Armed Police - Channel 5

Having written a number of times about armed police incidents, I of course had to watch this programme on Channel 5 last night. I don't know what hopes I had for the programme, but I constantly look for someone to explain about when their operations go smoothly, with outcomes in the control of the officers. Basically, something to confirm their utility in our society and to balance the other stuff we know.

Well, this output from Channel 5 was not the place to seek such enlightenment.

So far, it is a series, we were shown only incidents that are very well known and not always 'successful'. Balance was offered by mentioning an occasion when it went wrong; I'll come back to that. What was the motivation for this piece of television? Did a film maker want to do this, or was it promoted to them as a potential 'puff piece' for the police. It certainly ended up as the latter. Perhaps the police had the final say on what was aired?

Naturally, being about a very serious subject, involving the potential of lives ending, the style was very much sensational. Tabloid TV. Early on, we heard Tony Blair speaking of our 'determination to protect our values', something he worked hard to undermine, not least the rule of law.

Not far in, Tony, an ex-firearms officer explained how the blowing open of a door to a flat, containing two terrorists in 2005, was the 'first operation in UK history to use explosive entry'. Presumably this expert had never heard of the incident at Prince's Gate in 1980, although as that was the SAS, perhaps he meant an operation conducted by the civil power? That was not made clear and is a detail to the general public. It was wrong and gave a wrong impression.

A point is made, dramatically, that the police using a 'circling tactic' to contain the area the bombers were in, having been led to their flat by intelligence. I'm sorry, but the idea that two dangerous men, potentially armed and careless about their own lives, should be surrounded doesn't strike me as the work of a genius. It seems the most basic of ideas and one that has existed forever, I would guess.

To give an example of the terrible way this programme handles such terrifying stories, to sensationalise and titillate for the viewing public, the narrative talks of the police entering a terrorists flat in 2005 and finding him standing in the bath, with a rucksack on his back and a mobile phone in his hand. An unidentified police officer is quoted as saying he formed the opinion that he was going to have to shoot this man. Which seems eminently reasonable,

The pictures switch from the training exercise being shown during the previously mentioned detail, to a thoughtful ex-policeman walking thoughtfully across a flat rooftop (for some reason). The voiceover continues; 'after a violent melee the man was tasered and overpowered'. So not lethally shot then? What strikes me about this is that the officers involved were extremely brave and their tactics perhaps not that clever. To avoid innocent death, I would have accepted an immediate lethal shot would have been the preferred option.

If someone who has already tried to kill people, looks like he is planning to do it again, I would end it, straight away. Basically an action based on decisions he made. I don't think police have a right to shoot first and ask questions after, but I do think that the terrorist, in order to live has the onus placed on him to make himself appear very non-threatening.

However, dangerous terrorist arrested, not dead.

Now we move on to the 'when it goes wrong bit'. This is 'balance'. The mistake was the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a case of mistaken identity. Which is the first misleading statement, as he was shot because they hadn't identified him, at all. He was  a man and came out of the same block of flats where the terrorist was, whilst the overwatch officer was relieving himself. No-one got a clear view of Jean Charles and he remained unidentified until he was shot.

One of the ex-officers talking to the programme said, he knew 'the two officers who pulled the trigger, the two shooters' and went on to explain that whilst ordinary people would have been getting away, they went towards him. Not sure those two things go together and certainly don't in hindsight.

The curious thing for me is that, I understand that Jean Charles was grabbed, when he was in the Tube carriage, in a bear hug (to prevent him detonating a device and another officer stepped up and shot Jean Charles repeatedly in the head. So, in this instance an unidentified individual was shot and killed presenting no danger (not standing in a bath with a rucksack for instance).

And the manner of the killing is interesting too. It is very much more in the manner of the SAS. They apply a doctrine of 'overkill' to definitely eliminate a threat and quickly - not just dead, very dead. Now  there was talk at the time that the police were receiving training from the SAS, but was the real reason no proper investigation took place and no criticism levelled at senior officers knowingly lying about the incident, because someone had allowed the SAS to take the lead without proper handover from the civil power?

If that were to happen, you would expect lies, lack of investigation and perhaps the promotion of key officers who 'know too much'. The senior officer during the incident was Cressida Dick.

In the strangely dragged out piece about Raoul Moat, when the incident finished with Moat shooting himself surrounded by police, the voiceover says that the police were praised afterwards for the way they handled it. At no point did we see the comedy senior officer, who put herself in front of the cameras as often as possible, talking about 'my officers', nor was mention made that she ordered the deployment of an illegal weapon.

During the hunt for Moat, the officer who was in charge at the time (shown at one point leading a column of armed officers wearing a military style helmet at a jaunty angle, which with his casual clothes, protective 'vest' and firearm, made him look an amateur), spoke about his command. After Moat's car was found in Rothbury, he set teams to search for Moat in the surrounding woods and fields, because he was convinced he was there. Although, it seemed obvious to everyone, surely?

The Lee Rigby murder is covered and again, as we watch the armed police arrive and the murderers run straight at them, the female officer explaining that she feared for her life and shots were fired. Again, the terrorist lives, shot in the leg. Is it only innocent members of the public with chair legs in bags who can hit with kill shots?

I also watched with interest the carefully edited footage of the response to the terrorist attack in Borough market in 2017. Firstly the voiceover tells us the police are armed with handguns and high velocity carbines. Except they are not, some may have rifles, but usually, carbines of lower velocity, which is more appropriate in an urban environment. But research is tedious, no?

Then we see the BMW X5 arriving where officers deploy immediately and open fire. They needed to. No what wasn't shown was that the driver forgot to put the handbrake on and one of the officers falls over as the car rolls forward into them, having run round in front of it. Funny, if the fallen officer didn't then become a target for one of the knifemen. These ones definitely didn't survive. Better tactics overall, led to the conclusion.

The programme is awful and merely a PR piece to convince the public how brilliant the armed police are, when in fact, a balanced objective analysis would more likely suggest that our armed officers are poorly trained, use dire tactics and are very, very badly led. But, undoubtedly very brave individuals. We all deserve better.

The Fetish Of Armed Police

Let me give you a scenario and see if you can guess what happened. Whilst reading the tale, think what response would be enacted today and then consider which is more appropriate. Ask yourself if things are better or worse.

Police are called to a small block of flats on a seafront. The day is sunny and warm and the area is thronged with holidaymakers and daytrippers.  A 13 year old girl has seen from the window of the flat she lives in on the second floor, two young men park and get out of a small hatchback, open the tailgate and one of them remove a pistol, which he shoves down the waistband of his jeans at the front.

When questioned the girl is shaking and had a clear view of the car from the window. She seems sensible and gives a very good description of the two lads. The car is fairly new, clean inside and out. On the back seat is a Snoopy toy dressed as a chef and on the parcel shelf a tidily rolled up umbrella. It doesn't seem like the kind of car two youngsters would be driving, though it isn't listed as stolen. Wires can be seen coming from the cigarette lighter socket, going up under the dashboard.

Recently, a well known terrorist organisation has been found to be targeting seaside towns for a bombing campaign. All police forces have been made aware of this and a heightened state of alert is in place. The officers sent to investigate are in uniform and unarmed. No back-up has been assigned and force headquarters has not been informed (as standing orders at the time said they should for a 'firerms incident').

The officers wait in their car. Suddenly two people clearly matching the girl's description appear at the entrance to the car park. On seeing the police car they immediately turn and walk away. The officers walk after them. The lads quicken their pace at which point one of the officers calls on them to stop.

What happens next? Should a more senior officer be in charge than the station sergeant? Should armed police have been deployed with the two young men surrounded and forced to the ground at gunpoint? Maybe one or both might have been shot for the protection of the officers and the public, because they made some move which was deemed threatening? Was the car a bomb? Should the area have been evacuated and the Army brought in to conduct a controlled explosion? Is it not better to be safe than sorry? Why should officers have their lives put at risk?

In the actual, real scenario detailed above, the lads stopped, and one lifted up his T shirt to expose a black, oblong wallet. The car belonged to one of their fathers and the doll was because they were both trainee chefs. They had walked away because they had parked in a private car park and thought they were in trouble. The wires were to power an alarm they had fitted and it was the only place they could get power from.

You see, the girl was a reliable and sensible witness and the car presented some deviation from what you might expect, when viewing things as a stereotype, but the simple explanation still turned out, as it does most often, to be right. A non-event passed off as a non-event instead of the massive drama of police in paramilitary garb, lurching about shouting and pointing rifles at completely innocent members of the public, that is the acceptable (apparently) face of policing today.

The above actually happened in the mid-Eighties in a less drama prone part of the country, in less drama prone days. Not necessarily safer days. Let us now consider the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting in the same light.

The police had a block of flats under surveillance because they were pretty sure at least one terrorist was living there and they knew what he looked like. Someone emerges but has been partly missed by the team, anxious messages are passed back and forwards trying to ascertain if anyone can identify the man and what should be done. Eventually the decision is taken that he must be 'neutralised' (my word) as they couldn't 'risk it'. So he is followed, grabbed and shot in such a way that he is definitely dead.

There may have been a terrorist in the block of flats, but there were also a lot of other people, so the chance of an unidentified person being the target is low, statistically. The person they follow hasn't been identified, so there is no known 'risk' that they cannot afford to take. He is aware he is being chased before he was caught but didn't try to blow himself up.

When caught he was put in an immobilising bear hug and then killed. Even at this point, as a terrorist with a bomb, he has been caught, immobilised, yet he was shot. Perhaps this final act was necessary as they 'couldn't take a risk', which would have been fine, unless he had a trigger that detonated the bomb if he let go.

I still have less of a problem with the officers on the ground, who whilst clearly brave had not deployed well, than with the idiot senior officers who failed completely to understand and deal with the situation appropriately. The murdered man's family and the British people can rest safely in their beds, as the officer in charge has since been further promoted, so no telling what damage can be done now.