Stabbing incident at Manchester Victoria.

[a_c_skinner]

BBC reporting the man is now detained under the Mental Health Act.

 

[Mathew S]

BBC reporting the man is now detained under the Mental Health Act.

Indeed. Announced by GMP in the last couple of minutes. It remains an active investigation being led by the CTU and the laws about what can/can't be published continue to apply

 

[Llanigraham]

“The police” as in the senior management, a lot of rank and file officers feel wholly left out in the cold being tasked to response to jobs single crewed with in a high proportion of cases a ASP and CS spray, most forces will only issue taser to a core off officers it is very much not a general issue piece of PPE.

I suggest you look at the Police Federation's views. They represent the "bobby on the beat".

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I'm no great fan of censorship, but I do wonder if the media should be prohibited from publishing information like that, as it's of no actual use to the public and serves only to further the aims of terrorism by making people, er, terrified.

Do they still have the "D Notice" system in place for this sort of purpose?

 

[Mathew S]

Do they still have the "D Notice" system in place for this sort of purpose?

In a word, no. There is a modern system of DSMA Notices (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notices) which is operated by the Ministry of Defence. However, it does not concern itself with specific incidents or situations such as this one. If you are interested in this you may like to look at the website http://dsma.uk which contains information and the five "standing" DSMA Notices.

Interested members can read some of the BBC guidance on reporting terrorism here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidance/terrorism-language/guidance-full. In respect of specific incidents, though, we are guided by information and briefings from the agencies involved.

 

[Meerkat]

Personally I like having guns on only the highest trained and well selected policemen.
Do you really want every policeman having a gun, even the ones who are confrontational at the best of times? You will get undertrained coppers who can’t hit a barn door under pressure, and innocent people getting shot.

 

[Tom Quinne]

Again more nonsense.

I have done armed policing. In the crowded scenario you explain I would proceed forward, and disable the subject at close range, in plain language by using a sidearm at arms distance.

You have no idea what you are on about. The armed policing in this country is one of the best, well drilled and legally sound in the world.

Whilst it's all easy and black and white over your water cooler - stuff like this happens daily and armed officers are not known for spraying crowds wildly like you are suggesting.

Thank you Sir, someone who knows what they are on about.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have done armed policing. In the crowded scenario you explain I would proceed forward, and disable the subject at close range, in plain language by using a sidearm at arms distance

By which time the unarmed security guards who disabled him would have already done so! If he only got 3 people, he can't have been at large for more than a couple of seconds. So you would only have been of benefit in this case if you had been standing directly next to him.

That is my point (other than a bit of a dig at the US's rather poorer record of quality of armed policing, something I definitely would not want here).

Whilst it's all easy and black and white over your water cooler - stuff like this happens daily and armed officers are not known for spraying crowds wildly like you are suggesting.

You clearly didn't read my posting properly, then, and prefer the outrage bus. What I was saying was that they would not randomly spray bullets, hence, unless they got there first (which in this case they didn't, not even nearly, simply because of the fact that they can't be everywhere) they would have made no difference to this specific incident at all, because the only kind of use of weapons which would serve any purpose in this case would be point-blank range (to avoid the crowd), and the officers were not positioned for that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In a word, no. There is a modern system of DSMA Notices (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notices) which is operated by the Ministry of Defence. However, it does not concern itself with specific incidents or situations such as this one. If you are interested in this you may like to look at the website http://dsma.uk which contains information and the five "standing" DSMA Notices.

Interested members can read some of the BBC guidance on reporting terrorism here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidance/terrorism-language/guidance-full. In respect of specific incidents, though, we are guided by information and briefings from the agencies involved.

Interesting reading, thanks, though that website is incredibly amateurish, which might limit the credence people give it. You'd think it could be put into the standard gov.uk format for credibility.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Personally I like having guns on only the highest trained and well selected policemen.
Do you really want every policeman having a gun, even the ones who are confrontational at the best of times? You will get undertrained coppers who can’t hit a barn door under pressure, and innocent people getting shot.

Which is exactly what does happen in the US.

Yes, I prefer our system as it is, and as I said there is only near enough every other country in the world to choose from should anyone wish to live in a country with every officer armed (and therefore more criminals armed).

 

[Eccles1983]

By which time the unarmed security guards who disabled him would have already done so! If he only got 3 people, he can't have been at large for more than a couple of seconds. So you would only have been of benefit in this case if you had been standing directly next to him.

That is my point (other than a bit of a dig at the US's rather poorer record of quality of armed policing, something I definitely would not want here).



You clearly didn't read my posting properly, then, and prefer the outrage bus. What I was saying was that they would not randomly spray bullets, hence, unless they got there first (which in this case they didn't, not even nearly, simply because of the fact that they can't be everywhere) they would have made no difference to this specific incident at all, because the only kind of use of weapons which would serve any purpose in this case would be point-blank range (to avoid the crowd), and the officers were not positioned for that.

You are clearly missing the stabbed police officer.

Who if armed could of contained the subject rather quicker than the people who eventually did at great risk to themselves. He was close enough by the virtue of being stabbed close enough to discharge a weapon.

That's where your story falls flat. An officer was directly close enough to be stabbed and was so. Fortunately it was contained. But as has been seen in other areas it can be a couple of minutes before armed officers arrive - this can lead to a mass trauma incident.

Now we can do this all day, but having trained for it for a number of years in Airports, shopping centres and transit hubs I doubt you can equate your theory into my actual experience.

 

[furnessvale]

It would strike me that the issue there is fairly obvious, namely that you need to dispatch the right officers to the right incidents and give them information about what they're going to.

That doesn't happen. The NEAREST officer(s) are sent to "contain the situation". The "right" officers may be 20 minutes away.

I have posted before but it bears repeating. In my first 12 months as a PC I was sent on THREE occasions to "contain" an armed situation and in doing so I was passing officers going the other way to collect firearms from the office. I would have much rather have been going the other way so I applied for firearms. Sadly my eyesight wasn't up to it, so I continued containing situations with my trusty bit of wood.

 

[Bletchleyite]

in doing so I was passing officers going the other way to collect firearms from the office

Do firearms officers not carry them as a matter of course? They certainly seem to around here, I've seen them going into Starbucks for a coffee with pistols.

 

[furnessvale]

Do firearms officers not carry them as a matter of course? They certainly seem to around here, I've seen them going into Starbucks for a coffee with pistols.

There are permanently armed officers these days. My first 12 months in the force were in 1977. In those days all firearms trained officers had to be recalled to collect weapons.

Even so, today there may be 2 or 3 armed patrols in a county. The nearest can often be 20 minutes away.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You are clearly missing the stabbed police officer.

Yes, I did miss that part of the story. Sorry.

However, I'd maintain that if every Police Officer was armed, there would be more facility for criminals to have guns in the UK via a larger black market and as such more likely that the perpetrator might have been spraying bullets around as per a number of these incidents that have occurred in other countries rather than a kitchen knife which, while bad, isn't anywhere near as bad as a gun which could have seen him killing hundreds before anyone was able to stop him.

 

[Eccles1983]

So baddies could get more guns because the police had them?

I fail to see how that equates, unless you suspect that police weapons are now being used by criminals through a shady backchannel. I don't buy into the theory that criminals will up arm - it hasn't happened so far due to very strict control laws and a diminishing pool of criminal firearms.

Having been to shootings where criminal weapons have been used and spoken to shooters the last thing they want is someone trained to come up against them. They would lose, and lose badly - it's not like the movies - spraying a machine gun into a area is largely a waste of ammunition. I'd fancy my chances at 25m against an untrained shooter with a pistol.

Armed officers are permanently carrying weapons. However they can be the other side of town when the call comes in. Even with a powerful motor and advanced driving skills it can take over 10mins to get anywhere in the middle of Manchester/liverpool/Leeds.

 

[furnessvale]

Yes, I did miss that part of the story. Sorry.

However, I'd maintain that if every Police Officer was armed, there would be more facility for criminals to have guns in the UK via a larger black market and as such more likely that the perpetrator might have been spraying bullets around as per a number of these incidents that have occurred in other countries rather than a kitchen knife which, while bad, isn't anywhere near as bad as a gun which could have seen him killing hundreds before anyone was able to stop him.

Methinks a little bit of hyperbole creeping in?

Even a dedicated killer set up in a hotel with machine guns in Las Vegas didn't manage that!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Methinks a little bit of hyperbole creeping in?

Even a dedicated killer set up in a hotel with machine guns in Las Vegas didn't manage that!

OK, fair point, maybe not hundreds - but certainly many more than with a kitchen knife. You can only kill someone with a knife if they are within arm's reach of you. With a gun that isn't the case.

 

[RSA BOB]

OK, fair point, maybe not hundreds - but certainly many more than with a kitchen knife. You can only kill someone with a knife if they are within arm's reach of you. With a gun that isn't the case.

I live in South Africa and all policemen & women are armed so guess what the gangs do they get hold of some guns and them go and rob the police stations of all the rest of the their guns. It has happen a lot of times est 100 to 200 GUNS STOLEN.