We really are on a 'short fuse' after the terrorist attacks in London and ensuing panics.
Last month, I described, dear readers, that people were reporting suspicious packages all over the place. There were many scares all over the country. Here was one I happend apon:
Nottingham Bomb Scare, Mansfield Road [another false alarm]
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2005/07/317959.html Crumbs!!
Well, there I was at 3.30pm this afternoon, travelling down the Nottingham Road, passing the junction of Gregory Boulevard, when four police cars including the heavy mob, and some Armed Responce Units, pulled over a bus.
I didn't know what was going on to start with, but like most citizens, am quite concerned to be confronted by guns on the streets.
I photographed what I could. The incident only lasting a few minutes. When the guns had gone, I asked a seargent what was at issue. Apparently someone had reported seeing a man with a gun on the bus. Turns out to having been a toy gun. This is of course, a frequent reason for armed responce turnouts.
Now, in these times after recent events, some sections of the population are getting more police attentions than others and some folks are looking at people of a wide variety of ethnic origins with suspicions.
I asked the officer, since he mentioned 'these times' what was the ethnic origins of the people concerned here, but he declined to answer, saying that it wasn't relevent.
I quite agree with him, it shouln't be should it? But it is relevent now. The Chief Constable of the British Transport Police has said that he's not going to waste resouces in stopping and searching white old ladies.
Anyway, if you look past the police 'scrum' in the bus stop, you can see who the subject is. Low and behold, it's an south asian family.
Nottingham Peace rally in response to the London bombings
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2005/07/319509.html * * * * * *
Gun Crime and Police response - Collected Links
There have been a number of protest marches and meeting in Nottingham. In common with many other cites, there has been a surge increase shootings and gun crime in general. This last week, I've been looking further into the situation. Both the reports of the shootings, mostly 'Black Youth' and the police response to it.
So much has been written, and I'll add my 'nine-pence worth' in due course. But I have collected these links together as a set, to give an idea of the scale of the developing situation. Read, and be depressed!
American readers, might of course, wonder what all the fuss is about. Shooting folks is normal, ain't it?
* * * * * *
Gun law : Britain's police are famed for walking the streets armed with nothing more lethal than a truncheon.
But now, for the first time, bobbies on the beat in two violent districts of Nottingham are carrying guns. John Kampfner asks, is this the shape of things to come?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,406343,00.html US-style gun law comes to Britain - Nottingham police on armed foot patrol after rise in shootings [Operation 'Real Estate']
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,2763,386622,00.html Operation 'Real Estate' Nottingham response to gun crime: Police Review 17th November 2000
Metropolitan Police - Force Firearms Unit (SO19)
http://www.met.police.uk/so19 Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)
http://www.acpo.police.uk They have produced guidelines and have released the first six chapters of the Manual of Guidance on Police Use of Firearms. available here as PDF
Chapter 1 Introduction
http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter1.pdf Chapter 2 Use of Force
http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter2.pdf Chapter 3 Issue and Carriage of Firearms
http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter3.pdf Chapter 4 Command
http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter4.pdf Chapter 5 Use of Firearms
http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter5.pdf Chapter 6 Investigations and Remedies
http://www.acpo.police.uk/policies/Chapter6.pdf Facing Violence: The Response of Provincial Police Forces
A Report of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary Inspection 1995
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/hmic/fvrppf.pdf INQUEST's statistics on fatal shootings can be found at:
http://www.inquest.org.uk Mothers Against Guns on my blog at:
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2003/02/mothers-against-guns-httpwww.html * * * * * *
Heckler & Koch MP5-Series submachine gun
http://www.waffenhq.de/infanterie/mp5.html Walther P990 Pistol
http://www.impactguns.com/store/walther.html ***********
There are two previous enties on my blog about all this.
Tash Blog - Mums Against Guns protest and meeting
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_tash_lodge_archive.html#88374768 Tash Blog - Gunshot Surveillance / Location Systems
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_tash_lodge_archive.html#88387459 It was only last week that there was a demonstration by 'Mums Against Guns'
http://www.mothersagainstguns.net There has been a rise in the number of shootings lately, both in Nottingham, and British cities at large. It is terrible, and, something must be done! This was the objective of the march and the public meeting.
However, from some of these notes; you might see that the police themselves are more than fallible, in their dealing with the situation. Further, the amount of firepower currently deployed is scaring the blue-blazes out of many of us. Hence I offer you these links, to give you an idea of the scale of difficulties that they, and we are under.
All this is not at all, perculiar to Nottingham. Just as a sample, here are a couple of links to some similar stories on Bristol Indymedia UK
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org top cop speechless as 'lost' police handed over [6feb03]
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3271 Guns in Bristol: [17jan03]
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2995&group=webcast I'm not so sure, that the police can be trusted to do guns. Check these out:
"Cops gun for trouble: Police lose pistols from van" - Nottingham Evening Post - 3 August 1995
"Missing police bullets found" - Nottingham Evening Post - 17 January 2001
"How I found police bullets" - Nottingham Evening Post - 19 January 2001
"Probe after police lose 15 bullets" - Nottingham Evening Post - 3 February 2003
***********
Research in Nottingham Libary Regarding the police use of weapons
I went to Nottingham City Library, to look up previous instance of the previous loss of ammo and weapons by police in the county. I know of instances in 2001 with the loss of another magazine and 1995 when they lost five hand guns out the back of a van. The doors were open, while they drove along, 'cos it was hot, apparently!!
Checked back though their cuttings archives and nothing was there. I asked an assistant about it, and , apparently they only keep 'important cuttings.'
I composed myself, and asked to speak to a senior archivist. She said; we mainly keep cutting of 'policy changes' rather than 'incidents'. And "Yep, I agree, it does seem we've been 'kind' to the police!". She also remembered the story from the time, [thus if she remembered 8 years later, chances are it might have been important!]
As a senior troublemaker, I told her there and then, that I would be grateful if that policy could be changed immediately, to take into account, what are self-evidently serious matters, that should result in 'important cuttings' and would be taking it up with the Nottinghamshire Senior Librarian next week. [watch this space].
Oh god!! I mean, bloody heck, my whole life is like this. So there's another couple of hours next week, to account for all this .. .. ..
This is all a bit outside my usual subjects.
But hey, It needed doing.
Hope you all find it useful. No doubt the police will find my interest in all this, 'interesting!'
____________________________________________
ALAN LODGE
Photographer - Media: One Eye on the Road. Nottingham. UK
Email:
tash@gn.apc.org Web:
http://tash.gn.apc.org WAP phone
http://wappy.to/tash My Blog
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com BroadBand
http://tash.dns2go.com Member of the National Union of Journalists [No: 014345]
____________________________________________
"It is not enough to curse the darkness.
It is also necessary to light a lamp!!"
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Comments
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10.08.2005 08:38
I think the pistol the officer is using is a Glock 17L?
magoo
More stuff on guns and law enforcement
10.08.2005 14:17
++++++++
Could this ‘police officer’ be a soldier? [SAS link]
Michael Smith / Sunday Times
BRITISH special forces soldiers took part in the operation that led to the shoot-to-kill death of an innocent Brazilian electrician with no connection to the London bombings, defence sources said last week.
Jean Charles de Menezes was tailed by a surveillance team on July 22 as he caught a bus to Stockwell Underground station in south London. He was shot eight times when he fled from his pursuers at the Tube station.
The Ministry of Defence admitted last week that the army provided “technical assistance” to the surveillance operation but insisted the soldiers concerned were “not directly involved” in the shooting.
Press photographs of members of the armed response team taken in the immediate aftermath of the killing show at least one man carrying a special forces weapon that is not issued to SO19, the Metropolitan police firearms unit.
The man, wearing civilian clothes with a blue cap marked “Police”, was carrying a specially modified Heckler & Koch G3K rifle with a shortened barrel and a butt from a PSG-1 sniper rifle fitted to it — a combination used by the SAS.
Another man, dressed in a T-shirt, jeans and trainers, was carrying a Heckler & Koch G36C. Although this weapon is used on occasion by SO19 it appears to be fitted with a target illuminator purchased as an “urgent operational requirement” for UK special forces involved in the war on terror.
The soldiers who took part in the surveillance operation that led to de Menezes’s death included men from a secret undercover unit formed for operations in Northern Ireland, defence sources said.
Known then as 14 Int or the Det, it is reported to have formed the basis of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, the newly created special forces unit stationed alongside the SAS at Hereford. The men include SAS soldiers serving on attachment and are part of a team of around 50 UK special forces that has operated in London since the July 7 bombings in which 56 people died.
Special forces counterterrorist experts have been regularly used to support police at Heathrow since the September 11 attacks. They moved into London a day after the July 7 bombings and have been supporting the police and gathering intelligence to help snare the suspects.
Members of SO19 (technically known as CO19) are trained by SAS and SBS instructors. One key tenet of that training is to ensure that a suicide bomber is killed rather than wounded, which would allow them to trigger a bomb.
The use of multiple shots to the head is the modus operandi of the special forces, whether from the SAS, the SBS or the undercover intelligence operators used in the Stockwell operation. Over the past 30 years the SAS has developed a reputation for never allowing gunmen to remain alive, an attitude shown most graphically during the 1980 Iranian hostages siege and the Gibraltar IRA killings eight years later.
“It is vital to strike fear into the minds of the terrorists,” one former SAS officer said. “In an ongoing situation such as we have now the fear must be directed to the fact that we are watching them and will eventually (get) them. They need to know that they cannot escape.
“We know they are happy to kill themselves but that doesn’t mean they are happy to be killed by others. As long as they evade the police they will think they are in control but the minute they are intercepted they lose control.”
The Ministry of Defence insisted last week that the military involvement was limited in the operation that led to de Menezes’s death. “We would describe it as technical assistance as part of a police-led operation under police control,” a spokeswoman said. “It is a particular military capability that the police can draw on if needed. It was a low-level involvement in support of a police-controlled operation.”
The Det is made up of the army’s best urban surveillance operators using skills honed in Belfast against republican and loyalist terrorists. Its speciality has always been close target reconnaissance: undercover work among civilians, observing terrorists at close quarters, and carrying out covert searches of offices and houses for information and weapons.
The unit was very egalitarian when it operated in Northern Ireland. An operator’s rank was always regarded as less important than his or her capabilities; it was also the only UK special forces unit to use women.
The Det broke into homes to gather intelligence and plant listening devices or hidden cameras. Weapons were left where they were found but “jarked” with tiny transmitters placed inside them that would provide warning should they be moved.
PC George Dixon [attached to Dock Green]