London's Burning

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by richlevy

First of all, since when did beat cops in the UK start carrying guns.

Second, police issue bullet in the radio? Where these guys part of some sort of exchange program with the Chicago PD?

Beat cops are not armed in the UK. The police who shot and killed Duggan, were members of the elite CO19 unit of the Met Police. There are special units who are armed and able to respond to situations where an armed response may be needed. This is actually probably one reason why the country gets very upset when the police kill someone by mistake. It happens very rarely, but every time it does it is a massive issue. Unfortately the police press machine does itself no favours in such instances. Their first strategy is pretty muich always both to heap laurels on the bravery of the police concerned and effect a character assasination of the deceased in order to place the blame for the death onto the victim. Those close to the case know instantly that this is not the truth and the anger starts at that level. Then the details start to come out and the gulf between the intial reports and the reality sparks national anger and concern.

The Menenez killing was a classic example.
Initial reports said that they'd been watching him for some time, that they knew he was likely to be carrying a bomb, that he had been wearing a hoodie and a backpack, that the police went into the subway station after him and shouted at him to stop, and that on hearing that warning he ran and vaulted the ticket barrier, rushing onto the platform and boarding the train that was there.

The police followed him onto the train dragged him from his seat and put several bullets into him before he had a chance to set off any device.

The only part of that story that turned out to be true was the bit about him being dragged from his seat and shot several times. No hoodie, no backpack, no shouyed warning, no running, no vaulting ticket barrier, no suspicious behaviour on the part of Menenez whatsoever. The house they'd been watching as part of an anti-terror surveillance operation was subdivided into flats, and they followed the wrong resident.

Interestingly, the photo that featured on the front pages of most of the newspapers and which had been provided, I think, by the police, darkened his skin tone.

Anyway, back OT:

Here. I found a really interesting article about the situation on the New York Times website. I found it interesting because I like to see how events here are viewed over the Pond. But it also discusses the whole riot response and armed/unarmed policing issue.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...ront-lines/?hp

As British officials promised to end days of widespread riots with “more robust policing,” and 16,000 officers fanned out across London, American readers might be surprised to learn that most members of the force charged with ending the rioting remain unarmed.

Of the more than 32,500 officers in London’s Metropolitan Police Service, just 2,740 were “authorized firearms officers” at last count. Outside the capital, the entire territory of England and Wales is policed with the help of just 4,128 more armed officers.

It's not entirely fair to say they are 'unarmed', as they do have batons, but most of them have no firearms.