Mark Saunders -Gunman

The news is full of stories of the police shooting of barrister Mark Saunders. Mark had, under the influence of drink and drugs apparently, fired a shotgun out of the window of his Chelsea house. This is much less than we would expect of any citizen and quite correctly armed police were sent to the scene, to offer adequate protection should he start to target people. Is that what they did? Clearly not. The area had been evacuated so there was no one to shoot. The armed police then took up forward positions, basically in harms way. That is not a containment or a defensive tactic. The police do not have to seek to engage with firearms; as long as everyone is safe they can sit back and wait. It seems likely now that Mark was not intending to hurt anyone, but he did still have a weapon and did seem to be behaving erratically. Still not a problem though.

During the siege, Mark had negotiators trying to call to him, armed officers shouting for him to put down the weapon and a helicopter making its noise overhead. At no point does this chaotic police activity appear to have worried them. With his last words apparently being 'I can't hear you' and hanging out a window, still holding the shotgun seven police officers opened fire. 5 of them managed to hit their target. It is difficult to understand how this could be anything other than manslaughter. Rather than calm the situation the police kept themselves in a state of high anxiety and had placed themselves in positions, not to dominate the area and keep it secure, but to confront Mark. Why, for instance were there at least seven officers in positions where they could fire on the 'gunman'? Mark for his part, seemed almost detached from the scene, uncomprehending. He was not providing tension, the police were keeping themselves wound up. It would seem the armed units are trained to be aggressive, to confront and challenge and to shoot first and ask questions later. This last is not a glib suggestion, but a reflection of the events. They wouldn't let Mark's wife speak to him and the assumption was, from the outset that he was a danger. A man discharging a gun openly and randomly is not something to be taken lightly, but we either decide that we take things slowly and ask questions to establish what we are faced with, or we accept that our police are in perpetual danger and must shoot first.

As I have said before, it is the faulty briefings and the mindset of the officers on arrival that is leading to so many police killings. In the Falklands war, the British Sea Harriers were shooting down Argentine aircraft attacking our forces and so fighters were sent in to deal with them. These aircraft, optimised and armed for air to air combat did their best work at high altitude, the Sea Harrier performed best at medium level. So, the Argentines 'trailed their coats' and waited for the Sea Harriers to come up and get them, where they would be attacked on the Argentines terms. But they represented no threat to the British forces, so the Harriers watched them, but left them alone. The Argentine fighters went home, having achieved nothing. Aggression would have sent the Harrier pilots racing after the enemy regardless; a cool head and rational thinking suggested otherwise. Again, the shooting of a man with a chair leg in a bag (which was thought to be a gun) was an example of the faulty thinking of firearms officers. Calling out 'armed police' in the street would probably cause any number of passers by to turn to see what was going on. Yet this simple, predictable and understandable action cost a man his life, because the police 'knew' he was a gunman.

In waters near Iran, on a high state of alert the US warship USS Vincennes detected an aircraft heading towards it and decided its action in so doing was aggressive. The Vincennes broadcast a message identifying itself and warning the aircraft on a particular bearing that if it did not turn away it would be fired upon (the bearing being that from the warship). To know who this unknown ship was talking to, the pilot of the Iranian airliner they were targeting would have to know the bearing, from that warship. An impossibility. So it carried on and was shot down. Exactly the same, faulty mindset. A lack of proper planning that made a fatal shooting almost inevitable. The problem with the British police is though, that this has never been recognised and as can be seen from their protestations, the police are not looking to learn anything.

We await the next one, as surely as night follows day.