Unarmed Policing

After two police officers were killed in the execution of their duty, the question of whether or not the British police service should be routinely armed has arisen again.

I found this article really interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398

But one thing is clear. When asked, police officers say overwhelmingly that they wish to remain unarmed.

A 2006 survey of 47,328 Police Federation members found 82% did not want officers to be routinely armed on duty, despite almost half saying their lives had been "in serious jeopardy" during the previous three years.

The article looks at the very particular relationship the police force has to the public, it's history and how it has developed into an unarmed force.

Also, immediate reports of the incident suggest that the two PCs would not have had time to draw arms anyway, given that they were walking into a trap.
This may change as they look into it further.

But to set a trap to kill two random members of the Police Service knowing he would not be able to evade capture suggests that the man was disassociated from the consequences of his actions. Not the death penalty nor armed police would have been a deterrent.

First time I ever saw guns IRL was waiting for a flight to Cuba at Stansted. Well, except from those carried by soldiers in London. A flight was coming in from Israel and the airport was being monitored. I found it very disturbing. I'd watched 12 Monkeys.

I remember being surprised by the armed soldiers patrolling Heathrow when I had a layover in England. I was thinking "unarmed cops, but machine guns in the airport."

The British public are not nearly so unanimous.

An ICM poll in April 2004 found 47% supported arming all police, compared with 48% against.

Perhaps they can reach a compromise in which each police officer carries an unloaded firearm on their waist belt and just one round of ammunition in a shirt pocket for dire emergency.

But don't go into a panic when Gomer starts shouting "Citizen's arrest! Citizens arrest!"

[YOUTUBE]9efgLHgsBmM[/YOUTUBE]

Americans can't grasp the concept of "only bad guys have the guns."

I can't. And I've talked to plenty of Brits.

We also don't get how a homeowner who defends himself with a cricket bat goes to jail and the criminal who broke in walks free for giving evidence against him.

wolf;831118 wrote:

We also don't get how a homeowner who defends himself with a cricket bat goes to jail and the criminal who broke in walks free for giving evidence against him.

How? For the same reason this happened...

In 1997, Larry Harris of Illinois broke into a bar owned by Jessie Ingram. Ingram, the victim of several break-ins, had recently set a trap around his windows to deter potential burglars. Harris, 37, who was under the influence of both alcohol and drugs, must have missed the warning sign prominently displayed in the window. He set off the trap as he entered the window, electrocuting himself. The police refused to file murder charges. Harris's family saw it differently, however, and filed a civil suit against Ingram. A jury originally awarded the Harris family $150,000. Later, the award was reduced to $75,000 when it was decided Harris should share at least half of the blame.

And a few more from here...

Setting a trap with the intention of harming someone (not that it wasn't a pretty clever idea) has clear elements of responsibility and liability in a civil lawsuit. that is not the same as a person acting spontaneously in defense of self and property in the middle of a home invasion robbery.

How about a homeowner getting sued by the home invader he shot?

I think all cops should have at LEAST one arm removed.

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20081019/news/310199995

I find it interesting that the public are far more open to the idea of routinely arming the police than the police themselves.

I think they know that if they are armed when patrolling then the criminals are far more likely to start carrying guns. There are currently guns amongst the gangs, but they're not ubiquitous yet. And very little crime in this country is committed by people with guns.

You're probably more likely to run into a criminal armed with a blade than a firearm in most parts of the country. With some areas of London and Manchester as exceptions.

I would not like to see the police routinely armed. I think we'd see a sharp increase in guncrime if they were. I also don't think the relationship between communities and police would fare well with that change. There is still a connection there in most comunities between individuals and local police teams. People in very unstable and fractured estates, who hate the police as an institution will probably at some point have stood on a streetcorner laughing with the community police officer, who's ambled over to have a chat with the group of kids he's seen loitering about.

Dixon of Dock Green they are not, and relationships between individual police constables and the local community are forged and broken at an alarming rate, as police staff are moved around and policing structures changed with various initiatives from government. But...they do try, generally. And often succeed in small ways even as their institution fucks things up on a grand scale.

Those links are fragile though. And they rely on that police officer being able to convince the person they're talking to that they are there for them not against them, at least for the duration of that conversation. I really don't think that would be in any way helped if one party in that conversation was carrying a lethal weapon.

I think your police know that more is expected of armed officers than unarmed officers when they encounter violent crimes in progress and that they're not going to be compensated anything more for accepting the additional responsibility: they may as well leave it to specialized armed response teams. Those specialized teams know that by the time they arrive on scene the violence will often be over with since there are no armed routine officers to contain the perpetrators until backup arrives. Seems like a win-win situation for police officers and violent criminals at the public's expense. Government also potentially saves through avoiding possible post-intervention civil liabilities when it reduces the number of armed interventions.

I get the impression that half the public simply doesn't trust its routine police to be armed. They would rather take their chances with encountering armed criminals than face the uncertainty of arming their police. Claims that arming all police would significantly diminish civil-police relationships, when the trust is that limited anyway, would seem to be a red herring.

Half the public not trusting the police to be armed is a major improvement on previous decades :P

Maybe your police watched too much telly and have been brainwashed into thinking that because they had police boxes they weren't supposed to use guns. Before you know it they'll be wanting to be called lords instead of bobbies and demanding government issued companions. Say, that might make a nice hiatus from teaching!

Good article from the BBC.

For a heavily urbanised country of its population size, the situation in Great Britain is arguably unique.

Film director Michael Winner, founder of the Police Memorial Trust, and Tony Rayner, the former chairman of Essex Police Federation, have both called for officers to be routinely armed.

But despite the loss of two of his officers, Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy was quick to speak in support of the status quo.

"We are passionate that the British style of policing is routinely unarmed policing. Sadly we know from the experience in America and other countries that having armed officers certainly does not mean, sadly, that police officers do not end up getting shot."

But one thing is clear. When asked, police officers say overwhelmingly that they wish to remain unarmed.

sexobon;831247 wrote:

<snip>

I get the impression that half the public simply doesn't trust its routine police to be armed.
They would rather take their chances with encountering armed criminals than
face the uncertainty of arming their police. Claims that arming all police would
significantly diminish civil-police relationships, when the trust is that limited anyway,
would seem to be a red herring.

For those of us who grew up in the 60's, there was a paradigm shift in attitudes towards the police.
Not because they were armed... LE in America has been armed since the earliest days
... after all, that's where the Western movie got started.

But instead we saw the polarization of LE - from protecting the public to protecting the policer officer.
The primary force in this change was first putting police officers into patrol cars,
and next was adding a second officer as the partner.
The WE vs THEY way of thinking among LE became common place,
and the militarization of American LE has been underway ever since.

Of course, the endless rough cop ("Make My Day") movies from Hollywood made such attitudes heroic among some
... maybe that's the half of the public that doesn't start from a position of trust.

I was around to see when metropolitan foot patrol officers began carrying their trusty 6 shot revolver on one side of their waist belt AND a high capacity semiautomatic pistol (oriented for cross-draw) on the other side along with a couple of extra magazines. The polarization of LE came about as the organization of civil unrest became large enough to conceal violent factions which would strike and then blend back into a crowd. The crowds of mostly peaceful demonstrators did largely nothing to help the vastly outnumbered individual LE officers who responded to the violence, since it didn't suit their purposes to do so. Demonstrators publicly denounced the violence in order to be PC; but, privately reveled in the publicity the violence brought to their agendas and permitted it to continue by not policing themselves.

LE reacted to protect itself from what today could be construed as aiding and abetting domestic terrorism. The general population has no one to blame other than itself after it reneged on its partnership with LE (not the other way around) by subscribing to the idea that population subsets of sufficient numbers could turn a blind eye to action factions that operated outside the law: 'All that's needed for evil to prevail is for enough good men to do nothing.'

LE was cut out of the general population loop and forced to fend for itself. It's not unlike soldiers abroad encountering roadside IEDs knowing that local civilians must know about the emplacements; but, they say nothing and soldiers get killed. The soldiers adopt procedures to protect themselves first and then worry about protecting the locals. For LE, their IEDs are violent flash mobs. LE knows that when the shit hits the fan, they're not going to get any help from the general citizenry; so, it has adopted tactics and strategies (like the military) that enable its survival to continue its mission.

Lamplighter;831345 wrote:

... Of course, the endless rough cop ("Make My Day") movies from Hollywood made such attitudes heroic among some
... maybe that's the half of the public that doesn't start from a position of trust.

That's why Republicans had Clint Eastwood speak at the RNC. :haha:

I don't think we can disarm US police, but I do see a downside to having armed police. As a law enforcement officer, the officer represents authority and needs to maintain control of the situation. This is perfectly acceptable as long as professionalism is maintained. Unfortunately, for some officers this devolves into a non-sexual (or maybe not) game of dominance and submission with the civilian. The local cops in my township would concentrate their policing on teenagers driving at night. While some of this was legal, some of it was 'proactive', with police essentially engaging in mild harassment to keep everyone 'in line'. I much prefer police officers who treat a traffic stop the same way a clerk at a coffee shop handles a transaction. "License. Registration. Ticket.". Public safety lectures, fashion tips, life coaching, and other off-topic rants to what is literally a captive audience are not appreciated. Maybe without the gun a cop might consider his words and demeanor more carefully and avoid conflict.

Since the idea of homeowners being charged for defending their property against burglars has been raised:

A judge has told two burglars permanently injured when they were shot by a homeowner: "That is the chance you take."

Judge Michael Pert QC jailed Joshua O'Gorman and Daniel Mansell for four years each after rejecting a plea that he take the shooting into account.

O'Gorman, who was shot in the face, and Mansell, who was hit in his right hand, had pleaded guilty to the break-in in Welby, near Melton Mowbray, at an earlier hearing.

Sentencing them at Leicester Crown Court, the judge said: "I make it plain that, in my judgment, being shot is not mitigation. If you burgle a house in the country where the householder owns a legally held shotgun, that is the chance you take. You cannot come to court and ask for a lighter sentence because of it."

He was responding to a mitigation plea from Andrew Frymann, representing O'Gorman, who said being shot was for his client akin to a "near-death experience" for which he was not prepared. His injuries left him with blurred vision, severe pain and problems with his balance.

Replying to Mr Frymann's suggestion that O'Gorman was traumatised, Judge Pert said the arrest of Mr and Mrs Ferrie on suspicion of grievous bodily harm could be considered just as disturbing. He said: "Some might argue that being arrested and locked up for 40 hours is a trauma."

Mr Ferrie, 35, and his wife Tracey, 43, were held in custody for nearly two days after Mr Ferrie called police to tell them he fired his shotgun at the intruders. Their arrests prompted widespread criticism. The couple were later bailed and told they would not face criminal charges.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/jail-burglars-shot-act-130520655.html

Seems a reasonable response to me. Would have been different if they'd been shot in the back whilst attempting to flee (as in one much quoted conviction against a homeowner who 'defended' his property). Because if someone is attempting to get away then the immediate threat of harm is no longer a factor.

DanaC;831981 wrote:

Since the idea of homeowners being charged for defending their property against burglars has been raised:

Tangentially, if someone has invaded your home, how would know your property was the only thing threatened rather than your life and property? I always think of it as a threat to life and property. I suppose burglars are operating within a different reality, so they don't get that?

Also, it's really not that common for households to have firearms. So not something British burglars are going to expect.

Not all that common for me to agree with Judges (well, not when they make the news) but I think his comments were reasonable.

You gambled, you lost. Hazard of the profession.
Burgling I mean, not being a Judge.