CO19 - A Few Good Men
July 17, 2006 by inspectorgadget
I understand the thought police will announce today if any firearms officers are to be prosecuted for Stockwell. Here are some comments from Col Jessup (Jack Nicholson).
“Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ‘em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.”
A fantastic quote from an amazing film! hmmmm gives me the urge to watch the film tonight now!
gets from the general public, when their entire job is based upon keeping the general public safe. I know some policemen deserve a bad rep as they are ‘bad seeds’ so to speak, but it, unfortunately, drags the reputation of all policemen into the mud.
It must get frustrating the amount of stick the police as an organisation (cannot think of the right word there…
The media do not help this at all as you rarely hear in the papers or on the news about all of the good that the police do for the public, they only generally get mentioned if something has gone wrong or that someone has screwed up. The general public (a lot of which are sheep like in will believe whatever drivel the media feeds them) would rather believe whatever is spoon fed to them rather than questioning where information has come from and the validity of the information.
I’m not saying that this makes them bad people or anything, it’s just a lot easier to believe it all rather than question it. A bit like the ‘peanut butter gives you cancer’ thing.
Thanks for the above comment, I can never think of quotes like that when I need them!
Peanut butter gives you cancer!!!!! Oh no… I’m doomed!
No flowers please but donations to the Spenders Pre-death Celebratory Bash…. to be held from now until my unfortunate demise.
Nice blog Sir…. we underlings appreciate it..keep at it.
Yes but the peanut butter thing is probably the same people who said that Bananas give you cancer too.
So (an old time favourite) a banana and peanut butter sandwich is suicide!
I used to have some respect for (then, I think) SO19. Especially as they were clearly better than having semi-trained officers with firearms - no more Stephen Waldorfs.
But then I read the book “The Good Guys wear Black” by an ex-SO19 officer. This managed to be simultaneously unrealistically self-congratulatory and yet very revealing of all the department’s failings (e.g.: driving a bulldozer into the WRONG lock-up).
Since then, I fear, I have been of the opinion that the British Police should be unarmed. Entirely. If we need firearms on the streets, we need the Army (e.g.: the SAS).
Armed officers did NOT prevent 7/7 and have, instead, added one death and one serious wounding - both of innocent men - to the total bill we can chalk up to Terrorism.
If nothing else, we have to accept that the two latest high profile uses of firearms by the Police have been public relations disasters.
Well done Hoddy for proving Jobie’s point. You refer to the two high profile cases that went wrong. How many cases went right? How many lives were saved in those cases? Why do you believe the SAS would not make the same mistakes? Wasn’t intelligence at fault rather than the gun?
Think SAS - think Gibraltar and the “execution” of IRA members.
Regardless of training, the pressure and stress of these situations can occasionally lead to mistakes. When people are messing about with guns and bombs, mistakes can unfortunately prove costly.
I would prefer to see out the rest of my service without having the need to pick up a firearm and I admire those who have the responsibility of conducting armed patrols around our streets.
I defy any of those who complain about armed police to go out and arrest a team of armed robbers equipped only with an expanding metal stick and a can of air freshener. Until then, as Mr Nicholson’s character implies “Put up or shut up!”
Well said Stan
Well said Inspector. What pisses me off are the IPCC and wet liberal types who criticise a large part of what the police do, and then spend their time trying to tie the police’s hands behind their backs. You can’t win. I suspect the hardest ‘heat of the moment’ decision these people have had to take is what pizza topping to have! IHeaven forbid if they ever get out of their air cond. offices to actually do anything. If it wern’t for the the likes of CO19 and the thousands of unarmed officers putting their butts on the line, then Jonny Scrote and his mates would run amock. Keep up the good work, this MOP appreciates it!
Lets be honest - it was a complete balls up.
On this occasion an innocent man paid a high price for that - it could have been my son or yours.
Seldom do I question the actions of the police or their behaviour as I know having been a police officer until I retired just how difficult it can be to get it right. I just try to understand how I might feel if that had been my son.
Regardless of the outcome of a criminal trial I feel that it is in the public interest that those concerned and I do not just mean those that pulled the trigger stand and account for their actions on that day. Anything else smacks of a whitewash.
Would it have been the same result if the victim had been the son of one of the Establishment - I wonder.
Hoddy,
It’s been a few years since I read the book you referred to but if memory serves:
1) They drove the JCB into the right lock up during the drugs raid, just slightly miscalculated how much damage it would do to the door. He also commented on a complete lack of other options, a quote of £100 000 for a knackered armoured landy comes to mind.
and
2) He does admit some ammusing cock ups normally resulting in damage to the team themselves not the public, running someones foot over with hsi own landy comes to mind.
Hoddy,
You are referring to the CO19 (as now known) Specialist Firearm Officers (SFO’s) that are used on intelligence led operations. Not the ARV (Armed Response Vehicles) crews, that respond day in day out to practically every firearm related call in London. As being an unarmed Met officer I am more than happy to hear their call sign on the radio saying that they are on their way, when things are heading down the pan.
If it helps you to understand a bit more what they do go to the Sky News website and on their video link you will find clips of these crews doing their job as Sky News had a cameraman (or person…
in the back following their movements.
Failing that, a book written by an ex skipper called The Trojan Files (dated now though) may enlighten you some more.
Good blog Guv. hope you keep it up.
Gary is entirely right. If the officers concerned were justified in their actions, then a jury would acquit them. No-one believes they were sadists killing at random. But no-one understands why they fired those shots into a restrained man who could not - as he was dressed - be concealing bombs. Justice must be seen to be done.
I believe they will stand trial anyway (the family of the dead man are talking about a private prosecution) and they will then face a less sympathetic jury. Why? Because it will appear that their bosses tried to shield them from justice.
Gary is also right that they should not stand in the dock alone. Without new law (i.e. an amendment to the law of murder to add an appropriate new defence) the “shoot to kill” policy is an order to commit murder. It is illegal. Not just Cressida Dick, but also Charles Clarke, Commissioner Blair (and perhaps - if he authorised the policy - his political namesake) should be in the dock alongside the CO19 boys.
This attempted whitewash is another blow to the relationship between police and public which is essential for the only effective form of policing; “policing by consent.” It makes us think of us as “us” and you (the police) as “them.” We know that if any of us had mistakenly killed a person we believed to be a suicide bomber, however good our intentions, we would face trial. A jury would decide. That’s what happens to “us”. Now it seems it does not happen to “them”. That transforms the police from our servants and protectors to the agents of our political masters. That’s not good.
Excellent post inspector. Your readers comments also make interesting reading.
Miss H
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
I cannot but agree with Orwell on this one. Mistakes may be made by Armed Officers, but that is far better than the alternative. All the complaints about the Gibraltar shootings for example, struck me as being rather foolish, as the people who were shot dead were avowed murderers with a high probability of being on their way to do worse and be proud of doing so. The complainers might not feel so self righteously smugly ‘Anti Police’ if it was their sons and daughters who were on the would-be IRA assassins list of ‘targets’.
Now we have a fanatical enemy whose ambitions of mayhem put the IRA in the shade. The gloves should be off. They leave us no alternative. This is war.
Regards
Bill
Firearms officers voluntarily take on a job with huge responsibility and have to take instant decisions. A quote from somewhere “better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6″ sums up their dilemma.
Not all situations are clear cut. If they are facing what they believe is a lethal threat and don’t shoot then they might cause their own death or that of other innocent people.
Just because in this case an innocent man was shot does not mean the officers concerned did anything wrong.
You are right Ted,
‘Just because in this case an innocent man was shot does not mean the officers concerned did anything wrong.’
What is vital is that they demonstrate that and the only forum we have for that which the vast majority of people have confidence in is our justice system. How else can the police service demonstrate that they are not themselves above the law that everyone else has to obey.
Gary said
“What is vital is that they demonstrate that and the only forum we have for that which the vast majority of people have confidence in is our justice system. How else can the police service demonstrate that they are not themselves above the law that everyone else has to obey.”
If you mean the officers should face a criminal trial then I disagree. An independent enquiry has not found evidence their behavior was criminal. Obviously mistakes were made. It is open to the deceaseds family to raise a civil action. The civil courts are also part of the justice system and a civil trial would be a public examination of the circumstances.
Bill Sticker commented: “All the complaints about the Gibraltar shootings for example, struck me as being rather foolish, as the people who were shot dead were avowed murderers with a high probability of being on their way to do worse and be proud of doing so.”
I remember that case and the screaming from some of the media that “they should have been allowed to surrender and be taken prisoner..”. I also remember thinking to myself at the time - “Very true… But only when they start planting bombs that give their victims the same options.”.
I just wish people put in charge of operations (such as this) were big enough to say they weren’t capable of dealing with the responsibility and get out of the chair, or to ensure that they are unhappy to make certain decisions because of the info available. Not the case here it seems - and as gary said Jean Charles de Menezes could have been my son, ambling down to the tube, picking up his ‘metro’ etc. I appreciate it was a difficult and nightmarish responsibility, but some real courage displayed could have avoided the death, and even if he had been what they thought he was (did they ever?) and blown up a train - the log would have justified the actions taken. that’s why these people go for high rank and responsibility isn’t it? That’s why they’re not on the response car earlies, lates and nights isn’t it? that’s why they earn the big bucks. This was nothing like Gibralter - that lot deserved it! A lot was lacking that day, and until we get a public enquiry and the facts come out we’ll never know why it all happened.
What a load of sycophantic twaddle.
Point 1: an innocent man was shot dead in error.
Point 2: the justification to date has been “poor intelligence”, and anyone suggesting otherwise is fair game for vilification.
Point 3: the Met has done a massive amount of damage to PR by giving the appearance of misleading the public (regardless of how justified that appearance may be).
I have never, *ever* seen appropriate behaviour with firearms on-range from police (let alone away from the range). There’s far too much of the swagger factor kicks in with a certain sector of society - the sort that thinks it is cool to carry firearms - and IMO that is more than enough to invalidate their suitability to carry. CO19 from personal experience typify that sector.
There is absolutely no comparison between an appropriately trained military force and a bunch of - albeit uniformed - civilians who carry firearms and pretend that they are a military force.
How are the general public supposed to have any faith in either the police or the justice systems in this country after this?
Just to correct the writer above..I am one of the so called “swaggerers” of CO19 neither I nor the vast majority of my colleagues swagger.I seved in the army on operational tours before I joined the job and can tell you that there is no comparison when it comes to rules of engagement..squaddies have the hardest job but we have the hardest rules of engagement .I can assure you and everybody else that our behaviour on the ranges is of the highest order and we ALL take our training seriously.I am married with a family and have seen the torment “squeezing the trigger” causes colleagues families and don’t ever want mine to go thru it.I am happy if the only time I draw my sidearm is at the end of my shift when it is time to unload it and put it back on the armoury shelf..and I have been using firearms on and off for 22 years now !!
billbo - No offense, but in my experience (both from helping train and from “exercises”
& from the “media based knowledge” that I and the rest of the country have seen, the general populace has good cause to have minimal faith in the Police and in particular the Firearms toting side of it.
Too many “mistakes” are made, and too many innocents die. People are shot in the back whilst carrying a chair leg, a man has had what squaddies quaintly call a “Beruit Unload” (uncontrolled emptying of weapon) into his chest at point blank range (I refer of course to the now famous Brazilian Electrician), the police are seen walking our streets with firepower GREATER than that deployed by the Army (here I refer to the images of Assault rifle carrying Policemen at the Labour party conference)!
All these go together to form a perception in the public mind that CO19 simply cannot be trusted, and like it or not, if a person perceives something as true, then to them it IS true.
I am relieved to see there are indeed officers like you around who are massively against the idea of slotting someone, but them after 22 years you know what you are doing. Too many officers are young men, poorly trained, with entirely the wrong outlook on carrying a side arm. Soldiers live and train with their rifle every day and the training within the British Army is 2nd to none. How often do CO19 units live, eat and sleep with their side arm? How, in the case of the Meneses Case, did any rounds miss at point blank range? Poor training or an ill prepared, unsuitable marksman?
Training though is not everything, and like some others here, the people I REALLY want to see up in the Dock for cases like that of Meneses, is the Command Crew and whoever messed up the Intel. Who’s idea was having Cressida Dick as the Fire Authority and Boss? What on earth qualified her? Boss of Diversity???
So - we have a public perception which is borne out too often of poor training, ill judged people who can seemingly make mistakes at will and NEVER have to answer for them. A soldier kills someone by mistake in war, he’s Court Martialled. A Police Officer kills a blatantly innocent person…??? Why has no Policeman ever been even reprimanded for making such a fatal mistake? Why are so many cases involving a fatal shooting covered up and/or lied about (badly in most cases)? Why are coroners directed not to release certain information sometimes (such as EXACT location of entry and exit wounds)?
Until the Police AND the politicians can address this and return the Police to people’’s perception of what it used to be and should be, is it any wonder that they are regarded with Fear, Mistrust and Despair?
Another film quote for all you film buffs…
“The truth is, there is something terribly wrong with our country”
PS Sorry this is so long but it needs to be said.
Zeberdee,
Fess up, when and where have you ever trained or excercised with CO19? I suspect never! CO19 is not a generic tearm for all UK Police authorised firearms officers it is just one of several armed units in the London Metropolitan Police and was not, for your information, even deployed at the Labour party Conferance! Their role is to respond to armed crime in the capital, not security work.
My son is a soldier and I have a great deal of time for our military but leave off with the “only soldiers should carry firearms” nonsence. By and large, a Police officer will only become a shot after he or she has several years experiance as a copper. On average they will be responsible adults in their late 20’s to mid 40’s, probably married with kids of their own and not young teenagers who have to be supervised by a corporal whenever they load and unload their SA80 and who have to be given a command to make ready!
Real soldiers don’t live and train with their weapons every day (there’s no budget for the ammo to start with!) most only have to pass one annual platoon weapons test a year on an ETR range. Police officers must qualify at least 4 times a year on targets that are scrutinised for 70-90 % hits and complete tactical and judgemental training on a regular basis.
If you had any real operational experiance you would know not to rely on “media based knowledge” In 20+ years as a firearms officer, I have never read a news paper account of any operation I took part in and recognised it as accurate! and if you thought the struggling guy you were shooting at at point blank range was about to detonate a bomb and take you with him, I’d excuse you for missing with a few rounds!
I have seen a lot of Special Forces lads shoot pistol and longs and very few would rate alongside a CO19 SFO! They simply have too many other skills to keep up on and shooting (particularly pistol) comes way down on their priorities.
I have the upmost respect for their military skills and they are doing an awsome job in Iraq, Afghanistan and elswhere but CO19 ARV crews are responding to thousands of calls every year and SFO teams carry out a thousand armed ops a yearon average, only a tiny percentage of which result in shots being fired! (2 last year including Menedez)
Regardless of public perception there are laws in this country and in order to charge anyone (not just Police) and take them before a court you have to establish a burden of proof. The lads that shot Mr Menendes didn’t do it for fun! They did it because they had been told and therefore believed that he was a suicide bomber about to detonate a device.
Knowing that before they entered the station, they still went down to the platform to confront him while lesser men would have been running the other way! despite the terrible error in identification, which was not their fault, they did what they had to do and were horrified to find out the next day the terrible truth.
You have supposedly trained us, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
PS I do have to agree with you on one thing though. There are a lot of armed officers out their doing low risk, high profile jobs like airport security that have lost the plot in tearms of guchi accessories on their weapons and personal kit. The officers that actually need all that are the ones patrolling Hackney, Mosside and other parts of the country where the criminals heavily out gun the Old Bill who have to patrol with a can of CS and a blunt instrument!
Gaz - I won’t even try to better that reply. Well said!!
Ok,
I touched a nerve so I am going respond this once, I enjoy reading the Inspector’s musings and don’t normally post. Now I remember why.
Gaz – Kindly do NOT imply I am a liar. I don’t presume to take you to task for the validity of your viewpoint, don’t presume with mine. I am hardly going discuss what operational work I have done, let alone on a Public Forum, just I don’t expect to see you gentleman discussing yours! You can choose to believe or disbelieve and given the general tone I think I know which you will choose.
I will make a single clarification to my previous post, training was not with CO19, the ex work was. Training was with other armed police units.
1) I never said CO19 was deployed at the Labour Party Conference – I said Police. Which just makes the fact they were toting battlefield grade weaponry even worse – we are NOT talking MP5s here, we talking Assault Rifles (SIGs I think they were).
2) “Training with a weapon” is vastly more than simply wandering down to the range and putting rounds down it. Ok, granted some military units do not train “every day” with it – REME, RE, Artillery, Tankies… to name a few. Front line boys – yes, sorry, but they do in my experience, and they do eat, sleep & live with them for weeks at a time whilst on ex.
3) Meneses was restrained and “under control” – why was he executed. No, at point blank range I wouldn’t miss. Why did the Police feel the need to lie (badly) about the whole thing?
4) Harry Stanley was shot in the back of the head, with no weapon in sight. Dr Chan chose to “omit to mention” this in a massive breach of law (we’ll ignore the other breaches of law in this case since they are outside the scope of this commentary).
5) What woudl I have done - in all honesty, no one can answer that unless they are in that situation, but I know one thing. I wouldn’t have lied and lied and lied!!!!
Too many times the public are handed examples of Police conduct being vastly beyond the law with no apparent accountability – name me one officer who has been found guilty of any wrongful death stemming from a fatal shooting! A Dr kills a patient in the line of his work - he is punished; A company fails in it’s duty to maintain a railway track and people die – they are punished; A soldier unlawfully shoots a civilian whilst he is on Peace Keeping duties – he is punished.
This my whole point – why do you guys THINK the Public is against you? You are perceived as “just another gang but with uniforms”. Whether or not that is fair is not really the issue. Until the Police can shed the jackboot, bullying, “above and beyond the law” image they have accrued these past years, the Public cannot and will not regard them with anything other than fear and suspicion.
I am well aware that there are good policemen and bad policemen, but guys, I am really sorry to tell you that the bad are rapidly outnumbering the good and the Public is scared of you, and I’m not talking about the gun toting gang members or genuinely cold psychos that sometimes stroll our streets – because frankly they don’t care about anything.
Please remember, you guys are Servants of the Law, not of the Politicians, not of your own whims and certainly not its Interpreters nor its Executioners!!!
Chill, I don’t plan to rain on your musings and general Love In any further.
Zeberdee,
OK, this will be my final say on the matter too because I suspect I will not change your view point whatever I say. I apologise if I suggested you were lying but I have met lots of experianced soldiers labouring under the misaprehension that every AFO in the UK is in CO19 and you’re right it does touch a nerve!
However I do find it difficult to believe that, if you are as experianced as you suggest, that you still believe everything that you read in the papers and have such a simplistic understanding of the dynamics of a sudden violent confrontation.
Contrary to popular belief Harry Stanley was not the patron saint of broken furniture. He was a nasty, violent career criminal with previous convictions for firearms and violence. A few days prior to his death he was arrested in the street in possession of two large knives hidden up the sleaves of his jacket with which he confronted unarmed coppers. Possibly dying of cancer, it doesn’t take the brains of an Archbisop to work out that he was also probably on a mission!
On the day of the shooting, which happened in the evening, he had been heavily on the lash since 1100. Prior to leaving the last pub, when the licencee pulled him about bringing in a takeaway and eating it, he replied “leave me alone I’m having my last supper!” He went out of his way to imply that he had a shotgun and one witness even stated he’d seen the trigger guard! The licencee and the other patrons where convinced that he had a shotgun and were so concerned by his behaviour that they turned the pub lights off and bolted the door when he left! As a result local officers responding to the pub initially thought it was a false call.
An American scientist has done a computer reconstruction of the events that explains to even the dullest of lay persons what was blazingly obvious to any experianced firearms officer and that is that people don’t just stand there like a figure 11 target when shot at! They move and very quickly! So when the first officer fired, striking Stanley in the hand he instinctively turned away and the second officers shot which followed a fraction of a second later struck him in the back of the head! It’s not rocket science!
I’ll say it again, it’s the law, if anyone, not just police officers, can prove that they held an honest belief that they were about to be subjected to a violent assault then they have a common law right to pre-emptively strike . It’s common sense, no Court would expect you to wait until you had been shot at before you fired!
The degree of force must be reasonable in the circumstances and firing a single shot from a pistol at a suspect you believe to be armed with a shotgun has to be reasonable by anyones standards.
As to your allegation that they lied, the officers stuck to their version of events from the very first moment. The only allegations of lying were made by lawyers, the press and others who were to bone to understand the reality of a life threatning confrontation because the hardest decision they had ever made was what topping to have on their Pizza!
The cases of Doctors, or Railway Employees being negligent are hardly fair comparisons. They are not confronted by sudden life threatening situations where their own lives or those of others are at risk and where a split second decision has to be made. As for soldiers killing civilians on peace keeping operations, there are plenty of examples where soldiers have done just that and have not been prosecuted if, as I said above, they have satisfied their investigators that they acted in the honestly held belief that their lives or those of others where in danger.
If some have been charged it is because they have been unable to justify their actions. Some undoubtably have been young impressionable lads with a very simplistic understanding of the law, their rights and responsibilities,a bit like you I suspect! no offence! In addition Army Legal Services are there to look after the interests of the Army. not the poor squaddie!
When I asked you what you would have done in the Menendez situation you replied ” What would I have done - in all honesty, no one can answer that unless they are in that situation” wise words! but elsewhere you say that at point blank range you wouldn’t have missed, How do you know? like you said you weren’t there!
The surveillance officer jumped on Menedez and tried to pin his arms as the lads boarded the train! they had seconds to assess the situation and shoot him as he thrashed violently around. he wasn’t under control! How can you possibly say you wouldn’t have missed?
Again, you accuse the officers of lying! The two shots have consistently told their version of events and have never deviated from it! If any other officers lied that has yet to proved. But have a look at the press involvement….
They were the ones that stuck cameras and mikes into the faces of traumatised witnesses. Did that witness lie when he said he saw Mr Menedez chased onto the train? What about the witness that says she heard 11 shots fired over a 30 second period as she fled from the platform and up the escalators? (Get your stop watch out and try that out, one shot every three seconds? not very likely is it?) was she lying? Or the witnesses that saw him chased over the barriers, or wires hanging out of his jacket! lying?
No, they were experiancing the perceptual distortion that most humans will experiance in traumatic circumstances and if there are gaps in their recollection the brain fills them in. But you, the press and millions of others took it all in as gospel and when the dust settles and the true story emerges the press are the ones who point the finger at the police and you lap that up as well, while the lads go from heroes to zeroes in a heart beat!
One more thing and then I am finished….promise! I can’t speak for all AFOs but many shots do eat sleep and drink with their weapons. Alright they don’t sleep with it in a shell scrape on an army training area but they do get their heads down in the back of jump off vans or OP’s during long hours on robbery stake-outs or surveillance operations, Their weapons are always loaded and made ready with live ammo, not blank!
Much of their training far exceeds that which many front line soldiers carry out! I’m talking about live fire multi-room clearance as well as live fire cover and movement and vehicle drills. Not just wandering down the range putting rounds down. A high percentage of SFOs are also ex-servicemen (many marines and paras) who will tell you the same!
They’ll also be honest enough to tell you about the reality of MOD budgets and mind numbing bureaucracy impacting on realistic training. No .338 ammunition for sniper training because it’s all in theatre! No fuel for transportation to ranges or excercises and everything in triplicate!
Which is why they left! They of course have seen both sides of the picture whereas you only have one and the press has filled the gaps in!
I’m sorry to be so sarky, we’d probably get on really well over a pint!
Gaz
Cheers Stan!
Its not the critic that counts, not the man who pionts out how much the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best, who the triumph of high achievement and who at the worse, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat! Nuff Said.
I liked the quote from Col Jessop.
Should I do as he asks and say
“Thank you for killing an innocent man. Keep up the
good work. I’ll be on my way and leave you to kill
a few more” ??
Craig
I just have a couple of comments, I fell over this forum by accident there seems to be a lot of comparison between the military and the police, apart from Special Forces Units such as the SAS and the SBS both of whom CO19 train with and undertake joint exercises on a regulare basis there is no comparison. The British army are trained to shoot rifles and very rarely carry or train with hand guns. CO19 are without doubt the best trained Police firearms unit in the Country probably Europe and possibly the world. I live in the United States where I am an instructor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement amongst other things. SWAT teams over here are part time, they look impressive but that’s where the comparison with CO19 ends they are full time and are on operations every working day of their life. In regards to de Menezes were mistakes made? Yes they were but by the intelligence gatherers and senior command NOT by the officers that pulled the trigger who acted correctly within their training and within the bounds of the law. With regard to the post by Hoddy I suggest he goes back and reads the Good Guys Wear Black again because in the incident he cites they did hit the correct lock-up. How do I know? I wrote the book.
“I remember that case and the screaming from some of the media that “they should have been allowed to surrender and be taken prisoner..”. I also remember thinking to myself at the time - “Very true… But only when they start planting bombs that give their victims the same options.”.”
Actually the vast mayority (though by no means all) of IRA bombs were preceeded by a warning to allow people to evacute. However you can’t criticise a soldier for engaging a target as a soldier is trained to which is exactly what the SAS did in this case.
My view of the original topic is that the criminal proceedings would be a formality, if they acted in an honest belief then thats the end of it. The idea of spurious allegations against officers doing their job is hardly new is it.
Nice one Steve! How’s Florida?
Hot.
yeh steve i just want to say both of you book are good and i just finished reading good guys wear black. And i think C019 are doing a great job fighting gun crime
sorry for the bad spelling i was in a hurry to go out
I speak as a former police firearms officer. Yes, there is an element of ‘gung ho’ or bravado in some officers. However, most are weeded out by the psychological tests which are part of the application process.
Shooting an unarmed suspect? We’ve all done it in the ‘video shoots’ on the range. The old man holding up a walking stick. The deaf person about to produce an ID card from his back pocket etc.
An interesting slant on the type of weapons and rounds we use; our ‘armourer’, an Inspector no less, was trying to get some special bullets (NATO rounds?) which would, quote, “stop an elephant”. I asked if the rounds currently in use would do the job, i.e. kill a person, if they hit the forehead and centre of the chest (as per our training). He replied they would. So why did we need more powerful rounds I questioned? “Because that’s what the baddies are using” was his reply. Made me laugh. I cannot recall when the last ‘gunfight at the OK corral’ happened in the UK, nor the last time I was required to shoot an elephant.
One last thought - I recall our TAC adviser saying, as we left for each and every deployment, “Remember gents, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, but if you pull the trigger, don’t ecpect ACPO to back you up. They’ll treat you like a leper”. Not very reassuring!
I was revisiting old threads as the eponymous Inspector has a date with the inquisitors and it might all disappear.
One thing’s notable here. Not one serving officer has offered any suggestions of how to avoid similar mistakes in future. All we’ve heard is various varieties of why it’s not the police’s fault.
100% of the civies I’ve talked to about it think that the Stockwell and Forest Gate incidents show the police at fault and are in some form scared by the apparent lack of accountability. With the attitude shown here by many - “find some way to justify it” rather than “how can we stop this happening again” - there’s some justification for them taking that position.
There have been a lot of posts here of the opinion that Army could deal more effectively with tactical situations than the Police, particularly in the light of Stockwell.
Let’s not forget that apparently it was an Army surveillance operator on static obs outside de Menezes’ house who took an eyes-off toilet break which partially caused the whole situation.
Or, the 16 bullets put in one of the PIRA guy’s head in Giberaltar, or the 80 odd holes left in one of the terrorists in the Iranian Embassy in 1980. Such robust rules of engagement are spot on for dealing with those situations, as with the suicide bomber the shots at Stockwell thought they were dealing with under Kratos rules.
But if we pander to the mentality of a rapid pair to the mouth is the solution to every firearms situation it’s getting bloody dangerous. Especially if ARV officers are tooled up with G36Ks or the like. Has anyone higher up given any thought to what happens to a 5.56 bullet after it leaves the suspect?
I liked the film and I understand your feelings, a bit like the Demi Moore character -
Lt. Weinberg: ‘Why do you like them so much?’
Galloway: ‘Because they stand upon a wall and say, “Nothing’s going to hurt you tonight, not on my watch.”‘
And I understand that, but the other half of that conversation was -
Galloway: ‘Why do you hate them so much?’
Lt. Weinberg: ‘They beat up on a weakling, and that’s all they did. The rest is just smokefilled coffee-house crap. They tortured and tormented a weaker kid. They didn’t like him. So, they killed him. And why? Because he couldn’t run very fast.’
The bit I remember most is when the two GIs have been found not guilty of the serious charges and given dishounourable discharges:
Downey: ‘What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong.’
Dawson: ‘Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.’
CO19 were supposed to protect Menezes along with the rest of us.
There was a failure somewhere, but error is not the same as malice.
The questions are “Where there any avoidable errors made?” and “Was there any malice?”.
Whoever said that the Army could deal better than the police with these firearms operations are talking complete bs .
The Armed police in this country deal with so many dangerous firearms incidents daily but do they get on the front headlines of the national papers ?
But as soon as they make a mistake everybody blames them .
It is so rare for a policeman to shoot someone in this country yet they deal with thousands of armed incidents.
I dont believe it was the armed police fault in stockwel it was just lack of information.
And remeber if menezes was a sucide bomber and they didnt take action the police would get blamed for letting a train full of people getting blown up.
I thought I’d check back and see if this thread was still running and it is still clearly causing debate!
In answer to Ian, every year there are thousands of armed operations all over the UK, the vast majority of which are resolved without shots being fired or injuries or deaths being caused. After every one there’s a debrief, “what went right? what went wrong? what can we learn? how can we improve?”
Even though most ops are successful, very few go perfectly for several reasons, firstly the suspect is never at the briefing and at the end of the day everything hinges on how he reacts when confronted by the police (No plan survives contact with the enemy!)
Then there’s communications. Despite the fact that you can get out your tiny mobile and talk to a friend in Hong Kong, you can never get a signal when you really need one and Police or military radios are no differant!
Then there are the other factors, inacurate information from the public or other officers, the traffic conditions, poor street lighting, the weather, the reaction of other members of the public…..the list goes on and on.
Then there are the operators themselves…they are human just like you, not the perfect, square jawed hero in the movies that never makes mistakes! He has a script and if he screws up they can always do another take!
Everyone has to take a piss! everyone has lapses of concentration that results in accidents! everyone makes mistakes. Every year thousands of people are killed in road accidents, are we going to stop driving because cars are driven by humans?
The point I am making is that however hard officers or soldiers train, however much money is poured in to equipment and resources, they can still only respond as humans with equipment made by humans.
If another person feeds them duff information, if their radio doesn’t work, if the guy they’re after is sick of living and wants to get shot by Police so that his widow will get a big pay-out, or if the suspect they’re after decides to try and wrestle with the armed officers executing a lawful search warrant on his home, things will occassionally go wrong!
What can we do about it? We can learn from our mistakes, we can alter our tactics and our training. We can redesign our equipment so it works more efficiently, all of which we constantly do. However, we still can’t say that mistakes won’t happen. All we can do is promise to reduce them to a minimum.
I understand your concerns about accountability, but you can’t prosecute someone for taking action based in good faith simply to keep the local population happy. What the government could do is modify the ridiculous sub-judice laws so the Police could at least explain their actions to a degree! leaving the public with another view point other than that of the parasitic press!
At the moment, if an officer shoots a suspect, the Police Service has to sit in silence while the suspect or his family and their solicitors give press interviews, the 24 hour TV news push cameras into the faces of witnesses who are still in shock, MPs and other ill informed do-gooders bump their gums and Panorama gets to work on their next exclusive, so called documentary, complete with dodgy reinactments.
Five years later when the truth actually comes out, the Police might be exonorated and be able to speak but by then it’s old news and their critics haven’t the spine to admit that they were wrong!
Hamish got it right above when he quoted Teddy Roosevelt………………….
IT’S NOT THE CRITIC THAT COUNTS!!!
Gaz
what you are saying is completely true, and is good someone has finally explained it to the those ignorant morons.
People should really stop giving the police a hard time
Whichever way you look at this, this was a very tragic incident. The de Menezes family have lost a human being. The officer’s have suffered. The intelligence initially questioned that this was not the suspect. I understand the identity came out as an I\C 1 male as de Menezes was leaving. Menezes never looked like the suspect that was outstanding for the failed bombings. What the service did badly was the cover up. Blame always comes and sticks at the lowest ranks, worse still we promote the Senior Officer in charge. To close this there must be some justice for the de Menezes family and the blame stops at the top with whoever was in charge.
The terrorists are at war with Britain. They want to kill us. The Officers who fired the shots did what was expected of them. They shot the ‘right person’. The fact that a wrong identification was made originally is a separate matter and nothing to do with the Officers who fired the shots. There has been a lot of talk about Menezes being tackled before he got to the underground. I doubt if the Officers that spotted and followed Menezes were armed or wore protective vests. If they had weapons and protection and Menezes was stopped in the street, the result may not have been much different. I think there sould be an enquiry into the circs, to see if procedures could be improved, but I suspect it was all down to a set of unfortunate circumstances.
The regime at CO19 is changing - the “dinosaurs” are being gradually weeded out and replaced by instructors with common sense and who don’t have to shout and bully people in order to instruct them in the use of firearms. Unfortunately the quality of students volunteering for firearms duties is suffering the same downturn as the rest of society and so we have to put up with less intelligent and less wordly wise men and women as time goes on, and there is a pressure on us to pass more and more students even though years ago they would not have made the grade. We simply have to reflect the society ( i.e. the playstation generation) from which they come. there it is - sorry.
Im not sure I`d agree with dinosaurs Creepy. Maybe they were some of the most arrogant Sob`s Id ever met, but many seemed to know their stuff. I think it was more the culture than the people. And that is changing for the better.
The problem is that the new culture allows many who would NEVER have made it through the old course to now operate on an ARV. I work with them, and can honestly say I dont entirely trust them to do the right thing should the wheel really come off. Now thats something I thought I would never have to say.
As I`m sure you know Creepy, “If you go hunting for tigers, be prepared to find them”
Ah well, I guess I could always do the Cadre.
It a shame the press people who slag off CO19 or other forces TFUs don’t have to go on some sort of firearms understanding course
once they spend a day being shown the basics then and only then can they comment on the work these guys do
I for one having been given a taster of what they do wouldn’t ever do there job (mainly cause I couldn’t hit a cows arse with a banjo when it came to the FATS system)
keep up the good work and enjoyed the books steve
Glad to see its still up and running. Its a shame theres a few that want to bicker amongst themselves. Lets not forget, that if you cant trust your colleagues, you could always go back to borough to work!!!!!!
Remember that if the wheel comes off then its you we look up to, so lets stop this bickering, Creepy and Weepy and if your fellows aren’t good enough then perhaps more time should be spent educating them and helping them to help you to sort that wheel out, should it ever require fixing.
We look up to you so please dont let us believe that moral is that low!
Hamish and PC Weepy, thanks for your comments, morale isn’t really that low, or certainly no lower than anywhere else in The Job, but there is some frustration from “us” when students who, with the best will in the world, keep returning for re-courses when they shouldn’t really have keys to cars, let alone firearms on the streets of London ( or anywhere else for that matter) We don’t generally have enough input in their not being recommended for further courses, as their originating Boroughs pay, they have the say - and it’s not unusual for students on initial courses to come back two or three times. It goes without saying that there are a finite amount of “scenarios” on firearms training courses, and it doesn’t take the brains of Einstein to see that they must have the right answers to most of it if they’ve got it wrong so many times before!!
Another way to look at “weak” candidates is that they are being sent out on the ARV’s or to Prot. jobs and if they don’t have the right grit, common sense and judgement then they are as much a danger to themsleves as to others… and PC Weepy I’ve worked with them and you’re doing it now, and you know if there’s even the slightest inkiling that a PC or Skipper is going to fold when it gets tough, your team is only as strong as the weakest member.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the advent of the Olympics could reduce standards even further just to get the massive amount of AFO’s needed, and at the moment with the overtime debacle going on in CO19 it’s going to be a trying time for us all.
Still, as long as we can still laugh at it and keep a smooth trigger action, we’ll be OK! all the best Fellas!
Creepy (how appropriate)I’m with Hamish, are you familiar with the word “loyalty” or the concept of not washing your laundry in public?
# Tom Paine Says:
July 18th, 2006 at 6:33 am
“……Gary is also right that they should not stand in the dock alone. Without new law (i.e. an amendment to the law of murder to add an appropriate new defence) the “shoot to kill” policy is an order to commit murder. It is illegal. Not just Cressida Dick, but also Charles Clarke, Commissioner Blair (and perhaps - if he authorised the policy - his political namesake) should be in the dock alongside the CO19 boys….”.
I agree, killing an individual who has not made a hostile move is unlawful. Here is th relevant extract from Archbold that was referred to in the debates n the Criminal Law Act 1967;
2512. Killing in defence of person or property. If any person ‘attempts to rob or murder another in or near the. highway (R. v. Bull, 9 C. & P. 22) or in a dwelling-house, or attempts burglariously to break into a dwelling house in the night-time, and is killed in the attempt, the slayer is entitled to acquittal, for the homicide is justifiable and the killing without felony. See Offences against the Person Act, 1861, s. 7 (ante,
2163), and 1 Hale 481, 482. The same rule applies where a man is killed in attempting to burn a house: 1 Hale 488; or where a woman kills a man who attempts to ravish her.. 1 Hale 485; 1 Hawk., 7th ed., 2~,-s. 21; or where a man is killed in attempting to break open a house in the daytime, with intent to rob : 1 Hale 488; or to commit any other forcible and atrocious crime: Bracton, PLCor.’155; Fost. 273; 1 Hale 484; R- v. Ford, Kel.J) 51; Fost. 274; R. v. Symondson, 60 J.P. 645. The killing need not be in self-defence but may be in defence of another against whose person or property serious felony is threatened: R. v. Rose, 15 Cox,540; and see Handcock - v. Baker, 2 B. & P. 260. And not only the party whose, person or property is thus attacked but his servants or other members of his family, and even strangers who are present at the time, are equally justified in killing the assailant: 1 Hale 483; Fost. 274; R v. Rose, ante (a).
The above rule, however, does not extend to felonies without force, such as picking pockets, 1 Hale 488, nor to misdemeanours of any kind; and even in cases within the rule it must be proved that the intent to commit such forcible and atrocious crime was clearly manifested by the felon, 1 Hale 48-1, otherwise the homicide will be manslaughter at least, if not murder. Where a servant set to watch in his master’s garden at night shot a person whom he saw going into his master’s hen-roost, it was held that he was not justified in so doing, unless he had fair grounds to believe his own life to be in actual danger: R. V. S~U17y, 1 C. & P.’219; and see R. v. Weston, 14 Cox M6, as to use of firearms. A constable found a man wrongfully carrying off wood (a misdemeanour); he did not know that the man had been twice before convicted, which made the offence felony. He fired at him and wounded him. Held that he had no justification: R. v. Dadson, 2 Den. 35. In cases within the rule, it may be necessary to observe that the party whose person or property is attacked is not obliged to retreat, as in other cases of self-defence, but may even pursue 1 c the assailant until he finds himself or his property out of danger: 1 East -P.C. 27; Fost. 273; and see Aldrich v. Wright, 53.’New Hampshire 398, where the English authorities are collected. But he must not strike blows except in self- defence. R. v.- Knock, 1.1 Cox I; R. v. Deana, 73 J.P. 255 (b)….”.
The critical part is “and even in cases within the rule it must be proved that the intent to commit such forcible and atrocious crime was clearly manifested by the felon, 1 Hale 48-1″… That is what the law is. I do not know, however, what information was given to the individual(s) who pulled the trigger. That is the crux of the matter.
Regards, John Hurst.
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
cant remember who said it but its true
Hamish and Gaz,
Sorry guys but I cant understand how stating the way Creepy and I feel about the department is disloyal or washing our dirty laundry in public.
Surely this site was set up by “the guvnor” to state how things really are in the job at the moment? Creepy has eloquently explained what is happening within CO19 regarding training, and I think most instructors I have spoken to feel very much the same.
Still, as he finishes his last entry, we can still laught about it…….for now anyway.
Lets ponder for a moment…….. If I am late for work once, I have to purchase Donohuts for the entire team.
If I am late twice then its Breakfast for the whole team, a third then its lunch and a fourth well then i get a F163 (disipline)
However, it appears if you give the order to shoot and its the wrong man, well then you get promoted…….
The Met has to many SMT members who have to manypoxes to tick…….. am i Wrong …. Did’nt think so
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