Mark Duggan Lawfully Shot

It comes as no surprise whatsoever that the career criminal Mark Duggan was shot and killed quite lawfully, by armed police officers. There doesn't seem to be a situation in which our superb police ever shoot people wrongly.

Sure there have been completely innocent people shot, and the deranged man with a gun, shot to hurry things up, and the baddies who should have had a gun, though on this occasion didn't, but they were all shot with the best intentions and purest of motives.

Mark Duggan put himself in harms way when he devoted himself to a life of violent crime. The police killed him, but it could so easily have been another gang, or a street argument. He chose to play with fire and he got burnt.

I don't have a huge amount of sympathy that he found himself in front of armed police and I'm not that concerned that he was shot. I am however, always concerned that our police do things the right way and for the right reasons. Usually these days you can assume they won't. Firearms officers really do not need to be in that kind of culture.

I understand that people like the Met Commissioner are probably too dim to understand the consequences down the line of their inept, ideology driven version of policing. But in a free society (which clearly he despises) we demand better.

So, my problem, as ever is the IPCC and their protection racket and the way armed police deploy, act, are led and when they fire their weapons. With the Duggan case, the main issue for the IPCC to gloss over is the actual shooting, most of the rest is self evidently easily supported.

The summary is this; the police knew Duggan was involved in using firearms, they knew on this day he was going to acquire a firearm. They even seem to be aware that this fatal cab journey was to pick up a gun. So a team of firearms officers (CO19) was scrambled to intercept him.

They decided to use a tactic known as 'hard stop', which involves blocking in the vehicle a target is in with police cars and apprehending the suspect at gunpoint. When you know where he is going, I'm not entirely sure you need to do this, but it is what they decided on. I would think the best way to apprehend someone would be to present them, in a calm situation with a fait accompli. They are caught, by armed police and only the terminally insane would then react.

The best way to get an unpredictable result I would guess would be to surprise and disorient an armed man. He is likely to make an instinctive self preservation movement that may include firing a weapon (in defence as he would see it), to run, or to dispose of the weapon. He may, calmly stop what he is doing and raise his hands. Though that is akin to not jumping when someone pops a balloon.

Duggan looked to escape (his police profile refers to him as an escaper, that is, someone liable to try to escape). So the entirely unforeseen action of Duggan exiting the vehicle no doubt increased the tension in the police officers. As the lead car was blocking the pavement and with a wall and railings alongside, Duggan could only run in the direction of two police cars behind the taxi.

At this point, the police allege, Duggan reached inside his jacket and produced a gun, which he was raising when one of the officers fired two shots. One of these rounds proved fatal to Duggan and also struck a police officer. The sort of thing that happens when you surround someone and start shooting. Possibly better to deploy with tactical forethought but hey, ideal worlds and all that.

The report has the officer saying he could see the gun and that it was being raised towards him. Now I don't care if Duggan was going to throw it away or whatever, that alone would justify opening fire. You know he has a gun, there it is, fire.

Only, the photo of the weapon as found 4.35 metres from the taxi is a picture of a sock. Because the gun was in a sock. So if the officer had said 'I saw him reach for and produce a sock' that would have been factually accurate. But he said he saw a gun. This is a bit of semantics as I accept that the intelligence was good and in the split second and with the suspect moving, he should expect to get shot. Gun, gun in a sock, it doesn't matter.

But the report presses many areas on detail, yet here it accepts the officer saw a gun. Which didn't then just drop to the ground apparently. And a police officer caught Duggan before he hit the ground too. Which suggests even further than he was unlikely to escape, so close were they.

Mark Duggan is dead for two reasons. Firstly because he chose to become involved in criminal behaviour with firearms, but also due to the faulty tactics of our armed police. And the report makes clear that neither the police nor the IPCC care.

http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/investigation_commissioner_reports/IPCC-investigation-report-fatal-shooting-of-MD.pdf

Expert, Textpert, Choking Smokers

Are there any honest scientists around these days? Any who got into science for the science and the thrill of discovery? Because the airwaves are constantly referring to 'experts' pontificating about something or other and they are usually more interested in their involvement than its veracity of accuracy.

Today, strangely soon after 5 a day was questioned due to the new hatred for sugar, we are told that 5 a day is not enough. No, to hell with the sugar, you need 7 portions a day of fruit and vegetables. Now I don't know about you, but I would expect this to be science based and tell us something important and provable.

I would expect that the science would show how our bodies interact with the food we eat and helps to prolong our lives. But nope, we still don't really understand that so it is a survey. Wonderful 'experts' have told us that they have found that people who live longer eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Were other aspects of their lifestyle factored out?

In fact, how do they know that the food they ate was a causative factor in their long life? What about genetics, exercise, wealth?

Then we have the wailing banshees of Global Warming. I cannot believe, actually, really cannot believe the news stories that reported the latest IPCC comedy script. How could anyone say, with a straight face that Global Warming has been worse than we feared, when there hasn't been any for 17 years?

Why are we even listening to people who a) can't explain why they didn't predict the lack of warming and b) can't explain how the supposed Global Warming actually occurs? Anyway, the rise in temperature over the last 150 years has been 0.7 degrees. This is not only insignificant and irrelevant, we also have no idea how out of kilter that is with historic climate variations.

What we do know is that it has been warmer and colder before without our CO2 having any input and that as we continue to pump out CO2 the temperature hasn't risen. Sure, anti-capitalist, AGW alarmists and even some people who support them and are scientists as well, have come up with some catch-all, speculative comments to explain away everything they get wrong, but generally they don't want to talk about it.

There is proof that CO2 isn't warming the globe, but none to say it does. All of the posing by the IPCC led by a railway engineer, doesn't change the fact that the only story they have is, there has been some overall warming and at the same time we have produced more CO2, so they must be linked.

Or maybe it was because Charles Dickens wrote some books, in that time window and reading them causes Global Warming. Really, that is no wilder than what we are asked to believe by the alarmists. Why otherwise would the latest IPCC report say Global Warming, even in the weird world they inhabit  is less than we thought and the summary says 'we're doomed, doomed I tell you'.

Is it because the summary is for 'policymakers' so it is the bit that has to contain the con?

Climate Comedy

Here is what has happened. It is a story of real science and junk science. Ignoring earlier conclusive scientific studies, a cult formed based on the idea that certain gasses stay in the atmosphere and trap heat. This leads to a 'greenhouse' effect and raises world temperatures.

Not a wild theory and it seems to be what has happened on Venus (although no-one in the nutter factory has suggested, yet, that we did that as well). What science had to do now was observe and prove the theory. To understand the mechanism at work and refine their views accordingly. Unfortunately this wasn't what happened.

A bunch of well meaning scientists found themselves to be very attractive to a certain group. These were basically people who had never grown up, the type you see in their last years of school and at university, believers in Utopia. Basically, despite their exam results, as bright in their outlook as the beauty queen's desire for World peace.

This group soon became political and appealed to the anti-capitalists. It was seen as a way to fatally undermine Western civilisation by getting the societies to devour themselves in an angst ridden orgy of self destruction, brought about by catastrophically high taxes and subsidies for crackpot schemes (like wind turbines).

The method they used was modern, empathetic to social standards and simple. They developed computer models designed to produce the results they desired. Global Warming. As stated science observes, proves and decides. They didn't have time for that and anyway it wasn't the point; what was really happening with the climate was irrelevant, it was now about Marxist politics.

Conveniently, we were at the time going through one of the periodic rises in temperature that we see throughout history and that we have no explanation for. This became, conclusively due to Man Made Global Warming and it was so bad it was going to destroy the world. The bunch of idiots we rather carelessly elected as politicians swallowed it hook, line and sinker. They so love grand projects.

But now of course we have had 17 years of no warming, which was not predicted by these flawless and super accurate computer models. Observation, a scientific method, was disproving a badly constructed scam. To give a parallel; it does look as if the Sun goes around the Earth - we talk of it crossing the sky- and yet it doesn't. When this was proven it was accepted and has remained a known fact ever since, on the basis it can be proven any time you like.

The Global Warming scammers though would just say, 'no, you are wrong because our models say otherwise. Observation and proof have no place here'. And that is the dilemma facing the IPCC as its report, its latest weighty, densely worded yet full of comedy content will say two diametrically opposed things. On the one hand they will assert that the 'science' says that the cause of Global Warming is Man with a 95% certainty, but that they also are not sure what is causing Global Warming. Whilst additionally mentioning that there isn't any Global Warming.

And that polar ice isn't disappearing. Or the glaciers on the Himalayas. Or there is increased hurricane activity. Or the sea level is rising. Even though the models say all these things are happening and catastrophes are all around us, right now, today. The Emperor really has never had any clothes.

So there it is. A simple yet effective (for a while) scam of immense proportions, only matched in scale by the stupidity and vanity of politicians. A kid writes a computer programme that predicts disaster, only he claims it is based on real science. But he has built in an assumption; that more Man made gasses like CO2 inevitably heat up the atmosphere, something he has no scientific support for, whatsoever. It can do, but you have to understand all the interactions, not just one.

All the claims that the science is settled and that there is a consensus of scientists is ridiculous and beside the point. It was never based of empirical observation and proof of theory, it was only ever a computer model. Like saying Grand Theft Auto 5 is an accurate reproduction of real life in every way. Whereas in fact it is designed for game play, with built in attributes of violence but making the figures look as lifelike as the current state of the art computing can manage. But even a little kid knows it isn't real (though maybe we should ask a politician their view)..

IPCC Commissioners

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, of whom I expect more, are seeking 'truly independent commissioners' to 'build public confidence' by (in part) 'delivering messages to partners who often have conflicting views'.

Naturally, I think I would do a great deal of good within such an organisation, as I expect more of the police and think the IPCC does not do its job competently or completely at present. However, to be eligible to apply you must never have worked for the police in any capacity. Ever. However, if you murdered someone 10 years ago you are fine, the limit is on crimes attracting a three month plus sentence, within the last 5 years.

So, my views on policing are irrelevant because, whilst high minded principles based on a fair, policing by consent basis caused me to be a Special Constable, I have been inside the system and cannot be truly independent. But if you have suffered arrest by said officers, your opinion will be fine and unbiased as long as 5 years have elapsed since you were last convicted.

A lot of people have worked hard to achieve the level of incompetence currently displayed by the police and the lack of accountability is key to this. No re-invigorated IPCC will be allowed, but a few more £75K+ bureaucrats will be on the forelock tugging payroll.

IPCC: Placed Story?

At the weekend there was an article in a broadsheet about the gun at the centre of the police shooting, that preceded the riots in London. It seems that an earlier incident may not have been properly investigated and an opportunity to take that gun out of circulation, potentially missed.

The gun, a Bruni 92 replica that had been converted to fire live ammunition was used in a 'pistol whipping' at a hairdressers and the officers who followed up the incident have been put on 'restricted duties' whilst their actions are investigated. The suggestion was that they could have found the gun and precluded the incident that led to rioting.

The story isn't very substantive and has the smell of being planted. Even if the gun had been seized after the earlier incident, why are we to suppose that Mark Duggan, if he wanted a gun wouldn't have acquired a different one? The story seems designed to distract attention from the actual shooting, immediately after which it was claimed that Duggan had fired first. Not only was this not true, it now appears the gun was in a sock, in a shoe box.

Once again it seems that armed police attending an incident have been extremely ready to open fire, presumably keyed up by the nature of their briefing. The logic appears to be that a criminal with a gun will always use it, whereas we only get that impression when considering armed police. The strategy and tactics applied in armed incidents seems at best to be childish.

If this story was planted and the finger points at the IPCC, it is a disgraceful attempt to obfuscate and distract, in a very serious inquiry. I wish they were more concerned with helping the police correct aberrant behaviour. It is what the public think they are paying for.

Latest From The IPCC

The slow drip feed of information about the shooting of Mark Duggan continues. An insult to the intelligence of a tapeworm, but that is how they choose to do it. We now know that the police opened fire first and that Mark was killed by a single police bullet and another round hit a police officer. Mark had a gun that was converted to be able to fire live ammunition. He was shot during an anti guns operation.

No one can take issue with the police attempting to deal with gun crime. There is no issue with the police firing first. This is not some kind of duel or Western shootout. If the police can see a danger to life they should negate it immediately. They do not need to wait until someone is shot as proof they should shoot a gunman.

However, questions remain. In this 'planned' operation with 'trained' armed police involved, why exactly did they choose to confront Mark whilst in a taxi? In the street? With the driver still in his seat? From the IPCC we gather the beloved MP5 was again the weapon of choice, for an arrest operation that I'm guessing would be designed to be carried out at a range of 6 to 10 feet? (MP5 range: at least 650 feet). And these trained police officers no doubt assumed the tactical deployment we see when shown it on the TV, of standing either side of the vehicle. Directly opposite. Thus enabling them to shoot each other. When are the IPCC going to address these issues? When are they going to insist that the men with guns need to be trained for the situations they face, with a better understanding of tactics. Then clamp down on the idiots that lead them. It is clear the information and the way they are sent out puts lives in danger. And as we have seen all too often, not just criminals lives.

The Shooting of Mark Duggan

A year ago I wrote here about the relaxed approach the IPCC have to the use of deadly force by police officers, in an article about the shooting of Harry Stanley. He was killed basically because the armed officers were told he had a weapon and so accepted it as a fact and further assumed that he would use it. So when he turned round on hearing 'Stop! Armed Police' having no idea who they were shouting at, the police interpreted it as his intention to shoot them and so opened fire and killed him. By the uncritical report they produced, it is clear the IPCC are happy with this type of police action and the public should expect it to happen routinely. As is possibly the case in the shooting of Mark Duggan. Here the bullet that hit a policeman was from a policemen (chump score 1) and that by Sunday they had found a weapon that was not 'a police weapon'. So not the easy to find gun clearly seen by armed officers thus fearing for their lives who opened fire. Chump score 2. The evasive nature of the police response to questions about the shooting clearly indicates they know something didn't go right. (Bearing in mind that the police shooting someone is never seen as a failure. The thought of even an armed man being arrested rather than shot is completely off the scale for them, it seems).

As the IPCC and the police would see such outrageous criticism as anti-police let me give some outrageous perspective. The police issue 'hollow-point' ammunition to their armed units. Hollow-point has also been called 'dum-dum' and is outlawed by the Geneva Convention for military use. The reason it is used at all is that as the bullet's head collapses it causes a bigger wound (more likely to 'take down' a target) and also loses energy more quickly (so less likely to injure anyone else by passing through a target). I fully support the use of this ammunition as it helps to reduce the danger of an armed suspect to the police officers or members of the public in the vicinity. The police however should  restrict their shooting to situations where they know there is a clear and present danger and the IPCC should have the guts to criticise them when they don't

Tottenham

The first thing to say about this situation of course is that the rioting has nothing to do with the shooting. If some incident can get enough people onto the streets, then the 'entitled' will use that as cover for theft and 'entertainment'. It isn't that they don't fear the police, they don't fear the judicial system. Being caught means that you might have to put one of the laptops you stole on ebay to pay the fine (with a little left over naturally). Then we come back to the chance of being caught. Not high, not when you consider the ineptitude of those running the police.

The amount of looting and destruction by fire was more due to the late response of police in numbers (apparently) than the volume of the mob. Whenever senior officers are forced into public view they do seem to have been promoted on the principle that no one brighter than the man (woman) above should be elevated. This is even more evident when they talk about incidents. Curiously the shooting on Thursday of Mark Duggan has had scant space in the papers, no detail available. That is the first alarm bell ringing; the police love to talk about shooting people when they get it right. Then there are the strange press releases, prone to 'amendment'. In one of the first reports I heard on the shooting it was said that 'police don't yet know the order of shooting, just that one of their officers was shot and they returned fire'. Sounds like an order of shooting to me. Then, later we learn that the officer's injury could have been more serious if the bullet hadn't hit his radio. But still no word about the gun Duggan was carrying, why he was targeted for armed arrest whilst in a cab nor how many shots he fired. Now we understand police have, at last, found a gun that was 'not a police weapon'. What curious terminology and why mention this on Sunday, when the shooting occurred on Thursday? When the police don't mention stuff like this, they are trying to get their story straight. OK so we have moved on from the days of Ian Blair and smear campaigns against those wrongly shot, but still, why admit that you made a mistake?

Again, if this does turn out to be a mistake on the part of armed officers, it will likely be down to the planning and tactics, rather than the actual quality of the individual armed officer (though there is room to be cautious about police quality full stop). Did we have another situation where officers were sent out, wound up to arrest someone likely to be carrying and not afraid to use a gun? Did they encircle the cab, thus increasing the likelihood of shooting each other? Why this perpetual love of the dramatic arrest in the street (in a cab!) at gunpoint, rather than catching someone alone and away from other people?

I am no friend of the criminal and would rather see them shot than police officers, so I have no problem if the police open fire first. When they know they are in danger and also when their training and tactics have given every opportunity for them to stay safe, the public to be reassured of their safety and the criminal the chance to surrender peacefully, then they should move in. But all of us are put in great danger by the gung-ho and militaristic mentality of armed police officers. They are deployed too readily, to unproven 'armed incidents' and always assume a guns pointed attitude. I'm sure in their defence the police would say that in a country where guns are banned, only bad people would be carrying them. Which doesn't explain the reckless endangerment of a man's life, when he has guns pointed at him because a member of the public has said he has a gun, which is completely unverified and it turns out to be a child's toy. Or the actual killing of a man with a chair leg in a bag. In the US where in many places the carrying of a gun is legal, officers trained the British way would approach everyone with their guns drawn. But they don't because a) they don't know there's a danger until they know there is a danger and b) because they know how easily accidents happen.

It would be most useful if the training of armed police in the UK became more professional and oriented towards protecting the public rather than shooting people and if the police generally understood that mistakes do happen and it is how you respond and learn from experience that matters and on which they will be judged. Currently, cover up and lie is their first option (remember of course, that the current crop of senior police are from the era of Tony Blair, so are merely copying the style of government they have been brought up under). Of similar utility would be an Independent Police Complaints Commission that actually investigated and pointed out faults and options for improvement. Instead we have a supine body that seeks to minimise public knowledge of police ineptitude. They are lucky that we no longer have investigative reporters in this country (well, non celebrity obsessed ones anyway).

Independent Police Complaints Commission

I have made comment previously about IPCC reports and some of the shocking things police do and that are above criticism by the IPCC. I was thinking the other day though in the context of government departments having a careless attitude to their duty to the public, that I perhaps hadn't highlighted this failing by the IPCC.

In one report I cited, a police officer discharged a high velocity round inside a house and it was lucky that the walls were brick otherwise it could have entered the next house. The IPCC couldn't bring itself to criticise overall strategy or notice the way police deploy weapons.

On the whole, I think there is a tendency to look down on US law enforcement as less civilised than what we have here, not least because US police officers are routinely armed. But quite a few officers in the UK are armed too and there is an important difference to consider. In the US, officers carry a side arm and often have a shotgun in their vehicle. These are low velocity weapons deemed appropriate, where lethal force is necessary, to the urban environment. Basically the bullets carry less energy and won't go through walls etc.

In Britain however, this wholly sensible notion is frequently ignored as our armed police carry higher velocity MP5 carbines. These military grade weapons are singularly inappropriate for the urban environment. They are compact enough to be used, but the energy of rounds discharged is too high. Think about the dramatic 'armed arrests' you see on the TV. A man is dragged out of a car and forced to lie on the ground while officers point their MP5's at him, tucked tight into their shoulder and cheek. Lord alone knows where a high velocity round penetrating right through the body and striking the pavement would end up, should they decide to open fire.

The IPCC, senior officers and firearms strategists  in the police seem to have no view, opinion or criticism of these practices. The MP5 is able to fire a round twice to four times the distance a pistol could achieve. It is interesting to note the persistent suggestion that the police receive training from the SAS and have also selected one of it's favourite weapons. Yet the SAS are not trained themselves for police actions. They are in fact trained to use extreme violence to achieve their result. Which is exactly what you want on a battlefield, though not necessarily in Bromley. We know this to be the case because of their actions in the Falklands and also in the shooting of IRA terrorists in Gibraltar. One in particular was pursued and falling to the ground was shot at close range repeatedly. The SAS train to kill and to make sure the target is definitely dead. And again, this was exactly the technique used on the completely innocent Jean Charles de Menezes.

That our senior police officers are incompetent is becoming daily more apparent (and not just because of their over-riding social engineering bias) and we let them train and equip themselves to military levels. Add to that the criminally lax oversight by the IPCC and you have a dangerous mix.

Meet the Sceptics

The BBC, an organisation committed to many left ideological causes like Global Warming, put on a programme called Meet the Sceptics. The BBC had carefully employed an independent film maker, who says that he has 'green' leanings but has 'put them aside'. The film then does exactly what an independent film maker would do, if the idea was to sell the programme to the BBC, he took the usual swipe. The format now seems to be boring in its repetition. He allows the 'scientists' to give their views without criticism and presents the deniers (he was careful to make sure the sceptics of the title were re branded right at the start) as fruit loops. And it is clear this didn't just happen, he edited it like that because it was absolutely surreal.

The other point which this film took great care over (as they all do) was to ensure it didn't present any evidence to back up Global Warming. Oh it made assertions and vague comments, but not anything you could check. Just in case you did. He didn't ask why the 'scientists' claim that you are not allowed to debate Global Warming (when did that represent 'empirical science'?) nor look at sceptics claims of falsification of data. You wouldn't want to muddy the water and confuse the simple plebs who you want to pay, would you?

I did agree that the best and simplest explanation came from a US teacher and his risk analysis. Unfortunately for the film maker he thought the smug assertion in support of Global Warming was brilliant. The guy said the question was do we take action which will cost us an enormous amount of money, or do nothing, in which case catastrophe could happen. Oops!

I also liked the CO2 destruction of Monckton near the denouement. The claim was that 750 million years ago there was 30 per cent saturation of the atmosphere with CO2 and the world was an ice ball, so CO2 doesn't lead inevitably to Global Warming. The 'scientists' said that he was using a greenhouse gas to prove it isn't, which is mad. Er, isn't it the 'scientists' who keep telling us that CO2 will, as day follows night cause the temperature to rise?

Then the film ended with patronising comments and a summary that proves the big money supporting the carbon industry is right; heatwaves and freezing weather and floods all happening around the world. Even Sherlock would be surprised.

Another shooting, Another story

Fresh from an Independent Police Complaints Commission report, the tale of the shooting of Bartholomew Buckley by West Yorkshire Police. This time the police have been wound up by the hysterics of the woman calling them fearing for her life and the assailant having a record of threatening police with bladed weapons, apparently. Naturally and quite correctly an Armed Response is decided on and three ARV's and a dog van are sent.

On arrival the woman is seen screaming for help and banging on an upstairs window, so still seems to be serious an a forced entry is made. Now for me, the officers would and should be careful, assertive and high on adrenaline but here, once again the added ingredient is some strange firearms attitude of expecting and meeting aggression with force. When Buckley appears at the top of the stairs he removes his T shirt and shouts at the police to kill him (both civilians in this had been drinking, in fact a bottle of vodka between them). He was unarmed. A taser was fired at him to calm him down but it missed. Buckley then disappeared into a bedroom and three officers mounted the stairs. On reaching the top Buckley threw a drinks bottle at the first officer and another, trying to avoid the missile fell down the stairs. The first officer fired his Taser and again missed and at this point Buckley charged at the officer. The third policeman there apparently feared he was attempting to get the officers pistol (which was holstered and not easy to withdraw if you don't know how) and fired a round from his H&K G36 a rifle (technically a sub-carbine) with a muzzle velocity of 3018ft per sec. He then fired four more rounds. He hit Buckley once, in the arm.

At the gunshot the officer being charged threw himself down the stairs and Buckley fell after him. As they clattered to the bottom and Buckley stood up a further officer, fearing a colleague had been shot (?) fired a baton round hitting Buckley and knocking him down. The report says at this point that the officers 'realised Buckley had a serious gunshot wound and First Aid was immediately administered.' What strikes me is that they then realised a bunch of police officers can actually overpower one man.

I'm sorry if I am banging on about this, but I think that when police officers take high velocity weapons inside houses there is something going on between their ears that is way too martial and self-impressed. Clearly a Taser would have dealt with the man even if he had the samurai sword they thought they may be facing. If in grave danger a drawn Glock pistol would have been more easily brought to bear and plenty lethal enough. Luckily they were not in a modern house, else the rounds loosed off with what appears a little abandon from the G36, may have been killing the neighbours too.

To be fair, the IPCC report does point this out and says that there was a lack of planing and also that the use of the Taser may have inflamed the situation. Certainly does when you repeatedly miss. But it doesn't seem strong enough in questioning the attitudes that lead to these decisions, comforting itself that the officers were correct in most of their actions. Though interestingly, they do go into detail about how difficult it is to remove a Glock pistol from its holster if you haven't been trained to do it.Apparently, an unknowing firearms officer took six minutes. Yet the IPCC think that a policeman opening fire because he fears his colleagues' pistol may be seized, is appropriate. Reading their report it seems plain that this isn't acceptable. It is dangerous and moronic to believe otherwise.

With policeman falling down stairs and trained firearms officers firing 8 times at close quarters, managing to hit the target twice, it would seem comedic but for the fact that these people are loosing off lethal lumps of lead.

Stay safe. Evening all.

Police Shooting -Terry Nicholas

Reading yet another report by the IPCC gives the impression that the IPCC are not trying to get to the truth, nor looking for recommendations for improvements.

Terry Nicholas was obviously not a straightforward fellow, having been shot at on at least a couple of occasions. He was offered police protection but refused it, saying he would sort it out himself. The police became aware that he was going to acquire a firearm and followed him to Paolo's restaurant in West London. The police had an armed surveillance team and CO19 firearms officers present. Nicholas parked his moped at the rear of the restaurant and was later seen to receive something from another man outside the front. It was decided to arrest him, now presumably with a weapon when he came out. And so as Nicholas went to his moped two police cars drove towards him. He opened fire and the police officers stopped their cars, got out and opened fire. No officers were hit but Nicholas was killed. The IPCC were happy that the officers were wearing their 'police' caps and that they didn't shout 'armed police' was understandable (as indeed it was) and therefore there was nothing else that they could do. It was sad and unfortunate that Terry Nicholas was dead, but it was his fault for opening fire.

The planing again is clearly to blame and the police seem to care nought for their repeated failures. Surely even a person of limited imagination would think twice about driving unmarked cars towards a man with a gun, who had been shot at before, particularly when that man is in a confined space. What exactly did they expect to happen? They could have contained the area with marked cars and called out to him by name, saying they knew he had a weapon and to put it down. But no, they decide to rush towards a man with a gun, who is cornered and fearing for his life.

Another IPCC

I have just been reading reports on the website of the Independent Police Complaints Commission of shootings. Firstly the accidental shooting of a civilian worker by a Thames Valley Police Firearms Instructor and then the shooting by the Met of a man carrying a chair leg in a bag. The reports are, in general, self-serving claptrap and quite obviously so.

Firearms Instructor PC Micklethwaite was to take a firearms awareness course and for this he needed weapons and inert ammunition. He was told that the 'demonstration ammunition' was in a clearly marked box in the armoury at Milton Keynes. When he went there he couldn't find it, but he did see a Quality Street tin that contained a mix of ammunition, which he assumed to be inert, because of the lackadaisical method of storage and that mixing live with inert was a 'sin, a no-no'. So he took the tin home and left it in his porch overnight, as you do. Next day, he loaded a weapon during a classroom session and eventually discharged the gun, hitting a member of the class. It becomes beyond satire when you find out that PC Micklethwaite attended a Firearms Instructors course as is required and failed it. And what pray tell did he fail on? Safety and weapons handling. The course Instructor recommended that TVP conduct a documented review of these aspects. Naturally, this never happened.

The IPCC felt that there was a case to answer and passed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service who decided not to proceed. The IPCC also passed a file to the Health and Safety Executive who did prosecute and extracted a fine for both the PC and Thames Valley Police. Much to their credit the IPCC carried on and now recommended a disciplinary hearing for misconduct, at which point PC Micklethwaite announced his intention to retire. Because they have to give notice of proceedings against an officer, TVP said that they wouldn't be able to proceed until after his retirement, so abandoned it. This decision was accepted by the IPCC, case closed.

Whilst scathing about PC Micklethwaite's assumptions, they were perfectly happy that ammunition was kept in a Quality Street tin as training requirements were not the same as operational. That Micklethwaite was an accident waiting to happen seems clear, but the IPCC doesn't exactly come across as balanced and fair.

The IPCC report into the shooting of Mr Stanley was a little less, um, searching. Admittedly it is subsequent to the old PCC investigation, the organisation that preceded the IPCC. This report agrees that the death of Mr Stanley was due to the use of force by police officers, which wasn't really an issue in so much that he was shot in the head by them. The document is defensive in tone and outcomes relevant to the police officers involved.

The background. Harry Stanley was drinking in a pub, whilst having with him a chair leg wrapped in a plastic bag. A member of the public (for whom no claims of firearms experience has been made) reported a suspicion that it may be a sawn-off shotgun. Firearms officers were despatched and Harry Stanley was challenged in the street, from behind with shouts from the armed officers. Not unnaturally Harry would not have known they were shouting at him and turned to see what was going on. This aggressive movement by an armed man caused the officers to open fire, hitting him in the hand and head.

In their investigation they claim to be impressed that the officers gave almost identical accounts of events despite also noting that the officers wrote up their notes together at 1:30am. I would have been amazed if they differed! This strange self-satisfaction continued into the reason the officers fired. Although the report warns against using hindsight let us allow ourselves to use that facility, to remind ourselves of the real situation as opposed to the reality invoked by the police and backed up by the IPCC. Harry Stanley was a painter and decorator by trade, I guess the officers confronting him didn't know that, rather than someone experienced in the use of guns and in a tactical manner or combat situation. He wasn't carrying a gun, but a chair leg and the officers certainty that he was carrying a firearm comes solely from a report by a member of the public. This certainty still doesn't explain why the officers said of Mr Stanley turning to them that he did so with a “fluid deliberate movement”, adopting a “classic firing position, boxer

stance”. I think, with hindsight, the police would have been more aware of that than he was. However, puffing themselves up, the IPCC in their report say that they asked several firearms experts and they agreed that the officers actions were reasonable, in the circumstances. It might, you would have thought, have been 'reasonable' to ask people who were specifically not firearms officers. The problem here is one of reinforcing. Having been told the man has a gun, police officers able to use lethal force and trained in weapons handling will read way more into innocent situations than anyone else. It is almost a guaranteed way of making a mistake. If I had a gun and an armed policeman came up behind me and shouted 'stop! Armed police' I would stop, stand still and do whatever else they wanted, because I know, pretty well that it is me they are after. However, if I didn't have a gun, I'm sure I would turn around, with a fluid movement or not, to see what was going on. In the situation in which Harry Stanley found himself, this thought never occurred to the police officers. If you ask why, there is no satisfactory answer, so the IPCC don't ask that question.

Too many incidents involving armed police prove that they are deployed in a very controlled manner and I don't mean in a good way. Senior officers are always quick to let you know that no-one can tell an armed officer to pull the trigger, it is their decision alone. That is not a comforting comment and it is not intended to be supportive or reassuring. The statement is designed to remove blame from the operational commanders. Yet these all too often hopeless 'leaders' send armed police to incidents wound up, with their finger on the trigger ready to pull it.

I remember a bomb threat to a disco, which was in a room on stilts. On checking the area we saw a car parked under the building stuffed with all sorts of paraphernalia, so we called for the owner to come forward. When no-one did, this 'likely hoax' suddenly started to look a little scary. Then someone sidled up and asked why we wanted the owner, was he in trouble. Panic over. When the idea of a problem is planted, your thinking can become conditioned. I cannot believe the police still do not seem to have addressed this with common sense approaches to even deadly situations, rather than their preferred certainty and paramilitary stance. They would say they cannot put police officers lives in danger. We have no evidence of that, but rather too much evidence of the current thinking putting the public in danger. The IPCC don't seem to have spotted that.