London Cops Get Trigger Happy
Pigwatch | 22.08.2002 18:50
LONDON (Reuters) - Specialist police officers in London will soon be armed with plastic bullets in a bid to cut the number of people killed in police shootings, the capital's police have said.
The introduction of "baton guns" in the capital on September 1 was given the go-ahead by Home Secretary David Blunkett in June last year.
"The weapon can be deployed within a metre of a suspect in any direction," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Wednesday.
"It will be an additional tactical option for officers and not a replacement for firearms. It is primarily for use in situations of serious violence, such as those involving long bladed weapons," London's police service said.
Police say the single-shot baton guns can knock a person over at 100 ft (30 metres), but are a less lethal alternative to live ammunition.
A number of recent fatal shootings have attracted widespread media coverage and criticism from human rights groups and the victims' families.
The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) said in the 12 months to March 2002 it had investigated four fatal shootings, three non-fatal incidents and one use of a baton round.
Although plastic bullets or baton rounds have been used regularly in Northern Ireland, police have fired them only a handful of times on the mainland.
A baton round was recently fired at a man accused of threatening officers with a Samurai sword in Surrey in April.
Critics say plastic and rubber bullets have killed 17 people and injured thousands more in Northern Ireland. The United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets, a Belfast pressure group, has called for them to be banned.
Civil rights campaigners Liberty said the police should consider less harmful alternatives like pepper spray.
[scary picture: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/020821/80/d7x2s.html]
The introduction of "baton guns" in the capital on September 1 was given the go-ahead by Home Secretary David Blunkett in June last year.
"The weapon can be deployed within a metre of a suspect in any direction," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Wednesday.
"It will be an additional tactical option for officers and not a replacement for firearms. It is primarily for use in situations of serious violence, such as those involving long bladed weapons," London's police service said.
Police say the single-shot baton guns can knock a person over at 100 ft (30 metres), but are a less lethal alternative to live ammunition.
A number of recent fatal shootings have attracted widespread media coverage and criticism from human rights groups and the victims' families.
The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) said in the 12 months to March 2002 it had investigated four fatal shootings, three non-fatal incidents and one use of a baton round.
Although plastic bullets or baton rounds have been used regularly in Northern Ireland, police have fired them only a handful of times on the mainland.
A baton round was recently fired at a man accused of threatening officers with a Samurai sword in Surrey in April.
Critics say plastic and rubber bullets have killed 17 people and injured thousands more in Northern Ireland. The United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets, a Belfast pressure group, has called for them to be banned.
Civil rights campaigners Liberty said the police should consider less harmful alternatives like pepper spray.
[scary picture: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/020821/80/d7x2s.html]
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Comments
Hide the following 9 comments
oi man
22.08.2002 22:22
[just thort i would post to save all the persons who are challeneged in the mind who usually post after i post on indymedia]
Pigwatch
been there done that
22.08.2002 22:43
sgt derek bulldogbullroot
Confusing the issue
22.08.2002 23:26
It fires circular plastic rounds that can knock down a person from 25 metres when they are aimed at the stomach.
It causes trauma, it is an impact weapon. But that has to be levelled against the possibility of someone being shot dead.
Tests are still being carried out on tazers - stun guns with a high-voltage charge - which are used in America and Canada but again there are issues regarding the use of these, notably the problem of people with unforseen heart defects. A cynic might argue thou that when a person chooses to start waving a weapon in public they really do take the consequences of police action into there own hands.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1460000/images/_1460116_plastic_bullet150.jpg
THIS (ABOVE) IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE NEW BATON ROUND... Designed to cause less damage and not to penetrate the body of the person shot.
The old style round, which had a tapered end... (shaped liked above but with a conical end) which was less effective, prone to ricochet and was known to be potentially lethal, IS NOT BEING USED.
How i see it is fairly simple. If you decide to start waving weapons and threatening people in a public place, then the use of force to 'disable' you from carrying out a violent and unreasonable action is justified to protect the public good.
Clearly the use of force has to be justified and officers are not going to use these guns indiscriminantly.
Mike
e-mail: mjpann@essex.ac.uk
Oi, Mike.
23.08.2002 07:35
Andy
Cunning Plan
23.08.2002 09:04
Baldrick
This is why Andy...
23.08.2002 09:31
blacknred
spot drug checks by met
23.08.2002 11:05
UN
Drug busts
23.08.2002 13:30
The pig said that they had put an advert in the Evening Standard the week before saying that 'the Lambeth experiment had gone well and it looked like the government was going to downgrade cannabis, and that the Met fully supported this', but the cop said this was just a ploy to make us complacent and they were going to pull this trick lots in the next few months. They were outside the Guilford Festival and V2002 with dogs. Cuntsubble pineappleheads.
What sick kind of society would make a plant 'against the law!'? Do they think that God made a mistake? Maybe he was spending the eighth day having a smoke and relaxing and some seeds fell from his stash and started this mayhem?
Fuck them and their laws. Who cares what fucking class this or that is. Just smoke the gange and eat the shrooms, and all will become clear.
Andy
reply to Baldric
24.08.2002 01:42
2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/460116.stm
1999
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1436689.stm
2001
All of these incidents... over a span of THREE years clearly show that the people shot were a danger to the public and police.....
Hostage taking, despite it being an imitation firearm is still hostage taking, and replica firearms being waved about are just as intimidating as the real thing to those unaware they are 'fake'...
also.... i bet you'd be less then willing to try and talk down a person waving a samauri sword in a psychotic state... coupled with the fact that other non lethal control methods such as CS had failed.
In reality the officers attending this incidents arent looking to shoot the person. far from it. They go to extreme measures to effect a non lethal take down/ arrest.
Again i come back to my earlier statement... if you start waving lethal weapons or items percieved to be such in public then you should expect a police response.
As to the incident involving the table leg... the officers were warned the individual had a shotgun... they didnt know it was a tabled leg and the actions of the individual did nothing to alter their opinion he was armed.
mike
e-mail: mjpann@essex.ac.uk