot and killed then the person responsible for the killing / murder, should be held accountable in a court of law?

Is there some portions of this story that is missing? He was in a car previously used by people known to carry weapons,  but as far as I’m aware there needs to be a distinct threat to life, the press reporting doesn’t appear to show that threat?

I’d love to see reduction in the numbers police carrying guns. Anyone carrying guns! Even though we might have “foreign  agents”/drug gangs tooled up how many situations require an armed response? It’s all a very chicken and egg type of argument but intelligence led policing should be able to reduce the number of guns on the streets. I’m generally against punitive jail sentences but carrying gun is always a choice I’d of thought, so life sentences for possession let alone use might be justifiable.

I assume that some of these guys that are handing in their weapons know a little more about what happened than we do.  I would imagine that they have decided that the risk to their own liberty now outweighs the extra cash/job satisfaction that they gained from being part of the armed units.  Not sure why this would make them the ‘least appropriate’ types to be armed in the first place. Quite a reasoned response IMO.

but as far as I’m aware there needs to be a distinct threat to life, the press reporting doesn’t appear to show that threat?

The reporting is he tried to ram his way through the police cars and the photos show quite a bit of damage.
Whilst it is traditional to pretend people using a car as a weapon are just having a laugh and just require a slap on the wrist it may well be one case where it was treated appropriately.
That said the CPS will have seen the footage from multiple bodycams and vehicle cameras and dont seem to have accepted the legitimate force so the jury will need to decide on that.

As for taser vs carbine. The obvious ones are range, ability to have another shot if you miss, bit crap in winter when everyone is bundled up and so on.

I’m remaining completely open minded on this. Lack of reporting into the detail is understandable and expected but Met cover up is also similarly expected.

I’m reassured by cops with guns in parts of the UK and as STW-typical demographic have zero expectation I’ll ever be shot by a British cop which can’t be said for other countries (unlikely to very-low expectation).

This occurred near us – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/02/police-killing-of-yassar-yaqub-on-m62-was-lawful-inquest-finds.

Potential parallels.

There were 10 incidents in which police firearms were intentionally discharged (fired) at persons in the year ending 31 March 2023. This number was 4 in the year ending 31 March 2022.

I know the police are frequently taking bifters right now, and indeed with some justification, but this is an amazing statistic and one that still points to the majority of police doing a good job at policing by consent rather than fear.

I would imagine that they have decided that the risk to their own liberty now outweighs the extra cash/job satisfaction

I believe that armed response officers don’t get any extra for the risk they take (some would call it job satisfaction but given stats above if the expectation of job satisfaction is a euphemism for “plugging perps on a daily basis” there’s not a lot of that going on)

Appreciating there are folks with actual relevant experience on this thread; but when the news this morning talked about the chief of the Met insisting that “the way in which police are held to account must change”, my first thought was “no it mustn’t”. In theory the police serve at the will of the public or similar (right?), and so therefore if an unarmed person is shot dead by a police officer, there has to be investigation and, if relevant, accountability.

The more US approach, where the police are there to enforce law on the public, would imply less accountability for the police and more of a view that the police are the law, therefore they can’t be held accountable by the public. I think as a legal approach it’s internally consistent (albeit various factors mean it doesn’t work very well in the US specifically); but it’s quite different from the legal standing of the UK police, in my limited understanding

…or something…

Do they really need assault weapons though.

I would much rather see more police with side arms than a few with H&Kmp5 rifles.

If someone is pointing a gun at you , and you are pointing one back the situation is neutral. Just how many situations would say a Glock not be enough.we are not America with thousands of ak or ar type of full auto weapons everywhere. Almost all shotguns carry 2 cartridges and are shorter range weapons.

Euro cops also carry pistols routinely.

Alot of firearms officers are called out to a pissed up hard man brandishing a fake samurai sword as Shayna has left with the kids and he’s gone on a bender down the pub.

Next thing you know it’s like the Russian s have parachuted in and a mile area is cordened off with a dozen shouting police in ballistic vests and helmets stand 50 meters away.

That’s alot of firepower for drunk Darren and his wobbly samurai sword, when 2 police with Glock17 would probably be enough to deal with the situation quickly and quietly without escalation to ww3.

Plus there’s having to wait 20 mins for the arv team to gear up and arrive on scene.

But I live in a quiet corner of rural Hampshire, not mosside. Or Croydon so the reality may be NATO rifles in low numbers would be better than side arms in greater numbers, this is just my take on it , your opinion or experience may differ, which is absolutely fine.

No I am not a police man , or served military person.

@scuttler – The Yasser Yaqub case is very different, for one thing Yaqub was armed and moved to point his weapon at an armed officer

Person charging at you with a 2-foot machete v you and a Taser?

You really don’t want armed military personnel on the streets in “normal” times, they simply aren’t trained in the same way as the police

Am I in a minority where I feel that fewer police carrying guns is a good thing?

Well for sure I expect we’d all prefer to live in a society it wasn’t required. In the reality we live in they are required, I don’t think the UK police are over-armed either, it’s still a small minority and they have a lot of training & assessments (both initial and on-going). It’s not like in the US…

As for this specific incident – it is strange to me CPS have gone with a murder charge, given they generally charge based on what they think has a fair chance of a resulting prosecution I’m assuming there’s evidence this wasn’t just the officer being a little hasty pulling the trigger. That said it’s pretty pointless speculating at this stage. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the officers turning their weapons in don’t know the full story either (or have been given a version of it that might not match reality).

For sure I can understand them not wanting to be put in a position of facing a murder charge if they just made the wrong decision in a split-second, having follow procedure up to that point, why put yourself at that risk (on top of risking your life every time you go out on an operation)? But if that’s not the situation and the reality is, if you can demonstrate you followed procedure (issuing warnings etc.) and it was just that momentary decision-making that was at fault that you’ll be protected from prosecution then I’m not sure what the officers that have turned in their weapons actually expect.

the CPS will have seen the footage from multiple bodycams and vehicle cameras and dont seem to have accepted the legitimate force so the jury will need to decide on that.

This was my take on it too. I doubt we, in this forum, know enough of the details of this case to make an informed judgement on it, let alone start to second-guess every potential outcome.

Overall, I’d say that the current level of gun carrying and usage by our police forces seems to be pretty well balanced. I’m not sure that relying on the armed forces whenever weapons are required is a good move.

I would much rather see more police with side arms than a few with H&Kmp5 rifles.

I would prefer rifles/semi auto submachine gun if I am an innocent bystander.
They are a shedload more accurate so less likely the cop will accidently hit me.
The greater range also means the police can be at a safer distance which means less chance of them feeling threatened enough to shoot.

Plus there’s having to wait 20 mins for the arv team to gear up and arrive on scene.

There was a horrible accident in our village last month.

A car crushed someone against a wall when turning round. Because it was a vehicle that had left the road and hit someone, it is treat as a potential act of terrorism.

We are about 7 miles from the A1, within 20 minutes there were 3 unmarked police cars at the scene, in addition to the marked cars, paramedics etc.

Where these came from I have no idea, how they got there so quick I have no clue, they must be loads of them scattered about. If they are as quick getting to a relatively remote village, the response time in urban areas must be very quick indeed.

But I am at a loss as to what the current action is for. Surely if an unarmed man is shot and killed then the person responsible for the killing / murder, should be held accountable in a court of law?

If you’re the Police marksman you have to make a quick decision to shoot or not.

They are saying that if you are going to hold them to account in the same way as the general public, then its not a responsibility they want to take. Hence with this case a lot of them are walking away from the job.

You have to accept in these high pressure environments, its impossible to be correct 100% of the time, so they need to be given special dispensation.

I think the troubling thing here isn’t that there are armed police units, but that a proportion of those that man those units want to force the justice system to turn a blind eye to their actions. Whether the actions were legal or not needs to be established by the authorities, in court if necessary.

The fact that these officers are willing to try and force the justice system to back down in examining these actions is extremely worrying IMO.

The Yasser Yaqub case is very different, for one thing Yaqub was armed and moved to point his weapon at an armed officer

Foresight and hindsight. I can only expect in both cases the police suspected (but didn’t know) firearms might be present up to and including the point shots were fired, hence the reference to ‘potential parallels’. But frankly I have no idea.

The fact is that most of us, myself included, will never understand the pressures and requirements for the split second decisions that armed officers take. I’m also absolutely amazed that given what must be overwhelming pressure to protect themselves, their colleagues, and the public they only intentionally discharged their weapons 10 times.

Given the situations in which they seem to be deployed, I would also prefer that they turn up well equipped (and certainly better equipped than the people they are dealing with), in appropriate numbers, and feeling like they are able to perform their job.

Speculation seems pointless to me, but I can’t say I’m surprised that firearms officers are feeling unsupported. I guess we’ll find out whether this is a justifiable stance to take in due course.

They are a shedload more accurate so less likely the cop will accidently hit me.

I’m not sure that’s really true, I don’t think MP5’s are particularly accurate One of the injuries of the London Bridge attack in 2017 for instance was an innocent bystander caught in the cross fire. I often see those armed cops in v crowded airport terminals and wonder what the body count would be if they started firing at terrorists or criminals in a closed environment.

I don’t feel particularly safe around armed cops TBH, I don’t know what their marksmanship is like, I don’t know what their training is like or when they last had any, I don’t know if they’ve ever had to use a weapon ‘in anger’ before…All of which has a bearing on any incident that they may be involved in.

theotherjonv – I would have thought job satisfaction for armed offiers is resolving situations daily without having to “plug perps”.

The fact that these officers are willing to try and force the justice system to back down in examining these actions is extremely worrying IMO.

I thought that there was an investigation by the IOPC whenever a police firearm is fired?

Is that not the case?

FWIW, I don’t think they should avoid the justice system and the CPS must have a reason to be acting on this case.

struggle to see what a machine gun brings to a situation that a Taser doesn’t.

I can see an issue where shooting someone holding a gun with their finger on the trigger with a device that in some cases causes violent jerky involuntary muscle spasms

I don’t think MP5’s are particularly accurate

Accurate enough as long as you are only firing individual rounds or 2-3 in burst & nobody ever really fires on full auto. Anymore than that the weapon can pull up & away quite strongly.

@nickc

Every 12 weeks I had to do continuation training on my weapons and tactics.  If I failed to make the standard my authority to carry firearms was removed.

I thought that there was an investigation by the IOPC whenever a police firearm is fired?

Yes I think so & IIRC that officer is on restricted duties till the outcome is determined.

I never feel safe when I see police officers decked out with sub-machine guns (or any gun, actually) and struggle to see what a machine gun brings to a situation that a Taser doesn’t.

We had an armed siege on the house opposite the other week, a chap with mental health problems had called for help and probably said he had a gun.

Massive show of force from the armed police, but they were the most professional, courteous people I have ever watched. The whole thing was a text book example of flawless policing. Huge respect to the squad.

Eventually the chap came out, was searched very politely and then handed over to paramedics waiting up the road. They couldn’t have been nicer to the chap (given that they had 6 automatic rifles pointed at him and were behind bullet proof shields).

Am I in a minority where I feel that fewer police carrying guns is a good thing?

Living in rural Derbyshire, I see less of the overly armed police so I’m reminded more of the potential out there when I see them … so I feel safer in a less safe kind of way.

Then that little bit of my subconscious kicks in with the challenge “Go on, you could get that gun off him, easy…”

I’ve trained alongside them and attended incidents with their presence. The selection process is very high and the training strict. The process for them to discharge a weapon is extremely strict.

I’d not want them just to have tasers in the potential situations I could attend with them.

@MSP.  Everyone AFO knows what needs to be justified.  The handing of tickets in isn’t to force anything at all.  What we’re talking about here is a charge of murder.  Which means the CPS are saying the officer had the mens rea.   That’s why they don’t want to carry, because it means any police shooting will go down that road of premeditation.  I’d have done the same if I were still there.  Got a family to think of and don’t get paid any more for the risk

@Kato,that’s impressive .👍

I was really thinking about when I go abroad, and see cops with sidearms strolling about the place, and immediately start thinking about that sort of thing. It reminds me that in the UK at least you need to choose to qualify

I got hard stopped on the M62 a few years back (Long story; they though I might be a drug dealer) ,and the armed cops were there along with the 5 other cop cars it took. I don’t think they added much to the experience if I’m honest.

This is interesting.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-where-police-dont-carry-guns

The UK has a population of over 67 million people. It’s hard to imagine how the police force maintains law and order without guns. The UK has continuously worked to present its police force as approachable and where civilians can get help.

Compared to other G7 countries, the UK has the lowest number of reported fatal incidences between suspected criminals and the police. Most police here prefer to be seen as guardians of the people and not criminal hunters.

The selection process is very high

Yet Wayne Couzens was selected.

I thought that there was an investigation by the IOPC whenever a police firearm is fired?

Yes.
It was the IOPC who concluded it may have been broke the law and hence handed over to the CPS to decide whether to prosecute.

theotherjonv – I would have thought job satisfaction for armed offiers is resolving situations daily without having to “plug perps”.

That was my point, probably missed in attempted humour. The point was that if they thought their job satisfaction includes shooting at people regularly then they’ll be disappointed. I expect the vast majority of AR officers never have to discharge at another human, let alone take a life, and they’ll be perfectly happy about that.