Tuesday 13 March 2012

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.



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