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Could the current furore surrounding policing result in armed officers handing in their weapons?
Theresa May’s determination to destroy what is left of police morale, as evidenced by her vitriolic speech to the Police Federation, was perhaps influenced to some extent by comments at the start of week regarding police officers who carry firearms.
Neil Basu, the Commander of the Metropolitan Police’s elite firearms unit, CO19, would have caused considerable consternation at the highest levels of government with his criticism of Home Office backed Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) proposals which would dramatically change procedures in the aftermath of a contentious police shooting.
His assertion that two-thirds of officers would, as they are entitled to do, seriously consider handing back their firearm authorisations if the proposals come into effect, is only the tip of an iceberg that may well escalate into the biggest crisis in the history of UK policing since the police strike of 1919.
Neil Basu and indeed the entire senior management team of the Met will know that last summer disgruntled CO19 officers agreed amongst themselves that they would, en masse, hand back their firearms authorisations if the police officer known as E7, responsible for the death of Azelle Rodney back in 2005, was charged with any offence.
Rodney was in a vehicle with two other men when he was subjected to a ‘hard stop’ by CO19 officers acting on information that the vehicle’s occupants were on their way to rob Columbian drug dealers using firearms.
Whilst previous investigations and enquiries appear to have absolved the now retired officer, the most recent, led by 76 year old retired judge Sir Christopher Holland, concluded last year that there was ‘no lawful justification’ for the death of Rodney at the hands of police. This opens up the real possibility of officer E7 being charged with a criminal offence.
The resultant unrest within CO19 subsided after the Mark Duggan inquest verdict where the jury, despite the intimidatory behaviour of Duggan supporters during the proceedings, largely exonerated police action which included that of the officer responsible for Duggan’s death known as officer V53.
The news that the family intend to appeal however has again heightened tensions and the feeling amongst armed officers is that the matter will be pursued by the Duggan family’s legal team until a court is found, be it in the UK or Europe, which will provide them with a favourable verdict.
There is little doubt however that if either officer E7 or V53 is charged with any criminal offence in relation to the deaths of Rodney and Duggan, then there is every likelihood that the elite Met firearms unit will cease to function as officers hand back their firearms authorisations.
The IPCC recommendations effectively mean that officers would be individually isolated after a shooting incident and compelled to compile their notes without consulting with other officers who were also present. This would have to be done in the immediate aftermath of the incident with little time for the individual officer to collect his or her thoughts.
The public may well initially agree that police officers should not be able to consult in order to ‘get their stories straight’ after an incident but is it that simple?
Barrister David Wolchover, in a letter to the Guardian which strongly criticises Neil Basu’s statement, quotes studies which appear to show that conferring does not produce a more accurate account of the incident.
It would be interesting to see exactly how they reached this conclusion as it is generally accepted that memories of one event can vary dramatically from person to person who witness it without their being any dishonest intent.
If a gunman walked into the middle of a crowded shopping centre or a a busy railway station and fired a number of shots in front of numerous witnesses before fleeing, the statements of those witnesses would vary widely if they made them unaided in the immediate aftermath.
The gunman’s height, build, skin colour, clothing would all vary dramatically from witness to witness as would the sequence of events. Memory is not an exact science but an individual’s inaccurate recollection of events doesn’t necessarily have sinister implications.
TV football fans will know better than most that what appears at first viewing as a foul, penalty, offside etc is, when replayed slowly or from different angles, anything but. Football pundits will, having viewed all the evidence and discussed the issues amongst themselves, eventually reach a common view of what has occurred and it could be argued that a similar process is followed when police ‘confer’ after an incident albeit a far more traumatic one.
Are we really saying that if we had a Kenya shopping mall type incident in say Westfield or Brent Cross where terrorists engage police in a confused, dangerous and complex running battle lasting several hours, we would then isolate all the CO19 officers who had placed their lives on the line?
Would we then expect them individually to immediately produce cogent, coherent statements that would have to stand up in court or at an inquest under cross examination by experienced barristers doubtless funded by the tax payer?
Even ‘bodycams’ where officers wear small video cameras, whilst a step forward, do not tell the whole story in relation to an incident and again could be used to discredit an officer whose account does not tally with what is shown on another officer’s ‘bodycam.’
David Wolchover’s view that police officers could, if they fail to cooperate with the IPCC as witnesses, be arrested and charged for obstructing police is inflammatory and if implemented, will almost certainly ensure result in firearms officers throughout the country handing in their authorisations.
The tone of Wolchover’s letter will be regarded as antagonistic and there is not even the merest hint of praise for the thousands of operations successfully undertaken by armed UK police officers annually which rarely result in firearms being discharged or persons being injured.
Critics of the UK’s armed police units carefully ignore the carnage that takes place in other countries in terms of deaths at the hands of police.
I, as a former Met officer have the greatest respect for many Jamaican police officers I have had the privilege of working with in that country and to whom I did trust my life. Yet there are rogue elements within that force and the fact remains that in a country with the population just the size of the West Midlands, one individual is shot dead by police on average every three days. Strenuous efforts are being made to reduce that figure.
In troubled Nigeria, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice has admitted that the Nigerian police were responsible for the ‘extra judicial’ killings of 7,195 people over a four year period.
The Brazilian authorities bristled with self righteous indignation when Brazilian national Jean Charles De Menezes was tragically mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot dead by a Met officer in 2005. Perhaps some of that energy could have been directed to their own police who kill more than 2,000 persons each year.
Mr Wolchover will be aware that there is of course no requirement for highly trained CO19 or indeed any police officer to carry firearms and they can legitimately refuse to do so at any time. It could well be that other armed officers such as those engaged in diplomatic protection could follow suit in refusing to carry firearms but even if they continued to work normally, their training would mean that they would be unable to fill the void left by CO19.
Senior officers at the highest level of the Met have, it is believed, been discussing the possibility of a ‘strike’ by CO19 officers and doubtless would have considered contingency plans. One might well be to call on ‘mutual aid’ from other police forces yet this could escalate the crisis nationwide if those officers called upon also refused to carry firearms in support of their Met colleagues based on the theory; ‘There but for the grace of god go I’ and of course the current bitterness felt by all rank and file officers towards the government could well harden their determination.
Other unpalatable options would be to bring in the army but few would be trained to deal with the situations faced by armed police officers or, more importantly, the aftermath as envisaged by the IPCC or Mr Wolchover. Elite units such as the SAS would hardly relish being exposed to public scrutiny if called upon to deal with incidents that would normally be dealt with by CO19 and indeed the close links between CO19 and UK special forces would ensure that any such tasking would be greeted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
Of course, those most at risk from a ‘withdrawal of labour’ by CO19 would be the unarmed officers who would have to continue policing the streets of London in circumstances that could become distinctly dangerous yet there is no doubt that these unarmed officers would back their CO19 colleagues to the hilt, especially in view of the bitterness currently felt by all front line officers towards the government.
There have been precedents in previous years when armed officers have ‘downed tools’ where they believe their colleagues have been poorly treated.
In 2002 six SO19 (as CO19 were known then) refused to carry firearms when it seemed possible that four colleagues might be prosecuted by the CPS after they had opened fire on a car containing so called ‘yardie’ gangsters.
2004 saw a more serious occurrence when 125 SO19 officers refused to take their firearms out on patrol after the Met decided to suspend two SO19 officers following inquest verdict into the death of Harry Stanley, who was shot dead by police in 1999.
In both cases, the Met were fortunate in having a commissioner, John Stevens, who was both respected and well liked by all officers across the spectrum of the force which enabled the situation to be resolved. It would be true to say that Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe does not enjoy such a status amongst rank and file officers that comes anywhere near that of Lord Stevens.
The changes proposed by the IPCC will be manna from heaven for barristers participating in the cross examination of officers involved in armed incidents. The inevitable discrepancies in police evidence exploited by barristers, would be likely to convince juries that police are acting corruptly. This could then result in officers being accused of perjury with the very real risk that they themselves could face arrest and trial.
Officers today know that if they fire their weapon, it is likely that they will face months and possibly years of uncertainty placing both themselves and their families under huge stress. If the IPCC proposals significantly increase the risk of officers facing a criminal trial or job threatening disciplinary action as a result of ‘inaccuracies’ in their statements, then is it little wonder that they will vote with their feet and return to routine police duties.
Any decision by CO19 officers themselves and the support they will receive from unarmed colleagues will be taken against a background where officers in the Met and elsewhere feel that they have become the victims of a government inspired smear campaign which highlights the transgressions of a minority of officers whilst ignoring the outstanding achievements on a daily basis of the majority.
It just might be that in the months ahead the government, those political activists on both the right and left who hold the police in contempt and indeed senior police officers, could well reap the seeds of discontent which they currently seem to delight in sowing.