Are Police immune from being held accountable??

[Dave1987]

I remember when Mark Duggan was shot and the Met Police immediately released a statement to say that Duggan had shot first and the Police fired back. This turned out to be complete bull as it was a Police bullet that hit the other Policeman's radio. I seem to remember the statements from the officers were changed once they had chance to confer. It all stank of a cover up. The Jury decided that Duggan was unarmed when shot yet still lawfully killed. I mean how can an unarmed man who has his hands in the air present a real an imminent threat to life? If we start taking the attitude of he was a gangster so got what he deserved we may as well go to the American model of policing, let every officer have a firearm and let them shot anyone who looks suspicious as they pose some kind of threat to someone in the future.

 

[Smudger105e]

I read that the officer who shot Azelle Rodney (Anthony Long) claimed that he shot Mr Rodney in self defence.

After being found not guilty of unlawful killing, it transpired that in the 1980s he shot dead two men in an operation and wounded two other suspects.

It would surprise me to find that most firearms officers ever shoot one person, let alone five, killing three.

In 2006, Long won compensation from Scotland Yard after he met the then deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers. As the pair were introduced, Akers joked: “I’ve always wanted to meet the Met’s very own serial killer.” Apparently he threatened prosecution for this comment and got £5,000 compensation, but it does show what the Senior Police Officers thought of Mr Long.

What does also concern me is the use of language to give the impression that this retired officer is being persecuted. For example (this quote has been taken from a Guardian on line article (bold is mine))

In Long’s career he has been commended for bravery, disciplined, picked for prestigious firearms teaching roles, insulted by a senior officer and plucked from retirement to face trial.

 

[TheEdge]

I'd love to know what Dave1987's personal experiences of situations where he has found himself having to make these sort of decisions that make him so well qualified to pass judgement on those involved in reality. Could he live with himself if he was the officer that could have taken the shot on Mark Duggan, decided not to and then seen a colleague killed?

With the exception of the forces the police do one of the hardest jobs in the country and the ability of so many people to stand up and judge them with perfect hindsight sickens me. I'm sure Dave1987 deals with many things but unlike those two WPCs he is unlikely the have a hand grenade thrown at him and unlike PC David Rathband is unlikely to be shot in the face and blinded while eating his lunch. He probably won't go about on his daily business having to worry about booby traps in certain houses made of dirty needles or with door knobs wired to the mains.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

Certainly up here in Scotland ever since Police Scotland was formed they appear to be immune from being held accountable. The use of 'stop and search' here is 4 times higher than anywhere else in the UK.

The Scottish Government have been lacklustre in doing anything about it, and Willie Rennie MSP has called the new force 'Not Fit for Purpose.'

Between April and December 2013 there were 519,213 searches in Scotland, whereas the Met had 312,645...Quite a difference!

They have now been referred to the UN regarding this as time after time they have been told get a grip on it, but as usual it falls on deaf ears.

 

[Dave1987]

I'd love to know what Dave1987's personal experiences of situations where he has found himself having to make these sort of decisions that make him so well qualified to pass judgement on those involved in reality. Could he live with himself if he was the officer that could have taken the shot on Mark Duggan, decided not to and then seen a colleague killed?

With the exception of the forces the police do one of the hardest jobs in the country and the ability of so many people to stand up and judge them with perfect hindsight sickens me. I'm sure Dave1987 deals with many things but unlike those two WPCs he is unlikely the have a hand grenade thrown at him and unlike PC David Rathband is unlikely to be shot in the face and blinded while eating his lunch. He probably won't go about on his daily business having to worry about booby traps in certain houses made of dirty needles or with door knobs wired to the mains.

Police officers and Armed forces personnel who are authorised to carry weapons as part of their duties are explicitly told you should only fire if the is an imminent threat to life. Not that you believe that someone might be armed so shoot them just in case. I had weapons training in a previous career in the RAF. We were told we would been held accountable in a court of law for every shot we fired. This certainly does not seem to be the case for armed police officers.

 

[TheEdge]

Right, if it is so clear cut what would your action be in the following situation (a situation that has happened all over the world including in the UK)

As an armed police officer you are called to an incident involving a firearm. Arriving at the scene you are faced with an individual holding what is clearly a gun pointing it towards you and other police officers. After the shouting the legal warnings the person ignores you and points the weapon at you.

Shoot or not?

 

[GB]

If the gun is already pointing at the officer then in my opinion it's a clear decision to shoot.

 

[Dave1987]

Right, if it is so clear cut what would your action be in the following situation (a situation that has happened all over the world including in the UK)

As an armed police officer you are called to an incident involving a firearm. Arriving at the scene you are faced with an individual holding what is clearly a gun pointing it towards you and other police officers. After the shouting the legal warnings the person ignores you and points the weapon at you.

Shoot or not?

You shoot but that is not what happened in the Duggan or Rodney case. Neither were armed or pointing a weapon at officers when shot.

 

[meridian2]

You shoot but that is not what happened in the Duggan or Rodney case. Neither were armed or pointing a weapon at officers when shot.

This is all retrospective; how on earth do you expect the officers to know that for sure?

 

[Dave1987]

This is all retrospective; how on earth do you expect the officers to know that for sure?

You are not allowed to shoot unless there is an immediate risk to life. Shooting someone because you believe they might be armed is not ok. Like I said before what if someone reports a person carrying weapon, the police shoot the and kill them and it turns out they were completely unarmed. In Duggan case the police claimed he had shot first which was complete bull and they had to change their statements once they had conferred. In the Rodney case even a judge said Long's version of events was not possible and should not be believed.

 

[TheEdge]

You shoot but that is not what happened in the Duggan or Rodney case. Neither were armed or pointing a weapon at officers when shot.

So you shot then?

Right, after the shooting is done forensics go in, turns out it was 17 year old lad who tried to rob a shop and all he had was a BB gun painted black for effect. No one was ever in any real danger, not the police or the public, you just shot and killed an unarmed lad.

Those are the sort of decisions that the police are making and that people like you then criticise with perfect 20/20 hindsight.

There was intelligence the Duggan had a firearm but I wasn't there, I don't know what happened. But if you've for example got someone you know to have an illegal firearm, lets say he has his hands in his pockets and ignores warnings to bring them out. Are you willing to wait and find out if he is fiddling with a phone or pulling a gun?

 

[meridian2]

You are not allowed to shoot unless there is an immediate risk to life.

But therein lies the crux of this whole thread: who gets to determine what's an 'immediate risk to life'? I'll always trust the police, because they are trained to assess and decide what sort of situation they're dealing with.

 

[Dave1987]

So you shot then?

Right, after the shooting is done forensics go in, turns out it was 17 year old lad who tried to rob a shop and all he had was a BB gun painted black for effect. No one was ever in any real danger, not the police or the public, you just shot and killed an unarmed lad.

Those are the sort of decisions that the police are making and that people like you then criticise with perfect 20/20 hindsight.

There was intelligence the Duggan had a firearm but I wasn't there, I don't know what happened. But if you've for example got someone you know to have an illegal firearm, lets say he has his hands in his pockets and ignores warnings to bring them out. Are you willing to wait and find out if he is fiddling with a phone or pulling a gun?

In the Duggan case the post mortem stated that Duggan had his arms raised above his head when shot, not pointing a weapon be it real or replica at the police. Rodney was in the back of a vehicle when shot, and a judge said there was no way Long could possibly have seen him holding a weapon. If you are standing facing armed police with a real or replica weapon in your hands pointing it at the officers and fail to adhere to their commands then yes you are going to get shot and rightly so. Neither Duggan or Rodney were armed or presenting a imminent threat to police yet the officers shot and killed them. The Lee Rigby murders were rightly shot by officers as they posed an imminent threat to the officers lives.
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But therein lies the crux of this whole thread: who gets to determine what's an 'immediate risk to life'? I'll always trust the police, because they are trained to assess and decide what sort of situation they're dealing with.

An immediate risk to life means if you do not fire now you or someone else is going to be injured or killed. The issue here is officers not perceivably being held accountable when they fire and kill someone without that being the case.

 

[TheEdge]

But you are moving the goalposts. A kid with a BB gun is as much of a threat to the police as someone who they honestly believe to be armed.

So how can you be so sure one is right and the other wrong?

 

[transmanche]

The Jean-Charles de Menezes case was mentioned upthread, and the 10th anniversary of that incident (and the other events in the two weeks preceding it) is approaching. This particular case was, on the one hand, illustrative of the difficulties police have when they have to make snap decisions on how to react to a potential threat. The part that didn't sit so easily with me was the way that the Met's public relations team went into overdrive while de Menezes' body was still warm: within minutes, statements came out that the man had been wearing a heavy coat that was inappropriate for July (he was in fact wearing a light jacket, entirely appropriate for someone used to a warmer climate); that he'd jumped over the ticket barriers (CCTV footage later showed him swiping his Oystercard as normal);

To be fair to the MPS in this particular instance, I can recall TV news crews interviewing eyewitnesses shortly after the shooting who made similar claims regarding the coat and vaulting the ticket gates - these may have been the source of the MPS press releases.

If you look at this BBC news report from the day (22/07/2005), it also includes eyewitness detail which later proved to be completely inaccurate;

Stockwell passenger Mark Whitby told BBC News he had seen a man of Asian appearance shot five times by "plain-clothes police officers".
[...]
Another passenger on the train, Anthony Larkin, told BBC News the man appeared to be wearing a "bomb belt with wires coming out".
[...]
One person says the man vaulted the automatic ticket barriers as he made his way to the platforms.

 

[Jonfun]

Armed police are experienced officers who work under great pressure and are subject to great training and, indeed, scrutiny. The number of instances of one of these officers having to shoot a person is very, very small. However when it does, it is important that they are able to make the decision to do so without hesitating over the possible legal implications it may have on themselves. If a small proportion of the incidents where shots have to be fired (which is so small in the grand scheme of things itself it is barely quantifiable) result in a person who was not a threat being killed then the officer's judgement has to be respected and accepted.

It would be a terrible day if someone from Islamic State were able to kill many people with a device, and a police officer who had the opportunity to kill the terrorist before the event hesitated over doing so because they thought "what if?".

 

[transmanche]

If a small proportion of the incidents where shots have to be fired (which is so small in the grand scheme of things itself it is barely quantifiable) result in a person who was not a threat being killed then the officer's judgement has to be respected and accepted.

It would be a terrible day if someone from Islamic State were able to kill many people with a device, and a police officer who had the opportunity to kill the terrorist before the event hesitated over doing so because they thought "what if?".

So a certain amount of 'collateral damage' is acceptable? Would you feel the same if it were a member of your family who was killed by an armed police officer?

 

[Johnuk123]

So a certain amount of 'collateral damage' is acceptable? Would you feel the same if it were a member of your family who was killed by an armed police officer?

If a policeman with all his training was sure he was doing the right thing but made a genuine error I would have no problem at all whoever was killed.

 

[GB]

So a certain amount of 'collateral damage' is acceptable? Would you feel the same if it were a member of your family who was killed by an armed police officer?

The same question can be asked on the other side of the coin. Would you feel the same if a member of your family were killed through the indecisiveness of the Police?

 

[Jonfun]

So a certain amount of 'collateral damage' is acceptable? Would you feel the same if it were a member of your family who was killed by an armed police officer?

Yes. We're living in a world where there are some people out there who will think nothing of walking onto a beach or onto a train and killing innocent families.

No matter how I would or wouldn't feel in those circumstances doesn't change the fact that the officer would have made a judgement call and felt it was necessary. It wouldn't be mine or anyone else's job to question that decision which will have been made having seen the bigger picture.

 

[the sniper]

Police officers and Armed forces personnel who are authorised to carry weapons as part of their duties are explicitly told you should only fire if the is an imminent threat to life. Not that you believe that someone might be armed so shoot them just in case. I had weapons training in a previous career in the RAF. We were told we would been held accountable in a court of law for every shot we fired. This certainly does not seem to be the case for armed police officers.

Or for the armed forces, which you seem to ignore. Do you also not trust the entire British Army?

 

[Smudger105e]

I have looked at the facts available and I have to agree with Dave1987, it seems that this officer over reacted and shot a suspect who was not posing a direct threat to anyone.

However he has been exonerated by a majority decision by a Jury.

 

[Johnuk123]

I have looked at the facts available and I have to agree with Dave1987, it seems that this officer over reacted and shot a suspect who was not posing a direct threat to anyone.

However he has been exonerated by a majority decision by a Jury.

You might have looked at the facts but if you weren't there and were never put in a position of having to decide in a split second whether to give a known criminal the benefit of the doubt you can't say he overreacted.

 

[DarloRich]

Surely having been through the court system and trial by jury is evidence enough that the police ARE accountable!

 

[Smudger105e]

You might have looked at the facts but if you weren't there and were never put in a position of having to decide in a split second whether to give a known criminal the benefit of the doubt you can't say he overreacted.

I disagree. The officer shot at a suspect 8 times within 2 seconds, hitting him 6 times. The suspect was not carrying a weapon or anything that resembled a weapon. Intelligence suspected that there were weapons in the car.

From the details released, and I know we may not know the full details, the suspect was not being aggressive or non compliant.

But in saying that, that does not mean that I tar all Police with the same brush. There are bad apples in every barrel.

 

[Johnuk123]

I disagree. The officer shot at a suspect 8 times within 2 seconds, hitting him 6 times. The suspect was not carrying a weapon or anything that resembled a weapon. Intelligence suspected that there were weapons in the car.

From the details released, and I know we may not know the full details, the suspect was not being aggressive or non compliant.

But in saying that, that does not mean that I tar all Police with the same brush. There are bad apples in every barrel.

Being wise after the event is unfortunately irrelevant.

 

[Smudger105e]

Being wise after the event is unfortunately irrelevant.

Indeed.

 

[meridian2]

Surely having been through the court system and trial by jury is evidence enough that the police ARE accountable!

Clearly not, since they have failed the 'trial by armchair expert'.

 

[TheNewNo2]

I hold to the belief that it's better for a guilty person to go free than an innocent person be imprisoned (or worse). I don't know the facts of this case, but it seems that if a jury was not convinced of their guilt, it is better for them to go free. That of course does not mean they should necessarily be put back onto the firearms squad.

In regards to an earlier question, do I trust the police? The Met, **** no, not after the tuition fees protests. Other police forces I'd trust more, and generally I would trust an individual policeperson, just not necessarily on an institutional basis.

Through all this, I think we should be grateful for the country we live in, where by and large neither police nor civilians carry guns (I do wish they'd get rid of the ones at St Pancras). In America the problem is a lot lot worse - every policeperson is armed, and they have to assume that everyone they encounter is armed too. That leads to a lot of innocent people dying, especially if they are black. Our police are not perfect, and the Met are probably the worst in the country, but they're a lot better than you see elsewhere.

 

[Smudger105e]

I hold to the belief that it's better for a guilty person to go free than an innocent person be imprisoned (or worse).

That is a more than valid view, and I am not having a pop, more playing devil's advocate.

Is it better for an innocent person to be shot than to enforce restrictions on the use of firearms by the Police?