I'm no expert, but I feel like there should be some recognition for the lady who tases him second - walking with apparently zero hesitation straight towards a bloke with a sword who has just murdered someone, who you've just seen been tased once without any apparent effect.
And then the guy who comes in taking control but pushes his mate forward to cuff him. I know there may be a process we don’t know about here but it did make me laugh.
I think it’s to pull him back, he’s kind of the attack and defence, while the gent in front is the hand cuff guy. If the guy on the ground goes for another attack, the second officer can pull the first by his vest while giving him the sad end of the truncheon
I reckon he's higher rank and that's an underling he pushes forward to cuff him. He'll write it up to his bosses as 'leveraging team success' but I'm pretty sure he just didn't fancy it.
22 minutes until armed police just arrived he’s lucky the 3rd taser worked cause he was seconds away from being shot…
This clip highlights the flaws in taser and only having a few armed cars to police massive areas. At least this was the Met imagine if this was a village in the sticks then tough luck.
You'd be surprised. I grew up in a village in the sticks - there was an incident at my school (a false alarm) and the armed police were there in 7 minutes. Often urban streets/traffic/pedestrians take a lot longer to navigate.
That is brilliant response but probably was a magical fluke.. there are massive areas policed by two cars unarmed just have a look at staffing levels and stuff in rural forces
Also with your example, that unit is tied up then if something comes in then it’s proper shit. Just think about how that can manipulated best to not say more.
Correct, but to u/Mat74UK original point, the vast majority of those are owned in non-urban areas (not Towns or Cities)
According to the latest census approx. 83% of the population of England & Wales live in Towns/Cities. (83% of 60.2 million = 50 million)
So if 17% reside in non-urban environments (10.2m people) and c.90% of the firearms are owned by that cohort, you're looking at 583,000 firearms. Or 1 gun for every 5.7 people.
Quite a few! If ever I'm at the local range there's a constant flow of shotgun and fac rifle users there, seems like a popular hobby.
Just because you never see guns out and about like in America doesn't mean they don't exist.
I think it's pretty testament to the fact our gun controls work.
I know a guy who was ex armed police and I'm pretty sure he had some pistols locked in a safe in his house too.
Mate …
Pick any rural county and put 5 random dots on the map and that’s your amount of armed response cars, in pretty much every scenario they’re going to be a lot longer than 7 minutes away
In which case you got extraordinarily lucky, almost unfathomably so. The response time to the London Bridge terror attacks was longer... 14 minutes at the Rigby terror attacks, too, for example. And this is inner city stuff in a force renowned for it's numbers of firearms officers.
In most bits of the country, forget it. A few years back it came out that two forces were seeing armed response times of 40 minutes to an hour.
Apologies, the article I happened to read said 8 minutes but that was from the start (before the 999 call) so it was 5 in reality. Though the Lee Rigby attacks was 14, from the emergency call, for context.
This article says it was 8 minutes to all the attackers being killed though, not to the police arriving.
[https://theconversation.com/eight-minutes-on-london-bridge-years-of-training-led-to-lightning-police-response-78815](https://theconversation.com/eight-minutes-on-london-bridge-years-of-training-led-to-lightning-police-response-78815)
Aye, that's why I acknowledged I was wrong - but as I say, it took 14 minutes to get to the Lee Rigby incident. Your 7 minutes rural response is staggering, and an absolute fluke
And it took them that long because there were people in the way. The police station was 300 metres away!
As I said "Often urban streets/traffic/pedestrians take a lot longer to navigate."
To be fair if I remember rightly I think the attackers were all dead about 3 seconds after armed response arrived. One of the officers didn't even stop to apply the hand brake.
Yeh but can't routinely arm the police in the UK because
"We don't want to become like the US"
Whilst simultaneously ignoring N.I and nearly all of Europe.
Increased firearms officers isn't going to happen as they'd just need to take it from the already thin shift.
It interests me that when the question of routine arming comes up in the UK police sub, a lot of the responses from GB police include some variation of "I wouldn't trust my colleagues with a firearm".
I personally don't know that it would be as bad as that, firearms safety is easy for most reasonable people and without the threat of literal children having concealed firearms when you try to arrest them, there's no reason why routine carry would have to imply routine use in the UK. But then again, if they genuinely have good reason to fear, it implies a whole other problem with the selection and training processes...
I would say there a couple who say the don’t trust crap… but not a lot the majority in my eyes are confident it would work and are open to it.
And like it is pointed out if they are that untrustworthy then they should be dealing with that problem.
They are already trusted to drive at speed, use other equipment and to use force on people.. it isn’t like officers do not have a lot of responsibility and trust already, a gun isn’t going to send the station into the Wild West like some would imagine.
IIRC the firearms training adds another two weeks or so to the Constable training in the PSNI, compared to GB forces: from the perspective of the Army Reserve, I would argue that you actually only need about two training weekends, equivalent to about 5 days, of training to make a reasonable person competent in firearms safety and handling (more to make them actually good at shooting, of course), so I personally think 2 weeks is a perfectly fine amount of time to spend to bring people up to competence.
Of course, even with generally higher standards for entry in the PSNI, NDs are inevitable and do very occasionally happen, which I think is something you can't avoid. But given that you don't hear about it very often at all, I feel confident in saying that if the concerns about competency are genuine, then all other forces would need to do is more closely match up their training and entry standards to the PSNI's (which aren't even *that* much different really. Certainly close enough that there's an argument for doing so anyway even without firearms).
Not just that but “ do you make the right call” comes to mind when you take the shot. It’s so easy to loose your job over it that it’s not worth it. If I recal loads walked out during the chris kaba case. And they was already low on firearms officers as it stands, you can take the shot then BLM can rock up protesting and you lose your job. Or some other group moaning. Or family suing you or whatever. As if policing isn’t bad enough. And you don’t get paid to carry a weapon, it’s voluntary also so you basically are putting your life on the line, and your job because you can be sacked just like that, over not getting paid that extra moneys. It’s voluntary
The simple answer to that is: we don't, we really really don't, want to become like the USA.
Their level of violent crime is much higher than the UK. Incidences like this are daily occurrences in the USA, in fact they happen multiple times every day. They don't make the news because they are too common.
53 people shot dead in America EVERY DAY.
They have improved a bit, it used to be one shot and then a fiddly reload. Now you have two with a quicker reload. some have more but think they are unreliable.
But there is not much innovation you can do to guarantee that the barbs pierce clothing and then also have the correct spread to cause the person to lose muscle control. Tasers are amazing but can also be a yellow nerf gun.
I don't understand why they're not more than "barbs".
Why not use something a bit more substantial.
Taser is used to bridge the gap between truncheons and an actual rifle. You'd think they could use something closer to a dart to get a better result while remaining none lethal?
Well they tried a shotgun one but I think the force of being fired was too much for the electronics.
A taser isn’t to bridge any gap it should be used with lethal cover because it has a high failure rate but here the government think that is enough to deal with a knife.
A taser isn’t non lethal btw it less lethal. And you have to think about the size of it needs to be small to be carried. Also you don’t want a long dart because first how you going to have it hook into someone it will do massive injuries.
The way a taser is designed and used everywhere else is, you first have lethal cover so if you are alone you don’t use a taser vs a weapon. Once you have lethal cover then you attempt to use a taser being mindful that it will not work and being prepared for that. Look on YouTube many Us police body cams of this tactic being used the taser being ineffective and the person being shot.
This is correct. There isn't really much to choose from in the less-than-lethal realm of weapons unfortunately. Tazers are about as good as they get.
There's beanbags and peppershot but those are more dangerous and can kill, yet also don't work very reliably.
Was a video a saw last week where a man died from being hit with a beanbag round it pierced his chest I think it was.
Edit link: https://youtu.be/OW1E04LD7yU?si=RVPjzcC3TNx5-8Jh
I don't see why they can't have both as options? Taser (which not all officer have anyway) and beanbag shotgun in the boot of the squad car. (Only to be used in instances where there's an immediate threat to life).
Def. The mere mention of guns in the U.K. and most people shit their pants.
This stuff is pretty rare, so while it's awful when it does happen, it probably doesn't justify the expense or added risk of arming everyday officers with semi-lethal options.
It's the best design they've tried/engineered so far. There's a vast amount of surfaces it needs to hit, and barbs are good at a good mix of them. There's a reason why nature evolved them in hundreds of separate cases over millions of years.
There's also the point that "less than lethal" measures can still be lethal, this is the amount of voltage they believe is acceptable to put through a suspect.
To summarise an answer your original question:
> Why can’t they make tasers better?
They are, constantly. But stuff like this is a continuous process that's only funded as far as the available buyers (i.e. police) are bothered in improving it. When it becomes "good enough" there's little impetus for the supplier to improve significantly.
If there was a sudden need to improve them over a few years, yeah we'd see massive improvement. But currently (and for the foreseeable future) it's a niche requirement propelled only by getting a new stingy police contract.
UK police use what is now quite an old taser (X2) - the newest ones (T10) are much better and overcome a lot of the challenges of the old ones (range, getting a good spread of probes; as you can target them individually versus both firing at a fixed distance) - they're not yet authorised for use in the UK as they use gunpowder as propellant instead of compressed air. Not perfect, but a considerably step forward - thick clothing does remain a challenge though..
Years ago i remember reading that the armed response time along the coasts of wales is 2 hours. Cant imagine how long it is now.
22 minutes in the middle of london isnt good enough. This government has put this country on its knee’s. We are so open to a full blown terror attack. Its terrifying to imagine if this guy had a gun.
How anyone can sit by government or politician and sit by saying “this is fine” is beyond me, a 22 minute response time, its shocking.
Well ye, its not central london, but its still inside the m25 lol.
Im pretty sure central london also has a different police force to that of the surrounding area?
There's ALOT of unmarked police cars around. Being out in the sticks would be better as more direct, uncontested routes than London where your average speed equates to slow as fuck lol
So from a Police perspective I really do wonder when we’re going to follow the rest of the world - Aside I think 3 countries - that routinely arm their Officers.
Everyone always makes the American example for not arming whilst forgetting that 200 something other countries manage it just fine.
There was nothing safe about that video, if he had ran at the female officer there she would have been cut. Generally the 21ft rule applies, that’s the time it takes you to draw and respond to a threat running at you, you can cover 21ft in just over a second. She was no more than 6-10 feet away from him, if that final taser shot failed she was then essentially unarmed if he ran at her. She would not have had time to draw and rack her baton.
Whilst it’s correct that we praise the massive set of nuts they all have charging him down we shouldn’t look past the massive danger they’ve all been needlessly put in because we as a society can’t stop thinking this is America.
Police Officers aren’t invincible, we should stop acting like we are, we also have families to go home to.
Yhep, no offence to any serving officer in this thread (and there seems to be many) but arming police routinely would seem to me to be a wholly disproportionate response to what are largely, quite rare incidents. We have enough questionable shootings as is from firearms officers, firearms should be kept to specialised highly trained units as it currently stands.
>Yhep, no offence to any serving officer in this thread (and there seems to be many) but arming police routinely would seem to me to be a wholly disproportionate response to what are largely, quite rare incidents.
Quite rarely **reported** incidents. The reality is that calls to people openly using weapons occur certainly hundreds of times a day. You just don't see them on the front pages, and therefore for mostt people, they obviously don't exist.
Not about more/less, it's about injuries sustained by innocent members of the public/police officers, it could result in a higher level of armed confrontation, it could also be a good deescalator, with taser it's about 40-50% effective, if I go to someone with a knife and point a gun at him, the likelihood of them complying for any sensible human being would increase. I'd also reccomend officers having access to baton guns but that's another debate. By having armed personal protection weapons, it means you have better capabilities to stop threats faster and reduce the harm to yourself, the public and other officers, for example London Borough Market attack, first cops on scene were armed with batons/CS, they got stabbed and hurt. Now if they'd had a firearm, that attack could have been stopped earlier and less people would have come to harm.
Look at recently with Australia, the armed inspector attended, stopped the threat as she was closest and didn't come to harm herself.
As always, this country seems to prefer the idea of a police officer getting stabbed than being given the kit to defend ourselves. You say no offence, but it is offensive, you are essentially saying, go protect me, but not with a gun because I'd rather to take a greater risk that actually have protection. Christ knows how the PSNI or pretty much any country other than America manage it. What questionable shootings are you thinking of? I can think of one that's shall we say popular with the news at the moment, and I won't comment further as it's for the courts. I can't think of any others that have resulted in a charge/been deemed unlawful actions by the officers.
IMO looking at the kaba case answers this - we’re never going to do it (well, at least not in the forseeable future) due to perceived racial issues.
I would be curious to hear your take on it though as somebody more in the know than me! It just doesn’t seem with the risk to volunteer for a firearms role
Kaba was a firearms job completely different scenarios. What he’s saying is routine arming for a personal defence weapon. Only to be used to protect life basically, not for planned operations like Kaba that would still be the remit of the specialised armed police we already have.
Also hopefully the government gives good changes to use of force and investigations in relation to police shootings because of Kaba.
And also a lot of Police officers would rather the risk of being investigated and called a racist and what not.. than dead.
Honestly as someone on the beat I'd still rather take my chances being an ARV that might need to fire than be one of the two PCs sent to hospital from the same guy who killed a young boy with a samurai sword
Aye totally fair! Didn’t mean to imply otherwise - just with the stories of officers handing in their firearms, I honestly didn’t know which way the wind was blowing.
Thanks!
You're right as well in fairness mate I can tell you first hand many are scared to cuff people nevermind shoot people these days you can get sacked over basically anything now while on the other end of the stick officers are dealing with the above using a dice throw
It’s one import from America I cannot stand, this racial issue which simply doesn’t exist. The Police recruit from the general public, as such you will always get a certain representative and proportionate percentage of Racists. The same as you’ll get some racist doctors, plumbers, bankers etc.. There is no cure for being a cunt.
That does mean that you will find examples of racists doing racist things but that is the same for the world over. You don’t think there are racist Police officers in France, Hungary or the Netherlands? - That isn’t a barrier to officers having the tools to safely defend themselves and the public in any other country.
We are one of 3 countries on the planet who do not arm their Police alongside Iceland and Botswana. Every other country makes this work, I don’t believe that the argument that everyone should be less safe because the Police aren’t given the tools to do the job on the off chance that a racist will shoot someone.
By racial I meant more the reaction to the shooting rather than the shooting itself. I don’t think he waa shot because he was black, but rather because he threatened the life of an officer using a deadly weapon. I was more referring to the aftermath of the shooting with officers re-evaluating the risk/reward for their service. Sorry if that came off poorly.
Thanks for the answer though , appreciate it!
Nah all good, it would pose a dilemma and it’s a societal issue that would have to be addressed.
Ultimately it requires the senior Leadership teams in the Police to have a backbone and stop pandering to everyone. I do feel that an awful lot of those issues stem from a lack of information put out to set the narrative, in the absence of an official statement people start making wild assumptions.
I’ve seen a few of those videos online which the American Forces put out in the response to Shooting Incidents. Usually within a few hours they have someone in front of a camera with a map showing the routes taken, some body camera footage and background information Along with justifications etc..
Personally I think that would stop a lot of the issues if the public were given the information in a timely and concise manner. For example let’s use the Kaba incident, if someone from SLT stood there, showed the route his vehicle took, the footage from the cars showing what he’s done and the body camera footage from the officers showing what’s lead to their decision making along with some background information about the incident it would have negated the questions and uproar if it was clearly shown to be justified.
The only issue is prejudicing the court process.
There have been studies done on police "locker room" culture. It's not an American import it's shits being shits and protecting eachother on an institutional level. All of the controversy surrounding the Met is just the tip of the iceburg.
NZ have all cars equipped with a gun safe with a side arm and a rifle so officers can be armed when required. Whilst they don’t carry on their person at all times all officers have the ability to be armed if required.
I actually wouldn’t mind a similar model.
>So from a Police perspective I really do wonder when we’re going to follow the rest of the world - Aside I think 3 countries - that routinely arm their Officers.
No thanks.
I doubt we could ever be as bad as America, where their police officers literally get away with executing citizens who are on their knees with their hands up begging and crying (Daniel Shaver) or choking citizens to death whilst laughing at the noises they make as they slowly die (Tony Timpa) or beating a mentally ill man to death for 5 minutes solid as he cries and begs for his father (Kelly Thomas) and so forth.
But the de Menezes incident shows that our armed police absolutely would get away with shooting innocent/unarmed people and lying about what happened to justify it. They shot him, then lied about him jumping a turnstile to make it seem more justified, nobody was ever punished for it and the woman in charge of the whole thing ended up promoted to the top police job in the land.
So yeah, generally I'm not a fan of arming the police. It's a job that attracts a lot of psychopaths who want to hurt/bully people with state protection.
Being put in danger isn't going to get guns in the hands of police - if anything the fact that a bunch of unarmed police keep being able to detain armed men just reinforces the policy. Until there is a big uptick in actual police deaths then it's just not happening.
From my experience Brits on Reddit tend to compare themselves with the US as if it's the golden standard, forgetting that there's a whole another landmass just across the channel. This comparison includes healthcare and civilian access to firearms, which are both notoriously bad in the states.
Do you trust every doctor to make medical decisions which could affect your life? - Harold Shipman killed an estimated 250 people, I don’t hear the protests arguing that Doctors shouldn’t perform procedures incase they’re all secretly killers.
Arguing a negative is pointless. All I would say is that every other country on the planet aside 3 trust their officers, you aren’t seriously going to tell me we’re any different to France, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany etc. who all seem to manage this concept without issue.
Those armed police were ready to drop that guy. He should count himself very lucky they didn’t respond to the scene first. (Even in hindsight they should have)
He's lucky he wasn't shot dead. I know wishing death on someone is against the rules here so I'll not say anything more other than to see...rip the victims....sadly we'll be paying to keep this cunt in jail for life.
Some people will watch this and think it’s a good thing we have don’t have routine arming because tasers worked in the end
But look at the two failed tasers attempts and ask yourself if this was anywhere but a large city and you’ve likely only got one or two officers there at the same time and it puts them in easily avoidable danger if they had access to a firearm
Armed response times are usually very, very good for the majority of London and major cities outside of it. I think it should be considered how that can be scaled up and the whole of Greater London (and other suburbs of major cities) benefit from better armed response times - that will mean more armed police officers would be needed and more patrols, but I’d imagine that’s much more cost effective than every officer having a gun.
And every officer wouldn’t be trained to the standard as our current armed police - I’d rather not see us import the USA’s terrible policing efforts.
We literally - literally - have a force in the UK that routinely arm and they're not out shooting at everything that moves. If that's not enough, probably about half of the mainland European police forces routinely arm. Australia, NZ, many many more - i note the response to that shopping mall attack in Australia recently where one officer with a firearm dropped the guy didn't attract any comments about American style policing.
We did also have a cop here in Australia who very recently used his service weapon to murder two people and there have been a bunch of non lethal ncidents of inappropriate firearm use here so not a completely rosy relationship with firearms in the Australian police. There have been some good examples of appropriate use - the sydney knife guy and the bourke st stab guy a couple of years ago, but violent crime has been decreasing and armed uk police would not have materially changed the outcome of this incident.
Police here wouldn’t take their weapons home anyways. And I think that man you mentioned would have killed them with other means he was an Ex and it was domestic abuse.
And this situation would have definitely had a different outcome. You wouldn’t have two officers being severely injured. That boy would have not had to wait them extra 10 plus minutes to receive crucial first aid. And also it’s pure luck he didn’t kill anyone else whilst he was climbing over fences being chased by unarmed cops.
Actually NZ is similar to the UK, NZ police officers aren't armed with guns, when they come across an armed offender they have to call for backup (armed offenders squad). Australia is where all police have a pistol.
Wrong, NZ patrol cars have firearms in a safe in the vehicle. In the UK, only specialist officers (ARV/AFO is the acronym you might see) have any access to them.
Oh so you say failed tasers but never talk about failed pistol shots that end up killing other people? Or failed guns that get on the hand of the suspects which are then use to shoot the police back?
I’ve said one thing mate
Playing devil advocate doesn’t absolve the fact we are asking police to deal with knives routinely and they don’t have the proper equipment to do so, and in any other area of work this would breach health and safety legislation
It failed several times before it worked, and because so few police have them, 2 officers are disabled for life and 3 other members of the public are seriously injured and a child is dead.
No, I am assuming you are not a plod. Topics such as this do seem to draw them 'out of the woodwork', though, to consistently argue for greater police privileges.
I think a better case exists for, in view of the history of policing in the past century and a half, the rescinding of a great many police privileges (a privilege is not a privilege if generally enjoyed).
You're right, I think we should just give police handcuffs and trust them to talk their way out of situations, if they get murdered well they signed up for the job so it's their own fault after all.
Here's a reminder for people to stop hating on police due to a few bad apples. They get paid peanuts to run into things the majority of us would run away from.
Unfortunately this was at a dreadful time for armed response, these guys likely would’ve been very near to the end of shift or just started they likely wouldn’t have been prepared.
Something to think about.
As for regular arming, it’s iffy. I mean, PSNI manages just fine but the general British public may react very differently, look how the Scots reacted to regular armed patrols.
Plus there’s quite a lack of training already, most of the time is spent learning the law and the odd few days to practical stuff, the training would need to be revamped.
I’d say most police officers are too afraid to lose their job and face prison plus public naming over use of firearm, I know I wouldn’t want one
To be competent with a sidearm isn’t some training mountain.. you can train them to use a taser easily enough, and pistol is obviously harder more emphasis and back drop and cross fire and what not but it isn’t that hard like you acknowledge PSNI do it and not like they have some big budget to splash around.
So you’d rather risk being stabbed than have a pistol to save yourself or someone else’s life. If you are a cop then why take your baton out then!
I think the culture is vastly different in mainland UK though.
One of my uni lecturers was a former inspector in the MET and he said there’s cops that he wouldn’t trust with CS let alone a firearm
>he said there’s cops that he wouldn’t trust with CS let alone a firearm
This is something weak officers say for the simple fact that if someone is so dangerous that they can't be trusted with something as non lethal as an incapacitating spray, they should be reported to professional standards.
However, I have not yet met a single officer who, when challenged on this supposed misconduct, is actually so steadfast in their beliefs at that they will report these officers.
Same man tutored a cop who reported that his constable absolutely should not be a police officer and will undoubtedly cause harm to the MPS should he remain, he said a few years down the line he was sacked for GM. Maybe a one off but this man was basically PSD in all but name.
Yeah the culture is you may be followed home and kidnapped or murdered for being a cop.
You in the job? And don’t start this stupid argument of wouldn’t trusted with a pen. If you can’t trust them with any equipment then they shouldn’t be in the job. Without a gun you can still kill or severely injure someone with the other weapons you have and you can still take away someone liberty. That is a none argument and I won’t entertain it.
Yeah you’re not wrong, I don’t disagree. Just saying throwing 32,000 side arms into the mix may not be the solution we think it may be.
Every other country has had time and experience to prepare officers, we haven’t. Arming is something that will need a major look at, in terms of training, vetting etc. Might take years not months
It isn’t such a crazy thing you just train them like you would for firearms, taser, pursuits. Obviously it would take time but that’s just because of the scale of it. The training in PSNI is two weeks so it isn’t substantial.
Also in regards of vetting, you wouldn’t require additional vetting. Because your role wouldn’t require a higher level. An officer wouldn’t need any extra powers if an officer bashed his head in with a baton it would be under the same powers.
But the culture is different in NI. Again, look what happened when police Scotland started regular armed patrols, basically cost Stephen house any further advancement.
I’d disagree with the vetting, it’s honestly all over the place, people being rejected for silly things whilst major things are being missed. I recall a MET officer whose boyfriend was a major drug dealer and she had taken home police equipment including a radio, add in a glock and god knows where that’d have led.
We have very strict firearms rules for a reason, maybe that needs changed, maybe it doesn’t.
Regardless, officers should have better kit, I’m personally in favour of the American beanbag shotgun, the intimidation factor of racking a shotgun is a major compliance factor.
However, and this is purely speculation but it seems this individual in question seemed to want to get shot, his adrenaline was likely souring and he probably didn’t hear that they were shouting “taser” just seen them approaching with what seemed to be firearms.
I think taser at an absolute minimum should be a requirement but be realistic, we’re seeing so much backlog it’s unreal, people are waiting years for bluelight training let alone taser, only the MET have any realistic outlook of doing this atm.
Regular arming? Maybe, I don’t think it should or could be an overnight thing. Unarmed policing is without question a challenge in this day and age but the UK is hardly alone in it, Irish police are unarmed for example.
Definitely need more ARVs in major locations and accessible to all however in the interim
Right the public won’t like it I accept that but they would have to get over it. They don’t like anything the government does anyways.
No one is saying for them to take the guns home tho? You know it’s quite easy for people to get guns especially a major drug dealer he could get one the same day. You know that officer could have applied for a shotgun license there are guns and weapons all over but the majority of police don’t have the tools to tackle these people.
You know a beanbag round is really dangerous especially at the ranges that this guy was confronted from only a few weeks ago someone sided died from being shot with one. https://youtu.be/OW1E04LD7yU?si=6zjyppONB90FO6oe
Also you can’t carry a shotgun on your hip so then you’d need an armoury in the car and how you gonna protect that without a gun? You see these issues are complex.
The is a few countries unarmed and there is a reason why. It is unsafe for the public simple. The Uk police will become a routinely armed it is just a matter of when and a when the politicians and public are sick of marauding attackers killing countless people in shopping centres before they are stopped. We are in a completely different world now to when policing by consent was a thing the risks of terrorism and just simply unchecked mental health issues in modern times is a major factor into this.
It's not 'iffy'. Regular arming of police is unconscionable when there is ongoing seemingly effective agitation to outlaw the purchase of machetes, further restrict access to crossbows, and make illegal knives with a sharp edge on one side, a point in the middle, and a serrated edge on the other.
This guy is extremely fortunate the armed police arrived 30 seconds after the officers with tasers. Still, not a fun experience getting tasered at least twice, but better than being riddled with bullets.
Let's debunk the American problem as we aren't asking for a second amendment over here:
Total gun related deaths in the US last year: in excess of 40,000
https://abcnews.go.com/US/116-people-died-gun-violence-day-us-year/story?id=97382759
I believe it ended up somewhere near 43,000 by the end of December.
Total number of deaths by Police shooting approximately 1200:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/08/2023-us-police-violence-increase-record-deadliest-year-decade
So despite the Guardians take (yes it was higher than the long term average of around 1000) less than 1/40th of the total gun related deaths in the US were caused by the Police.
Whilst I'm not saying arming Police with firearms is the solution, at the very least all Officers should be offered a taser (with the opportunity to opt out) and I do genuinely believe there should be a more widespread use of firearms. If that had happened during the winter or even a month ago & the guy with the sword had a thick coat on I don't fancy the chances of taser there & we'd have probably had more people in hospital and lives lost. Police in this country need way more protection and respect for the job that they do. This also should be being reported as terrorism as well - running around screaming about religion with a sword? Surely that fits an appropriate definition?
Split it down - the US by population is 5 times bigger than the UK and with the frankly insane stat of Gun Ownership over there being at 1.2 firearms per person
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership
I'd say they've done incredibly well considering this is a country that averages 2 mass shootings (e.g. 4+ dead) per day in 2023. Don't get me wrong - yes they could do better but I do feel it's hysterically over played given what a dangerous country America is in the circumstances e.g. some states are literal hell holes of violence e.g. the stats for Mississipi this year are grim.
Now extrapolate that down in the UK where there isn't 390 odd million guns in circulation. The terrorist running about with the sword this morning might have thought twice if he'd known he was going to be on the wrong end of a bullet. Frankly that's what would have probably happened if that Armed Response Unit had turned up sooner, but who knows maybe he drops the sword instead when facing down a firing squad?
> The terrorist running about with the sword this morning might have thought twice if he'd known he was going to be on the wrong end of a bullet
1. The met have said that he wasn't a terrorist.
2. There was already a high likelihood that he was going to be 'on the wrong end of a bullet', he would have known that
3. Get real, this guy clearly didn't care about getting shot, nor do actual terrorists
Re:1) If that's the conclusion they've reached from investigating the gentleman then fine I'll accept it. Re: 2) & 3) yes you are probably right but if it stops or causes only 15 or 20% of them to think twice about it - surely that's a step in the right direction?
In a country of 340 million people and 400 million guns it’s remarkable how low a number it actually is.
65 million police interactions per year or 178,000 a day, every single one of them could be potentially deadly.
It’s 0.0016% of police interactions end up with a shooting.
Here’s how I predict things going:
Suspect charged with murder —> “but muh mental health, I didn’t know what I was doing” —> downgraded to manslaughter —> sentenced to Mickey Mouse version of prison
Same as the Nottingham killer
We need to repeal whatever idiotic law allows someone to not be considered a murderer just because they had a mental health episode at the time
That female officer with the taser is an absolute legend. Funny how 20 other Police come running in to help after he’s lying on the floor soiling himself.
You see this is where he’s been faced with numerous dangerous encounters.. he neutralised all with a simple karate chop.
This included 2 attackers with knives.
An escaped Lion from the zoo as he leaving butchers with a big leg of lamb.
And finally leaving his cave and dealing with grass
That's what they are trained to do, when an STO uses taser they have ultimate authority over the subject and situation. No one approaches a subject until the STO is satisfied that the effect of taser is successful and the subject is under neuromuscular incapacitation (lying on the floor shitting himself as you so put it) a command to secure the subject with cuffs is made and that's when non STO officers go in and secure him. In this clip, the first shot lands one barb, the second shot completes three point contact but is not fully effective (drugs, mental disorder can affect this) the third and final shot clearly has the effect required. both tasers continuing to cycle are probably outputting 100,000volt's
He's going to feel like lava has erupted from his arse
I'm no expert, but I feel like there should be some recognition for the lady who tases him second - walking with apparently zero hesitation straight towards a bloke with a sword who has just murdered someone, who you've just seen been tased once without any apparent effect.
I thought the same. She has got great big brass ones.
And then the guy who comes in taking control but pushes his mate forward to cuff him. I know there may be a process we don’t know about here but it did make me laugh.
I think it’s to pull him back, he’s kind of the attack and defence, while the gent in front is the hand cuff guy. If the guy on the ground goes for another attack, the second officer can pull the first by his vest while giving him the sad end of the truncheon
I reckon he's higher rank and that's an underling he pushes forward to cuff him. He'll write it up to his bosses as 'leveraging team success' but I'm pretty sure he just didn't fancy it.
The lass has Neutron Stars for ovaries.
I'll use her to double my jump range
o7 commander! Very unexpected Elite :D
It’s their job too , although a lot most the time the public give the police grief over tasers and firearms
Yeah, God forbid he was shot or something there might have been riots.
Yeah thought the same, zero hesitstion, wimpy taser that dont always work against a samurai sword wielding murderer.
She's amazing, stoic and relentless like the tide coming in. Heroes.
22 minutes until armed police just arrived he’s lucky the 3rd taser worked cause he was seconds away from being shot… This clip highlights the flaws in taser and only having a few armed cars to police massive areas. At least this was the Met imagine if this was a village in the sticks then tough luck.
You'd be surprised. I grew up in a village in the sticks - there was an incident at my school (a false alarm) and the armed police were there in 7 minutes. Often urban streets/traffic/pedestrians take a lot longer to navigate.
That is brilliant response but probably was a magical fluke.. there are massive areas policed by two cars unarmed just have a look at staffing levels and stuff in rural forces Also with your example, that unit is tied up then if something comes in then it’s proper shit. Just think about how that can manipulated best to not say more.
I wouldn't worry, everybody is packing around here
Who then?
Farmers. And farmers mums.
For the greater good. The greater good!
The greater good...
A great big bushy beard!
Crusty Jugglers
A GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARD
I think you'd be very surprised at the number of rural non-farming folks who are licensed for both section 1 & 2 firearms.
[удалено]
Correct, but to u/Mat74UK original point, the vast majority of those are owned in non-urban areas (not Towns or Cities) According to the latest census approx. 83% of the population of England & Wales live in Towns/Cities. (83% of 60.2 million = 50 million) So if 17% reside in non-urban environments (10.2m people) and c.90% of the firearms are owned by that cohort, you're looking at 583,000 firearms. Or 1 gun for every 5.7 people.
Quite a few! If ever I'm at the local range there's a constant flow of shotgun and fac rifle users there, seems like a popular hobby. Just because you never see guns out and about like in America doesn't mean they don't exist. I think it's pretty testament to the fact our gun controls work. I know a guy who was ex armed police and I'm pretty sure he had some pistols locked in a safe in his house too.
I refrained from that…
Granny in the village got that M4 with laser sight just waiting for something to happen.
Mate … Pick any rural county and put 5 random dots on the map and that’s your amount of armed response cars, in pretty much every scenario they’re going to be a lot longer than 7 minutes away
I'm not sure that's really in the sticks in that case.
Village in Cheshire probs
It literally couldn't be much more "in the sticks"
In which case you got extraordinarily lucky, almost unfathomably so. The response time to the London Bridge terror attacks was longer... 14 minutes at the Rigby terror attacks, too, for example. And this is inner city stuff in a force renowned for it's numbers of firearms officers. In most bits of the country, forget it. A few years back it came out that two forces were seeing armed response times of 40 minutes to an hour.
> The response time to the London Bridge terror attacks was longer... How long was that? I can't find it online anywhere.
Apologies, the article I happened to read said 8 minutes but that was from the start (before the 999 call) so it was 5 in reality. Though the Lee Rigby attacks was 14, from the emergency call, for context.
This article says it was 8 minutes to all the attackers being killed though, not to the police arriving. [https://theconversation.com/eight-minutes-on-london-bridge-years-of-training-led-to-lightning-police-response-78815](https://theconversation.com/eight-minutes-on-london-bridge-years-of-training-led-to-lightning-police-response-78815)
Aye, that's why I acknowledged I was wrong - but as I say, it took 14 minutes to get to the Lee Rigby incident. Your 7 minutes rural response is staggering, and an absolute fluke
The more comments I read the more I think it just isn’t true.
And it took them that long because there were people in the way. The police station was 300 metres away! As I said "Often urban streets/traffic/pedestrians take a lot longer to navigate."
To be fair if I remember rightly I think the attackers were all dead about 3 seconds after armed response arrived. One of the officers didn't even stop to apply the hand brake.
Yeh but can't routinely arm the police in the UK because "We don't want to become like the US" Whilst simultaneously ignoring N.I and nearly all of Europe. Increased firearms officers isn't going to happen as they'd just need to take it from the already thin shift.
It interests me that when the question of routine arming comes up in the UK police sub, a lot of the responses from GB police include some variation of "I wouldn't trust my colleagues with a firearm". I personally don't know that it would be as bad as that, firearms safety is easy for most reasonable people and without the threat of literal children having concealed firearms when you try to arrest them, there's no reason why routine carry would have to imply routine use in the UK. But then again, if they genuinely have good reason to fear, it implies a whole other problem with the selection and training processes...
I would say there a couple who say the don’t trust crap… but not a lot the majority in my eyes are confident it would work and are open to it. And like it is pointed out if they are that untrustworthy then they should be dealing with that problem. They are already trusted to drive at speed, use other equipment and to use force on people.. it isn’t like officers do not have a lot of responsibility and trust already, a gun isn’t going to send the station into the Wild West like some would imagine.
IIRC the firearms training adds another two weeks or so to the Constable training in the PSNI, compared to GB forces: from the perspective of the Army Reserve, I would argue that you actually only need about two training weekends, equivalent to about 5 days, of training to make a reasonable person competent in firearms safety and handling (more to make them actually good at shooting, of course), so I personally think 2 weeks is a perfectly fine amount of time to spend to bring people up to competence. Of course, even with generally higher standards for entry in the PSNI, NDs are inevitable and do very occasionally happen, which I think is something you can't avoid. But given that you don't hear about it very often at all, I feel confident in saying that if the concerns about competency are genuine, then all other forces would need to do is more closely match up their training and entry standards to the PSNI's (which aren't even *that* much different really. Certainly close enough that there's an argument for doing so anyway even without firearms).
Sadly if there are more and more incidents like this then more armed police will be inevitable. Hopefully it won't come to that
Not just that but “ do you make the right call” comes to mind when you take the shot. It’s so easy to loose your job over it that it’s not worth it. If I recal loads walked out during the chris kaba case. And they was already low on firearms officers as it stands, you can take the shot then BLM can rock up protesting and you lose your job. Or some other group moaning. Or family suing you or whatever. As if policing isn’t bad enough. And you don’t get paid to carry a weapon, it’s voluntary also so you basically are putting your life on the line, and your job because you can be sacked just like that, over not getting paid that extra moneys. It’s voluntary
The simple answer to that is: we don't, we really really don't, want to become like the USA. Their level of violent crime is much higher than the UK. Incidences like this are daily occurrences in the USA, in fact they happen multiple times every day. They don't make the news because they are too common. 53 people shot dead in America EVERY DAY.
What are the statistics in Northern Ireland?
Why can’t they make tasers better??? Genuine question
They have improved a bit, it used to be one shot and then a fiddly reload. Now you have two with a quicker reload. some have more but think they are unreliable. But there is not much innovation you can do to guarantee that the barbs pierce clothing and then also have the correct spread to cause the person to lose muscle control. Tasers are amazing but can also be a yellow nerf gun.
I don't understand why they're not more than "barbs". Why not use something a bit more substantial. Taser is used to bridge the gap between truncheons and an actual rifle. You'd think they could use something closer to a dart to get a better result while remaining none lethal?
Well they tried a shotgun one but I think the force of being fired was too much for the electronics. A taser isn’t to bridge any gap it should be used with lethal cover because it has a high failure rate but here the government think that is enough to deal with a knife. A taser isn’t non lethal btw it less lethal. And you have to think about the size of it needs to be small to be carried. Also you don’t want a long dart because first how you going to have it hook into someone it will do massive injuries. The way a taser is designed and used everywhere else is, you first have lethal cover so if you are alone you don’t use a taser vs a weapon. Once you have lethal cover then you attempt to use a taser being mindful that it will not work and being prepared for that. Look on YouTube many Us police body cams of this tactic being used the taser being ineffective and the person being shot.
This is correct. There isn't really much to choose from in the less-than-lethal realm of weapons unfortunately. Tazers are about as good as they get. There's beanbags and peppershot but those are more dangerous and can kill, yet also don't work very reliably.
Was a video a saw last week where a man died from being hit with a beanbag round it pierced his chest I think it was. Edit link: https://youtu.be/OW1E04LD7yU?si=RVPjzcC3TNx5-8Jh
I don't see why they can't have both as options? Taser (which not all officer have anyway) and beanbag shotgun in the boot of the squad car. (Only to be used in instances where there's an immediate threat to life).
I don't disagree, but seems like shooty stuff is still very haram for the cops and that's probably why they can't have both.
Def. The mere mention of guns in the U.K. and most people shit their pants. This stuff is pretty rare, so while it's awful when it does happen, it probably doesn't justify the expense or added risk of arming everyday officers with semi-lethal options.
Without the explosive element from a proper gun a taser will always be limited by people in thicker clothing etc.
It's the best design they've tried/engineered so far. There's a vast amount of surfaces it needs to hit, and barbs are good at a good mix of them. There's a reason why nature evolved them in hundreds of separate cases over millions of years. There's also the point that "less than lethal" measures can still be lethal, this is the amount of voltage they believe is acceptable to put through a suspect. To summarise an answer your original question: > Why can’t they make tasers better? They are, constantly. But stuff like this is a continuous process that's only funded as far as the available buyers (i.e. police) are bothered in improving it. When it becomes "good enough" there's little impetus for the supplier to improve significantly. If there was a sudden need to improve them over a few years, yeah we'd see massive improvement. But currently (and for the foreseeable future) it's a niche requirement propelled only by getting a new stingy police contract.
UK police use what is now quite an old taser (X2) - the newest ones (T10) are much better and overcome a lot of the challenges of the old ones (range, getting a good spread of probes; as you can target them individually versus both firing at a fixed distance) - they're not yet authorised for use in the UK as they use gunpowder as propellant instead of compressed air. Not perfect, but a considerably step forward - thick clothing does remain a challenge though..
Also, if you make the shock bigger, more people die.
Is he lucky or unlucky? Is death worse than a life sentence in prison?
He might get life in a secure hospital too. Which many would consider worse than prison
Assuming this is terror he probably wanted death tbh
Years ago i remember reading that the armed response time along the coasts of wales is 2 hours. Cant imagine how long it is now. 22 minutes in the middle of london isnt good enough. This government has put this country on its knee’s. We are so open to a full blown terror attack. Its terrifying to imagine if this guy had a gun. How anyone can sit by government or politician and sit by saying “this is fine” is beyond me, a 22 minute response time, its shocking.
Not to split hairs, but it absolutely wasn't in the "middle of London".
Well ye, its not central london, but its still inside the m25 lol. Im pretty sure central london also has a different police force to that of the surrounding area?
Like that mass shooting in West Cumbria. Where in the end they had to get the Nuclear Constabulary out of Sellafield to deal with him.
Mate... theres more guns in the country than the city... farmers are packing dont forget it.
There's ALOT of unmarked police cars around. Being out in the sticks would be better as more direct, uncontested routes than London where your average speed equates to slow as fuck lol
This is simply nonsense. The usual cover for the entirety of my county in terms of armed cars is 3 armed cars, that's 6 armed officers.
So from a Police perspective I really do wonder when we’re going to follow the rest of the world - Aside I think 3 countries - that routinely arm their Officers. Everyone always makes the American example for not arming whilst forgetting that 200 something other countries manage it just fine. There was nothing safe about that video, if he had ran at the female officer there she would have been cut. Generally the 21ft rule applies, that’s the time it takes you to draw and respond to a threat running at you, you can cover 21ft in just over a second. She was no more than 6-10 feet away from him, if that final taser shot failed she was then essentially unarmed if he ran at her. She would not have had time to draw and rack her baton. Whilst it’s correct that we praise the massive set of nuts they all have charging him down we shouldn’t look past the massive danger they’ve all been needlessly put in because we as a society can’t stop thinking this is America. Police Officers aren’t invincible, we should stop acting like we are, we also have families to go home to.
I've seen more than enough from the UK police force to know a good percentage of them should not be trusted with a lethal weapon.
Yhep, no offence to any serving officer in this thread (and there seems to be many) but arming police routinely would seem to me to be a wholly disproportionate response to what are largely, quite rare incidents. We have enough questionable shootings as is from firearms officers, firearms should be kept to specialised highly trained units as it currently stands.
Better tell PSNI to pack up and go home, then.
>Yhep, no offence to any serving officer in this thread (and there seems to be many) but arming police routinely would seem to me to be a wholly disproportionate response to what are largely, quite rare incidents. Quite rarely **reported** incidents. The reality is that calls to people openly using weapons occur certainly hundreds of times a day. You just don't see them on the front pages, and therefore for mostt people, they obviously don't exist.
And do you think introducing more armed people to the situation would result in less armed confrontations?
Not about more/less, it's about injuries sustained by innocent members of the public/police officers, it could result in a higher level of armed confrontation, it could also be a good deescalator, with taser it's about 40-50% effective, if I go to someone with a knife and point a gun at him, the likelihood of them complying for any sensible human being would increase. I'd also reccomend officers having access to baton guns but that's another debate. By having armed personal protection weapons, it means you have better capabilities to stop threats faster and reduce the harm to yourself, the public and other officers, for example London Borough Market attack, first cops on scene were armed with batons/CS, they got stabbed and hurt. Now if they'd had a firearm, that attack could have been stopped earlier and less people would have come to harm. Look at recently with Australia, the armed inspector attended, stopped the threat as she was closest and didn't come to harm herself.
Some of the people here are thirsty for blood lmao we should not be trusting police with firearms,
You think there are unreported incidents routinely happening where armed officers shooting people is what was required?
As always, this country seems to prefer the idea of a police officer getting stabbed than being given the kit to defend ourselves. You say no offence, but it is offensive, you are essentially saying, go protect me, but not with a gun because I'd rather to take a greater risk that actually have protection. Christ knows how the PSNI or pretty much any country other than America manage it. What questionable shootings are you thinking of? I can think of one that's shall we say popular with the news at the moment, and I won't comment further as it's for the courts. I can't think of any others that have resulted in a charge/been deemed unlawful actions by the officers.
Rare but if they are potentially preventable and less people end up dead then it's probably still a good idea.
> lethal weapon. You do know that tasers are considered lethal weapons? Well, technically 'less lethal' weapon.
I wouldn't trust a lot of them with a taser ;-)
Thank god, they don't carry a metal baton that if you got cracked in the head with you'll potentially die then. Oh wait.
IMO looking at the kaba case answers this - we’re never going to do it (well, at least not in the forseeable future) due to perceived racial issues. I would be curious to hear your take on it though as somebody more in the know than me! It just doesn’t seem with the risk to volunteer for a firearms role
Kaba was a firearms job completely different scenarios. What he’s saying is routine arming for a personal defence weapon. Only to be used to protect life basically, not for planned operations like Kaba that would still be the remit of the specialised armed police we already have. Also hopefully the government gives good changes to use of force and investigations in relation to police shootings because of Kaba. And also a lot of Police officers would rather the risk of being investigated and called a racist and what not.. than dead.
[удалено]
Honestly as someone on the beat I'd still rather take my chances being an ARV that might need to fire than be one of the two PCs sent to hospital from the same guy who killed a young boy with a samurai sword
Aye totally fair! Didn’t mean to imply otherwise - just with the stories of officers handing in their firearms, I honestly didn’t know which way the wind was blowing. Thanks!
You're right as well in fairness mate I can tell you first hand many are scared to cuff people nevermind shoot people these days you can get sacked over basically anything now while on the other end of the stick officers are dealing with the above using a dice throw
It’s one import from America I cannot stand, this racial issue which simply doesn’t exist. The Police recruit from the general public, as such you will always get a certain representative and proportionate percentage of Racists. The same as you’ll get some racist doctors, plumbers, bankers etc.. There is no cure for being a cunt. That does mean that you will find examples of racists doing racist things but that is the same for the world over. You don’t think there are racist Police officers in France, Hungary or the Netherlands? - That isn’t a barrier to officers having the tools to safely defend themselves and the public in any other country. We are one of 3 countries on the planet who do not arm their Police alongside Iceland and Botswana. Every other country makes this work, I don’t believe that the argument that everyone should be less safe because the Police aren’t given the tools to do the job on the off chance that a racist will shoot someone.
By racial I meant more the reaction to the shooting rather than the shooting itself. I don’t think he waa shot because he was black, but rather because he threatened the life of an officer using a deadly weapon. I was more referring to the aftermath of the shooting with officers re-evaluating the risk/reward for their service. Sorry if that came off poorly. Thanks for the answer though , appreciate it!
Nah all good, it would pose a dilemma and it’s a societal issue that would have to be addressed. Ultimately it requires the senior Leadership teams in the Police to have a backbone and stop pandering to everyone. I do feel that an awful lot of those issues stem from a lack of information put out to set the narrative, in the absence of an official statement people start making wild assumptions. I’ve seen a few of those videos online which the American Forces put out in the response to Shooting Incidents. Usually within a few hours they have someone in front of a camera with a map showing the routes taken, some body camera footage and background information Along with justifications etc.. Personally I think that would stop a lot of the issues if the public were given the information in a timely and concise manner. For example let’s use the Kaba incident, if someone from SLT stood there, showed the route his vehicle took, the footage from the cars showing what he’s done and the body camera footage from the officers showing what’s lead to their decision making along with some background information about the incident it would have negated the questions and uproar if it was clearly shown to be justified. The only issue is prejudicing the court process.
There have been studies done on police "locker room" culture. It's not an American import it's shits being shits and protecting eachother on an institutional level. All of the controversy surrounding the Met is just the tip of the iceburg.
Fiji don't either. Probably more to the point, neither do NZ regularly arm their police.
NZ have all cars equipped with a gun safe with a side arm and a rifle so officers can be armed when required. Whilst they don’t carry on their person at all times all officers have the ability to be armed if required. I actually wouldn’t mind a similar model.
[удалено]
I think you're (at best) confusing cases here- last story I can find on the BBC is that the SFO concerned is on bail awaiting a murder trial.
Is there any evidence that arming police in the UK would be beneficial vs the negatives?
>So from a Police perspective I really do wonder when we’re going to follow the rest of the world - Aside I think 3 countries - that routinely arm their Officers. No thanks.
More people might die
I doubt we could ever be as bad as America, where their police officers literally get away with executing citizens who are on their knees with their hands up begging and crying (Daniel Shaver) or choking citizens to death whilst laughing at the noises they make as they slowly die (Tony Timpa) or beating a mentally ill man to death for 5 minutes solid as he cries and begs for his father (Kelly Thomas) and so forth. But the de Menezes incident shows that our armed police absolutely would get away with shooting innocent/unarmed people and lying about what happened to justify it. They shot him, then lied about him jumping a turnstile to make it seem more justified, nobody was ever punished for it and the woman in charge of the whole thing ended up promoted to the top police job in the land. So yeah, generally I'm not a fan of arming the police. It's a job that attracts a lot of psychopaths who want to hurt/bully people with state protection.
Being put in danger isn't going to get guns in the hands of police - if anything the fact that a bunch of unarmed police keep being able to detain armed men just reinforces the policy. Until there is a big uptick in actual police deaths then it's just not happening.
Wait, British officers are not armed?!
Not all of them, there's specialist firearms units in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Irish police are armed.
From my experience Brits on Reddit tend to compare themselves with the US as if it's the golden standard, forgetting that there's a whole another landmass just across the channel. This comparison includes healthcare and civilian access to firearms, which are both notoriously bad in the states.
Do you trust every officer to be armed and make the correct decision on when to use lethal force? I think many would say no.
Do you trust every doctor to make medical decisions which could affect your life? - Harold Shipman killed an estimated 250 people, I don’t hear the protests arguing that Doctors shouldn’t perform procedures incase they’re all secretly killers. Arguing a negative is pointless. All I would say is that every other country on the planet aside 3 trust their officers, you aren’t seriously going to tell me we’re any different to France, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany etc. who all seem to manage this concept without issue.
Important to note the 21ft rule is only any good if you have a firearm to draw. Anything less and you’re just 21ft from being killed.
Well played to the officers who were confronting the murderer. Takes some bottle.
My heart and mind are with the boy and his family. What a sad day for them...
Those armed police were ready to drop that guy. He should count himself very lucky they didn’t respond to the scene first. (Even in hindsight they should have)
He's lucky he wasn't shot dead. I know wishing death on someone is against the rules here so I'll not say anything more other than to see...rip the victims....sadly we'll be paying to keep this cunt in jail for life.
[удалено]
**Removed/tempban**. This contained a call/advocation of violence which is prohibited by the content policy.
Some people will watch this and think it’s a good thing we have don’t have routine arming because tasers worked in the end But look at the two failed tasers attempts and ask yourself if this was anywhere but a large city and you’ve likely only got one or two officers there at the same time and it puts them in easily avoidable danger if they had access to a firearm
Armed response times are usually very, very good for the majority of London and major cities outside of it. I think it should be considered how that can be scaled up and the whole of Greater London (and other suburbs of major cities) benefit from better armed response times - that will mean more armed police officers would be needed and more patrols, but I’d imagine that’s much more cost effective than every officer having a gun. And every officer wouldn’t be trained to the standard as our current armed police - I’d rather not see us import the USA’s terrible policing efforts.
We literally - literally - have a force in the UK that routinely arm and they're not out shooting at everything that moves. If that's not enough, probably about half of the mainland European police forces routinely arm. Australia, NZ, many many more - i note the response to that shopping mall attack in Australia recently where one officer with a firearm dropped the guy didn't attract any comments about American style policing.
We did also have a cop here in Australia who very recently used his service weapon to murder two people and there have been a bunch of non lethal ncidents of inappropriate firearm use here so not a completely rosy relationship with firearms in the Australian police. There have been some good examples of appropriate use - the sydney knife guy and the bourke st stab guy a couple of years ago, but violent crime has been decreasing and armed uk police would not have materially changed the outcome of this incident.
Police here wouldn’t take their weapons home anyways. And I think that man you mentioned would have killed them with other means he was an Ex and it was domestic abuse. And this situation would have definitely had a different outcome. You wouldn’t have two officers being severely injured. That boy would have not had to wait them extra 10 plus minutes to receive crucial first aid. And also it’s pure luck he didn’t kill anyone else whilst he was climbing over fences being chased by unarmed cops.
Actually NZ is similar to the UK, NZ police officers aren't armed with guns, when they come across an armed offender they have to call for backup (armed offenders squad). Australia is where all police have a pistol.
I don't think that is correct about NZ. Thought they had weapons in the vehicle?
Wrong, NZ patrol cars have firearms in a safe in the vehicle. In the UK, only specialist officers (ARV/AFO is the acronym you might see) have any access to them.
Oh so you say failed tasers but never talk about failed pistol shots that end up killing other people? Or failed guns that get on the hand of the suspects which are then use to shoot the police back?
I’ve said one thing mate Playing devil advocate doesn’t absolve the fact we are asking police to deal with knives routinely and they don’t have the proper equipment to do so, and in any other area of work this would breach health and safety legislation
You are saying they dont have proper equipments when this news literally showed you how the equipments work lol
It failed several times before it worked, and because so few police have them, 2 officers are disabled for life and 3 other members of the public are seriously injured and a child is dead.
These people ignore all evidence against their argument and latch onto one successful taser deployment after an absolute mess beforehand.
> But look at the two failed tasers attempts and ask yourself Why you cannot possess one without being a criminal.
Are you asking why we don’t allow everyone to have their own taser ?
No, I am assuming you are not a plod. Topics such as this do seem to draw them 'out of the woodwork', though, to consistently argue for greater police privileges. I think a better case exists for, in view of the history of policing in the past century and a half, the rescinding of a great many police privileges (a privilege is not a privilege if generally enjoyed).
You're right, I think we should just give police handcuffs and trust them to talk their way out of situations, if they get murdered well they signed up for the job so it's their own fault after all.
Here's a reminder for people to stop hating on police due to a few bad apples. They get paid peanuts to run into things the majority of us would run away from.
Unfortunately this was at a dreadful time for armed response, these guys likely would’ve been very near to the end of shift or just started they likely wouldn’t have been prepared. Something to think about. As for regular arming, it’s iffy. I mean, PSNI manages just fine but the general British public may react very differently, look how the Scots reacted to regular armed patrols. Plus there’s quite a lack of training already, most of the time is spent learning the law and the odd few days to practical stuff, the training would need to be revamped. I’d say most police officers are too afraid to lose their job and face prison plus public naming over use of firearm, I know I wouldn’t want one
To be competent with a sidearm isn’t some training mountain.. you can train them to use a taser easily enough, and pistol is obviously harder more emphasis and back drop and cross fire and what not but it isn’t that hard like you acknowledge PSNI do it and not like they have some big budget to splash around. So you’d rather risk being stabbed than have a pistol to save yourself or someone else’s life. If you are a cop then why take your baton out then!
I think the culture is vastly different in mainland UK though. One of my uni lecturers was a former inspector in the MET and he said there’s cops that he wouldn’t trust with CS let alone a firearm
>he said there’s cops that he wouldn’t trust with CS let alone a firearm This is something weak officers say for the simple fact that if someone is so dangerous that they can't be trusted with something as non lethal as an incapacitating spray, they should be reported to professional standards. However, I have not yet met a single officer who, when challenged on this supposed misconduct, is actually so steadfast in their beliefs at that they will report these officers.
Same man tutored a cop who reported that his constable absolutely should not be a police officer and will undoubtedly cause harm to the MPS should he remain, he said a few years down the line he was sacked for GM. Maybe a one off but this man was basically PSD in all but name.
Yeah the culture is you may be followed home and kidnapped or murdered for being a cop. You in the job? And don’t start this stupid argument of wouldn’t trusted with a pen. If you can’t trust them with any equipment then they shouldn’t be in the job. Without a gun you can still kill or severely injure someone with the other weapons you have and you can still take away someone liberty. That is a none argument and I won’t entertain it.
Yeah you’re not wrong, I don’t disagree. Just saying throwing 32,000 side arms into the mix may not be the solution we think it may be. Every other country has had time and experience to prepare officers, we haven’t. Arming is something that will need a major look at, in terms of training, vetting etc. Might take years not months
It isn’t such a crazy thing you just train them like you would for firearms, taser, pursuits. Obviously it would take time but that’s just because of the scale of it. The training in PSNI is two weeks so it isn’t substantial. Also in regards of vetting, you wouldn’t require additional vetting. Because your role wouldn’t require a higher level. An officer wouldn’t need any extra powers if an officer bashed his head in with a baton it would be under the same powers.
But the culture is different in NI. Again, look what happened when police Scotland started regular armed patrols, basically cost Stephen house any further advancement. I’d disagree with the vetting, it’s honestly all over the place, people being rejected for silly things whilst major things are being missed. I recall a MET officer whose boyfriend was a major drug dealer and she had taken home police equipment including a radio, add in a glock and god knows where that’d have led. We have very strict firearms rules for a reason, maybe that needs changed, maybe it doesn’t. Regardless, officers should have better kit, I’m personally in favour of the American beanbag shotgun, the intimidation factor of racking a shotgun is a major compliance factor. However, and this is purely speculation but it seems this individual in question seemed to want to get shot, his adrenaline was likely souring and he probably didn’t hear that they were shouting “taser” just seen them approaching with what seemed to be firearms. I think taser at an absolute minimum should be a requirement but be realistic, we’re seeing so much backlog it’s unreal, people are waiting years for bluelight training let alone taser, only the MET have any realistic outlook of doing this atm. Regular arming? Maybe, I don’t think it should or could be an overnight thing. Unarmed policing is without question a challenge in this day and age but the UK is hardly alone in it, Irish police are unarmed for example. Definitely need more ARVs in major locations and accessible to all however in the interim
Right the public won’t like it I accept that but they would have to get over it. They don’t like anything the government does anyways. No one is saying for them to take the guns home tho? You know it’s quite easy for people to get guns especially a major drug dealer he could get one the same day. You know that officer could have applied for a shotgun license there are guns and weapons all over but the majority of police don’t have the tools to tackle these people. You know a beanbag round is really dangerous especially at the ranges that this guy was confronted from only a few weeks ago someone sided died from being shot with one. https://youtu.be/OW1E04LD7yU?si=6zjyppONB90FO6oe Also you can’t carry a shotgun on your hip so then you’d need an armoury in the car and how you gonna protect that without a gun? You see these issues are complex. The is a few countries unarmed and there is a reason why. It is unsafe for the public simple. The Uk police will become a routinely armed it is just a matter of when and a when the politicians and public are sick of marauding attackers killing countless people in shopping centres before they are stopped. We are in a completely different world now to when policing by consent was a thing the risks of terrorism and just simply unchecked mental health issues in modern times is a major factor into this.
It's not 'iffy'. Regular arming of police is unconscionable when there is ongoing seemingly effective agitation to outlaw the purchase of machetes, further restrict access to crossbows, and make illegal knives with a sharp edge on one side, a point in the middle, and a serrated edge on the other.
Americans in here talking about guns of course, lecture our country about guns when you lot get your shit together with guns and mass shootings.
Convincing police officers they can depend on a taser to put someone down is dangerous.
This guy is extremely fortunate the armed police arrived 30 seconds after the officers with tasers. Still, not a fun experience getting tasered at least twice, but better than being riddled with bullets.
[удалено]
**Removed/tempban**. This contained a call/advocation of violence which is prohibited by the content policy.
I love that you can see how hard the firearms officers have driven to get there because their front brakes are literally on fire when they pull up.
[удалено]
**Removed/tempban**. This contained a call/advocation of violence which is prohibited by the content policy.
Our police do not get paid near enough to deal with maniacs like this and risk their lives wielding tasers.
I hope the child killer spends the rest of his days in misery courtesy of HM prison and it's prisoners.
We really need to have an open and honest discussion about all the violent white, single, young men in this country.
But right now we don’t know anything about him, his motivation, his mental health status, anything at all.
Never stopped us when it’s a brown guy lol
Killed a kid, they should have killed him on sight, piece of shit.
Let's debunk the American problem as we aren't asking for a second amendment over here: Total gun related deaths in the US last year: in excess of 40,000 https://abcnews.go.com/US/116-people-died-gun-violence-day-us-year/story?id=97382759 I believe it ended up somewhere near 43,000 by the end of December. Total number of deaths by Police shooting approximately 1200: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/08/2023-us-police-violence-increase-record-deadliest-year-decade So despite the Guardians take (yes it was higher than the long term average of around 1000) less than 1/40th of the total gun related deaths in the US were caused by the Police. Whilst I'm not saying arming Police with firearms is the solution, at the very least all Officers should be offered a taser (with the opportunity to opt out) and I do genuinely believe there should be a more widespread use of firearms. If that had happened during the winter or even a month ago & the guy with the sword had a thick coat on I don't fancy the chances of taser there & we'd have probably had more people in hospital and lives lost. Police in this country need way more protection and respect for the job that they do. This also should be being reported as terrorism as well - running around screaming about religion with a sword? Surely that fits an appropriate definition?
1200 police shootings in a year is insane, that's more than 3 per day
Split it down - the US by population is 5 times bigger than the UK and with the frankly insane stat of Gun Ownership over there being at 1.2 firearms per person https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership I'd say they've done incredibly well considering this is a country that averages 2 mass shootings (e.g. 4+ dead) per day in 2023. Don't get me wrong - yes they could do better but I do feel it's hysterically over played given what a dangerous country America is in the circumstances e.g. some states are literal hell holes of violence e.g. the stats for Mississipi this year are grim. Now extrapolate that down in the UK where there isn't 390 odd million guns in circulation. The terrorist running about with the sword this morning might have thought twice if he'd known he was going to be on the wrong end of a bullet. Frankly that's what would have probably happened if that Armed Response Unit had turned up sooner, but who knows maybe he drops the sword instead when facing down a firing squad?
> The terrorist running about with the sword this morning might have thought twice if he'd known he was going to be on the wrong end of a bullet 1. The met have said that he wasn't a terrorist. 2. There was already a high likelihood that he was going to be 'on the wrong end of a bullet', he would have known that 3. Get real, this guy clearly didn't care about getting shot, nor do actual terrorists
Re:1) If that's the conclusion they've reached from investigating the gentleman then fine I'll accept it. Re: 2) & 3) yes you are probably right but if it stops or causes only 15 or 20% of them to think twice about it - surely that's a step in the right direction?
In a country of 340 million people and 400 million guns it’s remarkable how low a number it actually is. 65 million police interactions per year or 178,000 a day, every single one of them could be potentially deadly. It’s 0.0016% of police interactions end up with a shooting.
Sorry, but where did you hear this suspect was screaming about religion?
I know he's white, but maybe he had converted to Islam?
Here’s how I predict things going: Suspect charged with murder —> “but muh mental health, I didn’t know what I was doing” —> downgraded to manslaughter —> sentenced to Mickey Mouse version of prison Same as the Nottingham killer We need to repeal whatever idiotic law allows someone to not be considered a murderer just because they had a mental health episode at the time
That female officer with the taser is an absolute legend. Funny how 20 other Police come running in to help after he’s lying on the floor soiling himself.
Please go and charge someone with a sword whilst you’re only defence is spicy spray and bad language. Let me know how it goes.
You see this is where he’s been faced with numerous dangerous encounters.. he neutralised all with a simple karate chop. This included 2 attackers with knives. An escaped Lion from the zoo as he leaving butchers with a big leg of lamb. And finally leaving his cave and dealing with grass
Tbh, I dream of this scenario where I can die a hero, saving lives, so no one remembers what a total cunt I’ve been all these years.
That's what they are trained to do, when an STO uses taser they have ultimate authority over the subject and situation. No one approaches a subject until the STO is satisfied that the effect of taser is successful and the subject is under neuromuscular incapacitation (lying on the floor shitting himself as you so put it) a command to secure the subject with cuffs is made and that's when non STO officers go in and secure him. In this clip, the first shot lands one barb, the second shot completes three point contact but is not fully effective (drugs, mental disorder can affect this) the third and final shot clearly has the effect required. both tasers continuing to cycle are probably outputting 100,000volt's He's going to feel like lava has erupted from his arse
Mad isn't it how most of those officers (many of whom won't have taser) didn't charge a man with a sword who wasn't yet incapacitated.