I wonder how this will work in command / control, responsibility and accountability?
They can do barely any of the roles the police do expect counter terrorism stuff.
Ignoring the fact they probably donât want to do it, they genuinely do a very very different role and would have no idea or authority to do vehicle stops, property searches, arrests etc.
The firearms police pages on Instagram are very interesting at the moment. Lots of county forces refusing to go to the met on mutual aid to back fill. Some of the pages estimate nearly a hundred met officers have handed their tickets in now.
Plus the obvious talk over the military not being able to actually do anything outside a terrorist attack.
2 Likes
The Police and the Army are totally different and trained to achieve totally different things.
Asking soldiers to be policemen never works.
I was talking to a retired ex firearms (Sussex) officer a few weeks ago (before the current case) he said that he wouldnât want to do the job now and would hand his ticket in.
I have a lot of sympathy for the officers involved at the moment.
It is a very difficult line to tread and the Home Office should provide full guidelines and support and not pass the buck back down the line to the officer with the gun.
Having the army on the streets is probably making Braverman feel all tingly inside.
1 Like
Armed policing is a voluntary role, are they going to ask soldiers to volunteer? If so I canât see many doing that, at least not without crown immunity.
The Army and R Marines have CP teams but I doubt if there will be many more than 100 across those teams.
I like how itâs always the guy at the bottom who is at fault for this kind of shooting. Nothing to do with system, training, information etc, nobody else will ever face prosecution, just the one at the coal face.
In this case it probably is an individual though, his vehicle had a marker on it after being involved in a firearm incident the day before. They followed the vehicle in an unmarked car before blocking the car in. Lana then refused to get out of the car when confronted by armed officers, rammed a police car then drove directly at an officer (according to an eye witness). This officer then shot them.
Driving a vehicle at an officer could be attempt murder and that officer may not have had anyway to get out the way. Itâs all assumptions, either way in his head he was able to justify his use of force and pull the trigger. Nothing wrong with the training.
That probably would have been that, however since this case bought by the IOPC where CPS did not take the case on. The IOPC and CPS now views these cases differently and more will end up in court.
https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/news/supreme-court-backs-iopc-landmark-ruling
If thatâs right or not isnât for me to argue. But why would anyone become a firearms officer now? You get no more money, the training is intense and you can loose you ticket for anything during training and reclassification shoots/fitness tests. So it can be a very stressful role, let alone at incidents pointing guns at people.
Factor in that if you shoot anyone chances are it will now go to court so expect 2-3 years suspended unable to work. Spending that entire time wondering if you will end up in prison for doing your job. Let alone the wasted tax payers money.
On the old system you would always be suspended following a shooting and be referred, but most of the time that was that and you would be back at work.
Look at Tony Long and the shooting of Rodney, it happened in 2005 but the IOPC took him to court in 2014 for it after he had left the police. He was found innocent by jury, but still imagine things like that hanging over your head even after you retire due to the new interpretation of the law.
11 Likes
This all sounds cut and shut. I wonder if the prosecution will go down the line that if you have time to remove safety, aim and fire (Assuming his gun was already drawn) you possibly have the time to get out the way of an oncoming car?
Doesnât quite work like that, itâs not just if you can get out of the way but you donât know who else is at risk, it may be thereâs pedestrians or other officers that canât get out of the way.
Donât know about the police training but safety should already be off and youâll be aiming at the target from the outset.
1 Like
Iâm no expert, but would assume already aimed and safety off, so just the time to put the finger on the trigger and squeeze.
Either way, itâs just got worse as every single met counter terrorism firearms officer has now handed in their tickets.
2 Likes
I donât blame them, not pretending to know the ins/outs of the current situation but from what Iâve read about what happened I donât see how he can be charged with murder.
Even if Kaba didnât know the car he was driving was tagged for firearms youâd be an idiot to drive at armed police and ram their cars.
Even though they didnât know who was driving they have to assume the driver may be armed and react based on what could be the most dangerous scenario.
To me this looks like the CPS is making an example of someone (scapegoat) to demonstrate they are sorting out the wider issues with the Met police.
1 Like
Fair points. I know nothing about this case just wondering what the CPS had that was strong enough to charge the officer?
Itâs why I think itâs linked to the link I posted earlier which changes how use of force is viewed:
https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/news/supreme-court-backs-iopc-landmark-ruling
I guess my view is slightly skewed by seeing too much USA based news, where cops are an absolute fucking liability.
It does seem mad that a whole load of extra responsibility, of a very stressful nature, doesnât receive any additional remuneration.
I wonder if what is actually required is a separate section within the Justice System to account for these relatively abnormal circumstances. I cannot think of anything that really compares to being an armed officer where actively killing someone can be considered legitimate. Obviously one needs to have proper scrutiny and due process, but it seems like a pragmatic middle ground might be a whole different category rather than lumping them in with âeverydayâ murderers.
UK is very different to the USA, in fact we are below almost every other country in Europe when it comes to deaths by police per head of population.
America is 33 per 10 million, France 5.5, Germany 1.3, UK 0.5
2 Likes
If you kill somebody then the circumstances need unbiased and careful investigation. No question.
However, itâs seems to me that a fast track for cases like this would go a long way to helping the issue.
I canât imagine the stress this officer is under right now. I wasnât there, but if someone was driving their car at me and ramming other police cars Iâd likely feel justified in pulling the trigger. To end up facing a murder charge and years of uncertainty and stress for that is insane. If we donât want the police to ever shoot anyone, donât arm them.
Under our current system then the Courts are the final arbiter. Was the victim unarmed? Was he faced with a police officer threatening to shoot him? Is there a history with the Met killing innocent people? Iâm sure the victimâs family want their day in Court.
A change to the law to avoid Court action is likely impossible. A change to the law to allow officers to kill within certain bounds will itself get challenged in Court, as this case demonstrates.
I dont know the answer but i am reticent to deny people the ability to seek justice via a Court and Jury.
Surely the initial place for that is an inquest though rather than a criminal trial?
1 Like
Did the âvictimâ have a history of firearms offences?
Was the vehicle he was driving flagged for firearms offences?
Did the police have a reasonable basis to suspect he may be armed?
Was the police officer threatening to shoot because he was trying to kill him with the vehicle and ramming other vehicles?
Is there a history of criminals killing innocent people?
1 Like
As with the US, so it is here - you are asking normal people who happen to be wearing uniforms to go up against killers who often have nothing to lose, mentally-ill killers, drug or drink enraged killers, habitual and career killers.
In the heat of an escalated situation those people will shoot you if you donât shoot them first: you have milliseconds to make a decision that can save your life, your colleagues lives, innocent civilians lives - and you are doing it in spectacularly stressful circumstances, perhaps at night, in foul weather, shit may be on fire - fuck knows.
Sometimes the wrong person gets shot, but itâs bloody rare here in the UK, and a few of those have been thoroughly bad guys who happen to be in a situation that made it technically illegal to shoot them.
But this is Britain - we have never properly looked after our service personnel and so, too, with frontline cops: always easy to throw the little guy to the baying pack⌠Theyâre just ordinary people trying to make a difference doing a difficult, dirty, demanding job that all the rest of us donât have the stomach forâŚ
3 Likes