Two police officers shot dead in Manchester

[Angharrad]

Wow, where did he get a grenade over there? Was it a homemade bomb or an actual grenade?

An unnamed source claimed in the Manchester Evening News that if you knew the right people, you could pick up grenades for as little as £50.

Link

[Deepcrush]

No, it isn't. Quite the reverse. It's rather that we are able to maintain a society where people are rather less inclined to go shoot each other than some.

So this is the excuse to maintain such a poorly trained and equipped police force? Because you think its less likely so the lives lost aren't important enough to worry about?

Huh? Short on numbers of police? I've never heard of such a thing being an issue in the UK.

Your brother and seemingly your national numbers say otherwise. Seems the number of officers or response units is extremely lacking.

According to this 67 cops were shot to death in the US last year. In the UK it was zero. In fact from this, there was one prior shot this year, and before that it was 1 in 2007, 1 in 2005, 1 in 2003... so the average seems to be about 0.5 per year.

So the armed police in the US are shot to death something like 120 times as often as our unarmed police are in the UK.

By your site it says 35 but either way, why does high risk in one area excuse amateur operations for another area?

Which really goes to the actual issue here, that the two countries have very different cultures. I would never advocate that US cops should go unarmed - they'd be shot to pieces, obviously. But you can see from a casual glace at the numbers that there just isn't that culture here. Our cops aren't armed, for the most part, but our criminals also aren't armed for the most part. It's a less gun saturated, less violent culture where occasions like this are so rare that it really would be absurd to make policy based on them. If our police went routinely armed, the criminals would start to do the same. We'd go down the US route and the result would be that a few years along the road we'd have the same result - a far greater number of dead police officers.

All of this assuming that your criminals don't break laws. Of course that you still lose officers largely makes a joke out of your statement. Criminals don't care how the police are armed, they are criminals. They arm themselves with whatever they can get much like a grenade in this case.

It covers you on the approach to the property - which is where these two officers were killed. Have you actually read anything at all about the case?

Lets pretend this is a real question and not just more ignorance. A tank doesn't cover your approach into a building, you still have to get out. A tank is not an effective patrol vehicle, cost to high and the increased training would already strain an already poorly organized force. Roads would be destroyed by the constant use of such an item in the field, as well and the disturbance to the populace of having a tank rolling through their streets.

As to the case, I did read about it. I read that it is SOP to send unarmed officers into an area which is believed to be an active crime scene. I saw that it is SOP that said officers not receive backup unless they request it from their dispatch which then has to be approved. By the responses by the British members thus far on the forum, I see that its more acceptable that officers die from preventable causes rather then simply preventing such causes for no other reason then that the police force seems to be held in very low regard. In fact, I've learned a lot from this case and I understand the British exchange officers a lot more because of it.

No UK cop is ever required to rush an armed man when they are not armed. So no, not really a comparison.

Well you either try to rush or you stand and die. Its not about a comparison, its simply a fact of an engagement. Do what you can to survive or be killed.

Of course it does. There are a small number of armed officers. If we required every crime scene to be cleared by an armed officer before other cops turned up, the large majority of the police force would spend most of their time sitting around waiting for the armed cops to show up before they could do anything, and the only way to overcome that would be more armed cops.

I didn't say every crime scene, I stated active crime scenes. Most crimes aren't going to leave active scenes. Most crimes are reported hours after the fact and generally have to do with someone slashing a car or painting some logos on something. A bar tussle or someone passed out on the street. Simple things like these, crimes without intent of violence don't require armed police.

Actually the issue with UK police numbers is more how many the politicians are prepared to pay for. Recruiting has never been an issue.

Didn't you just say above that the UK doesn't have number issues? Which is it?

[Mikey]

Well, both you guys make interesting and salient points, but I have to take a real exception to this:

No UK cop is ever required to rush an armed man when they are not armed. So no, not really a comparison.

Really?! If there is an armed assailant threatening innocents, a cop on the scene ISN'T expected to stop him? There's a word for that - CIVILIAN, aka "not a cop." I understand that the UKoGBaNI doesn't have the gun culture that we do; I understand that shotguns, including homemade sawn-offs and luparas, make up a far greater percentage of gun crimes in the UK than in the U.S., and why that is so, and the reciprocal paucity of semi-auto handguns. I really do. However, the above line tears it for me. No matter how rare it would ever be for a Brit flatfoot to have to use his sidearm, it is absolutely unconscionable to argue that they shouldn't be armed if that means to leave innocent victims to their fate because unarmed cops don't have to try and stop violent crime.

I'm sure that the so-called moral high ground of not having a gun culture would completely salve the feelings of someone who was mugged or raped at gunpoint three yards away from an unarmed cop, right?

[Graham Kennedy]

So this is the excuse to maintain such a poorly trained and equipped police force? Because you think its less likely so the lives lost aren't important enough to worry about?

Three non sequiturs in a row, how efficient of you!

The police force isn't "poorly trained and equipped" at all. And taking an approach that means far fewer lives are lost is hardly proof that the lives lost aren't important.

Your brother and seemingly your national numbers say otherwise. Seems the number of officers or response units is extremely lacking.

As explained, the number of cops in the UK is a political decision. Recruitment is not and never has been a significant issue; they can recruit as many as the people are willing to pay for.

So the armed police in the US are shot to death something like 120 times as often as our unarmed police are in the UK.

Since there are no "amateur operations", the question is meaningless.

All of this assuming that your criminals don't break laws. Of course that you still lose officers largely makes a joke out of your statement. Criminals don't care how the police are armed, they are criminals. They arm themselves with whatever they can get much like a grenade in this case.

No, it doesn't assume that our criminals don't break laws. It assumes that they do not, for the most part, break laws about guns and shooting people. And this assumption is completely correct, criminals in this country only rarely arm themselves with guns. Most do not try to acquire guns, or even want to. You're talking as if there is an unarmed police force walking daily into the teeth of an armed criminal population, but that is simply not the case. The fact that over a hundred thousand police respond to millions of crimes a year, 99%+ of them unarmed, and that shootings are nevertheless incredibly rare practically screams the fact that criminals here almost never carry guns around with them. If you think the average criminal wants to have a gun so he can shoot his way out of trouble, then really you're just demonstrating your utter ignorance of the situation here.

Indeed, since our way results in far fewer dead officers than yours, one wonders just who it is that really doesn't care about the cops who get shot.

It covers you on the approach to the property - which is where these two officers were killed. Have you actually read anything at all about the case?

Lets pretend this is a real question and not just more ignorance. A tank doesn't cover your approach into a building, you still have to get out.

Then let's discuss the actual point, rather than lying about what was said. I said it covers your approach TO the building, not into it. Which is where the cops were shot.

A tank is not an effective patrol vehicle, cost to high and the increased training would already strain an already poorly organized force. Roads would be destroyed by the constant use of such an item in the field, as well and the disturbance to the populace of having a tank rolling through their streets.

Oh, so now practical considerations DO justify reducing officer safety. Make your mind up.

As to the case, I did read about it. I read that it is SOP to send unarmed officers into an area which is believed to be an active crime scene. I saw that it is SOP that said officers not receive backup unless they request it from their dispatch which then has to be approved. By the responses by the British members thus far on the forum, I see that its more acceptable that officers die from preventable causes rather then simply preventing such causes for no other reason then that the police force seems to be held in very low regard. In fact, I've learned a lot from this case and I understand the British exchange officers a lot more because of it.

What a lot of nonsense. All you're demonstrating is that you have no understanding of the situation here. You're viewing it entirely through the lens of how you think things should be done - either through your usual pig headed unwillingness, or an inability to comprehend that other cultures are actually different to yours. You can actually look at a situation in which fewer guns results in fewer dead cops and one in which more guns results in more dead cops, and judge that it's the first case that is doing it wrong? You're just being absurd.

I didn't say every crime scene, I stated active crime scenes. Most crimes aren't going to leave active scenes. Most crimes are reported hours after the fact and generally have to do with someone slashing a car or painting some logos on something. A bar tussle or someone passed out on the street. Simple things like these, crimes without intent of violence don't require armed police.

Burglary IS a crime where there is, the vast majority of the time, no intent of violence. But even assuming that there was, it would still require larger numbers of armed police. It's simple math - Right now we have X number of armed police who respond to incidents involving weapons. If you want them to respond to all active crime scenes then you're going to need more of them doing it.

Didn't you just say above that the UK doesn't have number issues? Which is it?

I said it doesn't have recruitment problems. Concerns with the number of cops are about how many the politicians choose to pay for. As you can see here, for instance : "Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert said the reduced numbers were a result of "necessary savings" as part of the deficit reduction programme." The idea that arming the police would result in some great influx of numbers because finally they're "properly" protected is fantasy.

[Captain Seafort]

A tank is not an effective patrol vehicle, cost to high and the increased training would already strain an already poorly organized force. Roads would be destroyed by the constant use of such an item in the field, as well and the disturbance to the populace of having a tank rolling through their streets.

Oh, so now practical considerations DO justify reducing officer safety. Make your mind up.

It can also be used to argue that the UK is more willing to tailor the equipment used to the threat posed by the crooks. AFAIK (and someone from the States please tell me if my knowledge is incomplete in this area) the US has never deployed tanks as part of a law enforcement operation. The UK has, when one of our more troublesome criminal gangs turned areas of a couple of British cities into no-go areas.

[Mikey]

Not armed tanks; but on occasion some Special Weapons and Tactics units use an armored, treaded chassis topped with a battering ram to create a point of entry and to provide rolling cover.

I find it interesting that while we talk about how much more prevalent gun crime is in the U.S. than in the UKoGBaNI, we also have here a native talking about criminal gangs actually becoming sovereign warlords in certain British cities. In other words, I don't recall a MBT ever being needed in U.S. law enforcement.

I also find it interesting that nobody answered my comment about cops not being required to actually protect anyone from a criminal.

[Captain Seafort]

I find it interesting that while we talk about how much more prevalent gun crime is in the U.S. than in the UKoGBaNI, we also have here a native talking about criminal gangs actually becoming sovereign warlords in certain British cities. In other words, I don't recall a MBT ever being needed in U.S. law enforcement.

I don't think you ever had money and weapons flooding out of the richest nation on the planet (and a few others besides) and into the hands of your criminal gangs either.

I also find it interesting that nobody answered my comment about cops not being required to actually protect anyone from a criminal.

You didn't say anything about "protect", you asked about an unarmed plod charging an armed offender. In such a situation the response would be to evacuate the area, call for armed backup, and try and calm the bloke with the gun down, if possible. They would not be required to charge the individual (although quite a few have in the past, resulting in several GCs, at least one posthumous).

[IanKennedy]

Not armed tanks; but on occasion some Special Weapons and Tactics units use an armored, treaded chassis topped with a battering ram to create a point of entry and to provide rolling cover.

I find it interesting that while we talk about how much more prevalent gun crime is in the U.S. than in the UKoGBaNI, we also have here a native talking about criminal gangs actually becoming sovereign warlords in certain British cities. In other words, I don't recall a MBT ever being needed in U.S. law enforcement.

I also find it interesting that nobody answered my comment about cops not being required to actually protect anyone from a criminal.

What would be the problem. They have batons to protect them selves as well as others. They also have pepper spray and some are looking into using tasers.

[IanKennedy]

Well, both you guys make interesting and salient points, but I have to take a real exception to this:

No UK cop is ever required to rush an armed man when they are not armed. So no, not really a comparison.

Really?! If there is an armed assailant threatening innocents, a cop on the scene ISN'T expected to stop him? There's a word for that - CIVILIAN, aka "not a cop." I understand that the UKoGBaNI doesn't have the gun culture that we do; I understand that shotguns, including homemade sawn-offs and luparas, make up a far greater percentage of gun crimes in the UK than in the U.S., and why that is so, and the reciprocal paucity of semi-auto handguns. I really do. However, the above line tears it for me. No matter how rare it would ever be for a Brit flatfoot to have to use his sidearm, it is absolutely unconscionable to argue that they shouldn't be armed if that means to leave innocent victims to their fate because unarmed cops don't have to try and stop violent crime.

They're not unarmed because we don't want them to be. They're unarmed because we don't need them to be and they don't want to be. Even after this event the police unions voted overwhelmingly that they didn't want or need to be armed.

I'm sure that the so-called moral high ground of not having a gun culture would completely salve the feelings of someone who was mugged or raped at gunpoint three yards away from an unarmed cop, right?

If that ever happened I'm sure it would be an issue, but it never has happened. rapists do not have guns in the UK. Roll your eyes as much as you want guns just aren't very common at all over here.

It's like saying that all US cops should be armed with rocket launchers in case they have to defend against a criminal with a Attack Helicopter. OK, it's pretty rare that they will need it but just think what would happen if they did need it and didn't have it. How could they ever look those poor civilians in the face ever again. Defence against something that doesn't happen is unwarranted.

[Captain Seafort]

It's like saying that all US cops should be armed with rocket launchers in case they have to defend against a criminal with a Attack Helicopter. OK, it's pretty rare that they will need it but just think what would happen if they did need it and didn't have it. How could they ever look those poor civilians in the face ever again. Defence against something that doesn't happen is unwarranted.

Or routinely patrol in attack helicopters in case they have to take on a bloke going on the rampage in a tank. Which has happened.

[Mikey]

I don't think you ever had money and weapons flooding out of the richest nation on the planet (and a few others besides) and into the hands of your criminal gangs either.

No, we've got all the ones except the small fraction that make it out of here and over there. Your reasoning is invalid, the point stands.

In such a situation the response would be to evacuate the area, call for armed backup, and try and calm the bloke with the gun down, if possible.

And the criminal - considering the aforementioned rarity of gun crime in the UKoGBaNI, it would be one with an even higher than typical chance of being psychopathic, disorganized-psychotic, or ODD - would wait for all that to happen? Remember, if a guy is going on a violent rampage with a gun, it's usually because he intends to commit violence.

although quite a few have in the past, resulting in several GCs, at least one posthumous

Well, G-d bless them and thanks to them for doing their duty. But it IS their duty, and if they had had a more reliable method of incapacitation to hand the posthumous example might have been on hand to receive his award, and anybody who was hurt by one of the offenders might not have been.

What would be the problem. They have batons to protect them selves as well as others. They also have pepper spray and some are looking into using tasers.

Great! If those less-lethal^* methods are considered to be means enough to incapacitate a violent offender, why does the provision - which Graham mentioned - exist to allow these guys to NOT try to help people in danger?

^* - I use the correct terminology "less lethal" rather than the colloquial "less-than-lethal" or "non-lethal" because those latter terms are frankly incorrect. While the chances of being killed when shot with a gun are far greater than when targeted by a Taser, CS spray, bean-bag round, etc., those methods can and have killed people. BTW, you might surprised to find out how many violent offenders are NOT incapacitated by CS or Tasers/stun guns.

They're not unarmed because we don't want them to be. They're unarmed because we don't need them to be and they don't want to be. Even after this event the police unions voted overwhelmingly that they didn't want or need to be armed.

Then why did the GC recipient Seafort mentioned have to have his award presented posthumously? Surely, the department didn't wait until the guy was long retired and died of old age in his bed to present his award? You're also operating under the incorrect assumption that I believe police should be armed with equivalence to the criminal element. I do not, I believe the police should overmatch the criminals. You want to say that nobody in the UKoGBaNI ever uses a gun to commit a crime? Fine - but if the criminals over there use sticks, knives, broken bottles, Millwall bricks, or what have you (and I know they do,) then the police shouldn't just have batons - they should have handguns (including BUG's.) The police are, by definition, on the right side of the law - they shouldn't be matched to the criminals, they should have a clear, distinct, and unmistakably deterrent advantage.

If that ever happened I'm sure it would be an issue, but it never has happened. rapists do not have guns in the UK. Roll your eyes as much as you want guns just aren't very common at all over here.

It's like saying that all US cops should be armed with rocket launchers in case they have to defend against a criminal with a Attack Helicopter. OK, it's pretty rare that they will need it but just think what would happen if they did need it and didn't have it. How could they ever look those poor civilians in the face ever again. Defence against something that doesn't happen is unwarranted.

Defense against something that rarely happens is not the same as defense against something that never happens. If armed violent crime never happens in the UKoGBaNI, then what are these "no-go" areas of cities that are taken over by violent gangs of which Seafort speaks? Again, why did that GC recipient have to be buried if he wasn't killed? You can talk about all the violence in the U.S., and you'd be right if off the topic; but WE aren't the country that had to legislate against bringing copies of The Guardian into soccer matches because the hooligans had figured out how to make deadly weapons out of it (and prior to that, we're not the country whose police didn't think it unusual that 17-year-old skinheads were toting copies of The Guardian to soccer matches.)

[Teaos]

I cant remember where I heard this example but this is how the "police with guns" debate was framed in NZ.

* I the US there was a gun battle in LA where the Criminals had body armor and high power assault rifles which totally outclassed the local police and even SWAT, several police officers died. In response the City of LA issued more high powered weapons to its force and increased body armor.

* in NZ there was a serios gun battle where several officers were wounded but none died. In response the Goverment tightened Gun control, issued an amnesty on all unregistered guns, and increased public awareness of gun crime.

I think the same goes for the UK.

Im not saying the US way is wrong, I fully support the second amendment. Im just pointing out how different we look at crime.

The US doesnt need to be like the UK or NZ and they dont have to be like the US.

What works for one will not work for the other and to suggest that your way is right (talking to both sides) is the ultimate arrogance.

[Graham Kennedy]

Im not saying the US way is wrong, I fully support the second amendment. Im just pointing out how different we look at crime.

Nor do I, actually. Snark aside, the US has a gun saturated culture. I think aspects of that are fine, and aspects of it are pretty disturbing, but it is the culture they have and you can't just change a culture by dictat. UK style gun regulation and policing just wouldn't work in the US. I hear UK people sometimes talking in amazement about why the government in America doesn't do something about guns, especially after the latest round of massacres, and I don't think UK people really understand that guns are just a part of the landscape there. I kind of get it, just because I happen to know a lot of Americans online and have talked to them about it.

But what it's sometimes hard to get across is that this works both ways. You see Americans talking about how awful it must be for UK police to be unarmed, or about how "the government has disarmed the people", and they really don't get that for the most part there is an active anti gun culture here. The gun laws we have weren't forced on the people, they were demanded by the people - as I recall the last major round of restrictions enjoyed more than 90% support in the polls. The idea of needing a gun for self defence is considered pretty much laughable here. And no, criminals do NOT see this as a great utopia where they can arm up and prey on the rest of us sheep with impunity.

None of this is to suggest that our way is right. Only that it's right for us.

[Mikey]

The U.S. was born of guns. Remember, while to you guys it was just colonial unrest and dealt with by the proper wielders of the old Brown Bess - the redcoats - the American Revolution on our part was fought by citizen soldiers, equipped at first with either stolen or captured weapons, or with their own fowling pieces and hunting musketoons from above the mantle. If German gunsmiths didn't settle in Pennsylvania and later the midwest, bringing their traditional jaeger rifles with them, there would never have been the derivative elegant Pennsylvania and Kentucky rifles or subsequent Hawken rifles, and thusly none of the so-called "trade rifles..." which could have literally meant that U.S. expansion would have been halted at the Mississippi River, if not even farther east. Texas is American territory, not Mexican, almost solely due to American superiority in weapons tech in the 1840's. To this day, there are plenty of families who eat meat primarily because someone was able to knock down a squirrel, cleanly shoot a cottontail, or take a side of venison. Because of this, I guess I find it difficult to understand the mindset that, even though gun crime is so rare in the UK, that you guys could treat it as completely nonexistent. Certainly there are guns there; and we all know that you guys aren't short of dangerous and violent loonies - just because you keep them in the stands at football matches doesn't mean they don't exist.

What's interesting from an anthropological perspective is the question of how you guys don't have a gun culture. For many years, London and Birmingham were the height of firearm manufacture; the original caplock came from Scotland; the Martini-Henry was for some time the model for rifles worldwide; through the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was common knowledge that the ultimate wingshooting pieces came from England. The paradox gun, the howdah pistol, Nitro Express rifles, Brit innovations every one. You guys invented the punt gun - a massive shotgun, often double-barreled with two different actions. It was common to have one barrel a caplock and the other a flintlock; because flintlocks fire more slowly than caplocks, the recoil of the caplock barrel would actually tip back the stern of the boat to which the gun was fixed to the extent that by the time the flintlock barrel got around to firing, it would already be pointed up into the line of flight of any birds that escaped the first barrel. So what happened to change the national ideology of this land of gun guys?

[Teaos]

Well I think in UK Guns were only owned by the wealthy land owners, by the time the industrial revolution really took hold the UK was A) Heavily Urbanised where rifles and shotguns were not needed B) Densly populated so there is no real hunting (again apart from the wealthy). Hand guns were never needed on the isles for funtional purposes as they were in the US so they never saturated.

In NZ the natives obviously never had guns (apart from some captured ones they used to little effect) so the few weapons were always in the hands of organised colonists. While hunting was and still is rather popular it is only done with Rifle or Shotguns. I only know 2 people personally who own guns, one of my eldest brothers friends and one of my 7 uncles. Both were in the army. And although I have seen these weapons when they showed them to people, they were in a locked safe and they never let anyone else even touch them. To this day I have never seen a handgun in civilian hands. The only time I ever saw a Automatic weapon in NZ was in the American embassy, which is technically American soil.

Guns were never apart of who we were, some people hunted, but they used their guns for hunting. Hand guns are almost unheard of in private hands since their is no logical reason for a civilian to own one. Although my uncle did tell me once he knew a Maori guy who hunted with a hand gun, he used to track into the bush, put his dogs afte a wild pig, tackle it to the ground, and while wrestling with it shoot it point blank with a pistol... anyone who has ever seen a wild pig knows how batshit insane this is...