British Policing (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

Chris Hobbs is a retired London police officer who has an irregular column on policing and other law enforcement issues. His latest column is entitled 'Dallas, Nice, Baton Rouge, Munich: The UK’s Emaciated Blue Line Braces'.

A "taster":

Make no mistake, every single officer in this country, most of whom perform duties unarmed, would be mentally rehearsing their actions if and indeed when, they are confronted with similar scenarios in our cities, towns and resorts. Their collective view is perhaps summed by the legendary serving police blogger ‘Inspector Gadget’ who tweeted; “UK cops watching armed police on Sky News rushing to contain the Munich scene thinking what in God’s name would we do here.“

See:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/chri..._11207372.html

[davidbfpo]

Policing in London is quite different to the rest of the UK, including other big cities and with so many armed incidents, plus the threat of attack, Metropolitan Police officers have long argued - without success - that they should all be armed.

Now their professional body, not a trade union, is holding a ballot:

Questions being put to officers in the survey include:

• Whether they would want to carry a Taser or firearm at all times while on duty
• If they think there should be more firearms officers in London
• If the thought of carrying a gun would make them leave the job

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38547203

Within is this, which I'd not spotted before:

But a recent poll in the wake of the Berlin Christmas market attacks found 58% of the public believed officer should carry guns.

Actually the cited polling was after the Paris 2015 attacks!

[davidbfpo]

The UK has millions of private and public CCTV cameras, covering public and private spaces. Policing has for at least fifteen years placed incredible reliance on obtaining usable footage to investigate crimes, now a formet Met officer has "blown the whistle":

Thousands of crimes in London are going unsolved because police are failing to fully investigate CCTV footage, a former senior Met detective claimed today. Mick Neville, a former detective chief inspector, said that despite billions of pounds being spent on CCTV cameras by companies and individuals, images were not routinely collected by police.

Both links are the same. The original newspaper report:http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime...-a3442416.html


From an advocacy group:https://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/m...-cctv-footage/

[davidbfpo]

A reply to Simon Chesterman's article (Post ) by Professor Punch on 'Policing Insight' website, alas you need to register to view. He raises a host of issues.
Link:https://policinginsight.com/opinion/...n/#comment-557

As we are learning from a public inquiry in Liverpool, led by Judge Teague, into a fatal shooting by officers from Greater Manchester Police (aka GMP and England's 2nd largest force) in March 2012, in Cheshire a “coach & horses” are being driven through what senior police officers have been saying.
Why? Here is the inquiry counsel:

The position is that of the five officers in a command role on the 3rd of March 2012 there are problems with the operation and occupational competency of four of them’ and the paper refers to ‘four of the five senior officers in charge of the operation did not have the correct training, and one had failed a firearms course.

Then and probably citing an IPCC report:

That intelligence “did not support a reasonable view” that Grainger was violent, possessed firearms or was involved in armed robberies, the IPCC found in 2013, and it questioned whether the tactics used were “necessary or proportionate to the risk in this situation”

From: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...e-intelligence
If a large metropolitan police service, like GMP, did this can the public trust reassurances from other, mainly smaller forces? GMP is known to have had serious problems with armed criminality, including the murder of two police constables.

[davidbfpo]

An academic article that argues firearms wold be a "step too far" and even a greater issue of Taser has problems. It ends with:

When it comes to police weaponisation, international research offers clear guidance. Although many police officers feel they may be safer if they are permitted to carry weapons, in reality they might not be.

Link:https://theconversation.com/police-prefer-to-carry-tasers-but-would-that-make-anyone-safer-71646?

[davidbfpo]

A short report by a BBC reporter who embedded with the police in Manchester for three months, but didn't do the paperwork. Here are two sentences:

Over these months, I've seen police officers working under immense pressure with no margin for error, in situations that most of us will never be exposed to. Those officers who do this are not normal. They are brave and sometimes they're heroic.

Link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...ester-47979314

[davidbfpo]

A public comment by my local Chief Constable which reinforces my view that policing here is broken. So what did he say?

We are not always able to take the fight to the criminals in the way we would want – in some routine cases, the delays and stretch are resulting in charges not being brought as they would have years ago.
The public know that serious organised crime and counter-terrorism are important. What is cheesing off the public is the routine stuff. That’s the stuff for the vast majority that affects legitimacy and confidence. It’s the phone not getting answered, and not turning up for some jobs people expect us to do. That is damaging confidence and legitimacy.

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-police-chief?

Part of the problem, money aside, is the police's reluctance, if not refusal, to publicly say "We do not do that now". Then they say "x" is a priority or we have officers patrolling your area - when in reality there are none.

Here is a Met (London) constable's anonymous commentary:https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...fe-crime-cuts?