I meant to write something about this months ago, but it got buried in the “Blog Posts that Time Forgot” pile.
The Scottish Police Federation’s stand was by far the best at Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference in Aberdeen in March. It looked impressive and very high tech. They gave you headphones and played a series of videos. If you watched them at the same time as others, you all jumped at the same moment. They showed a series of dangerous situations that Police can encounter in the course of their duties. You have to think of what they would do in that situation. The SPF staff said that you could have a whole roomful of experienced police officers and they would offer up different solutions to each terrifying and potentially life=threatening dilemma.
The most chilling was the call to a report of potential domestic violence. This is an incredibly upsetting video. What reminded me of it was a tweet from the SPF this evening:
Police Scotland recorded 58,976 domestic incidents in 2013-14. This weekend and every weekend http://t.co/os1imwW5VW
— ScotsPolFed 🏴🇺🇦 (@ScotsPolFed) October 31, 2014
It doesn’t get any easier to watch:
What would you do faced with that situation? It really makes you think.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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30 Comments
Oh my god, I actually got scared. People should watch the video. It’s why I have a bit of an authoritarian streak in me.
The police woman there should have a gun, that’s what I would do, arm them.
Police officers throughout the UK are generally well trained. The sort of situation depicted in the video, taken with the figures of regular calls every weekend across Scotland would suggest that most experienced officers would know what they might have to expect. If nothing else it shows why police jobs should not be privatised or have their jobs “out sourced” to cheapest bidder.
It shows why a well paid, well resourced, well trained professional police force is needed and why tax cuts are a bad idea.
Eddie, think through what you have just said about arming the police.
Do you think the routinely armed police officers in the USA handle such domestic violence cases better because they are armed to the teeth?
The evidence would seem to indicate otherwise.
Actually you do not have to go to the USA you can check the statistics for police shootings in the Metropolitan Police area. You may recall that we had some extensive rioting in London a couple of years ago. Do you remember what caused the riots?
But, Eddie, armed police in the US are far more likely to be killed in the line of duty than unarmed police in the UK. And for that matter, civilians (innocent or guilty) are far more likely to be killed by police where officers are armed. Don’t reach for the knee-jerk solution.
Tilley, Todd, I’ll let you have your points, but mine still stands. I don’t believe in guns everywhere, I just think police officers should generally have guns. I even liked the idea of cameras on their jackets. I know, I’m walking out of the realms of British liberalism, but we need a bit of the latest technology. 🙂
Eddie Sammon
Malcolm Todd speaks the truth (and so does John T)
If the evidence suggests that armed police are far more likely to be killed and that civilians are far more likely to be killed then what is the point?
Do we routinely arm police in order to deal with very rare incidents…..I really do not understand the logic
It would also massively change the relationship between civilian and police – I am not a great fan of the police from personal experience and do you think this would be helped by arming them? How well will this go down with the communities where relationships between police and civilian are already very strained?
Can you predict the results of the first death due to a trigger happy policeman….and also remember that the conviction rate of policeman killing unarmed people is vanishingly low already
I searched for a list of the safest countries. Those lists I found all contained countries with armed police. When it comes to the league table of intentional homicide rates, in the top 25 only Iceland has routinely unarmed police. So where is this evidence that routinely arming police would result in a greater likelihood of being killed. The “evidence” generally consists of comparisons with countries like the USA where gun control (and other weaponry) is notoriously poor. Canada has one third the homicide rate of the US whilst arming its police and recent events there are proof of how armed police save lives. Anders Breivik killed 77 people because Norweigan police are not routinely armed. It’s a false comparison. Derek Bird killed 12 people in Cumbria because our police are not armed. I suspect the true evidence would suggest an improvement in crime rates through arming our police. The real question is whether we want the Breivik and Bird risk or policing by consent. I would rather arm our police.
@JohnTilley
“If nothing else it shows why police jobs should not be privatised or have their jobs “out sourced” to cheapest bidder.”
“It shows why … tax cuts are a bad idea.”
The clip shows all sorts of things. I think we can safely say that two of the things it DOESN’T show are why outsourcing police jobs may be a good or a bad thing, or why tax cuts may be a good or a bad idea.
@Stevan Rose 1st Nov ’14 – 6:25pm
Stevan, I think someone has singed the feathers of your bird of Liberty. Not to mention your reasoning.
We do routinely arm our police officers – with knowledge and training, body protection, batons, incapacitant sprays and tasers.
Please could you reference your sources concerning violent crime vs police routinely carrying firearms?
@Stephen. The Intentional Homicide rates for each country are published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, For the avoidance of doubt I was using “armed” in the conventional sense of armed police, i.e. with a firearm. If you check the status of police being equipped with firearms for the top 25 in the UNODC list, only Iceland has routinely unarmed police.
None of the items you list prevented Breivig killing 77 and Bird killing 12. A police bullet would doubless have saved many lives. I feel safer in an airport with police carrying machine guns than if they merely had a pepper spray. Why not on the streets. Swedish and Danish police have guns. Do citizens of those countries have less liberty than those of Norway or the UK? What’s the link between liberty and armed police?
By the way, of course the video is not just about the danger to the police, it and the article also highlights domestic violence itself. The solution to this has to be partly punishment for offenders, but what else can it be? We can’t just have tougher and tougher punishments. I don’t think we discuss this issue enough on LDV. I’m a bit clueless on it. Tackling alcoholism? Mental health services?
Interesting comments. Actually, I’m not convinced that the officers I spoke to would have thought a gun would have been much use. The guy could have killed her in under 3 seconds. My view is that if you have more guns you have more dead people and that is borne out by the US experience.
When the police fire weapons, they should do so only in the most extreme circumstances and when there is no other alternative. I would rather see specialist units carry the guns rather than every officer. It does so much damage to the trust an the relationship between officer and community as we saw recently in the Highlands.
But it’s interesting that everyone’s first reaction was to get into a debate about guns. Go back to the actual scenario. What should the officer do? How does she get out of that horrifically dangerous situation?
Stevan, Apologies for the delay in replying but I found tonight’s Dr Who more realistic to comprehend than your last question.
I had watched the police video and put myself in the policewoman’s situation. In the vast majority of cases, a trained police officer armed with the skills and equipment I had previously listed could decide to retreat and call for back up using her radio or have options and equipment to deal with the probably emotionally troubled and possibly guilt-ridden man.
In truth the police would be trained to be much more cautious in placing themselves in such a situation and would, more than likely, have both their tasers at the ready thus avoiding the videoed training scenario.
Regarding your separate point about tragic but essentially one-off situations, these would I hope each result in a review of police guidance and procedures. The truth is however that in this uncertain life bad things happen and that we can never cover all eventualities even with armed police being everywhere. We could start however by the police threatening to shoot motorists speeding near schools or down country lanes or perhaps construction industry, farming, fishery, mining, quarrying etc bosses who oversee far more deaths every year than the combined figures of police officers losing their lives in the course of their duties or the innocent dying through acts of domestic violence or due to the actions of terrorists and the deranged.
I’m 100% convinced that a gun in this situation would save the life of this police officer. I can’t immediately see any other safe alternative. Without a gun, in this scenario, she is reliant on a baton and/or self defence training, both of which could still result in injury or death. She is not equipped in any way to deter an attack.
Why does arming the police result in more dead people? The US experience is irrelevant due to poor gun control. Why not the Swedish and Danish experience where armed police mean fewer dead people? Why should police with guns damage community trust? Do you distrust the police in those situations where they are already routinely armed, such as airports? They make us safer and more secure. Do Australians, who are culturally very close to us in attitudes, see their armed police as being damaging to community trust? I didn’t notice that on holiday there; their police looked very much like our own. If it was normal to see police armed with guns people would very quickly adapt.
I’ve gone back to the original scenario and more than ever believe only arming that police officer would be sure to save her from serious injury or death and there was time. Just pointing a gun might be enough in that situation to deter an attack.
@Stephen. Is it easier to belittle the question than answer it? Do the Swedes and Danes have less liberty than we do because their police are armed?
Steven, if someone had perhaps just injured or killed his partner and possibly other members of his family, I am not entirely convinced that they would respond rationally in the way you suggest. In truth they may be so emotionally distraught that they don’t care whether they live or die.
When I last heard, the police themselves were against being routinely armed with guns. Teasers and so-called pepper spray are pretty efficient tools in rendering people helpless. They are also likely to prove less lethal if used.
I fully accept your point that other liberal democracies do routinely arm their police but policing by consent still works incredibly well most of the time in most of Britain.
What would have helped in this situation is a panic button with a wireless connection to a third officer outside. So, the video is an argument for more technology, and more officers. Well worth supporting. But things probably don’t get this serious often, otherwise there’d be many more police killed in the line of duty than listed on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty
The North Yorkshire police have published their procedures for domestic violence. Looks to me like they’ve missed out a section which should include instructions about officers assessing risks to themselves.
http://www.northyorkshire.police.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=10091&p=0
Steven – Teasers … that well known lethal weapon courtesy of I-Pad 😉
It also deals a pretty heavy blow to the spelling of your name!
Going back to the situation, I think the officer should beg, but also prepare to use her baton on him.
I’ve been in “survival mode” a few times and in my experience you begin to think very rationally and consider all the options. As I have said before: we got our house shot at once. I remember hearing “tap tap tap”. Then my dad walking into the living room and joking that he had found a bullet on the floor. Then I looked up, seen the holes in the window and dragged my dad away from it.
For some reason he wanted to go outside to investigate, he hadn’t heard the shots like I had, so I knew what had happened. I stopped him and my older brother phoned the police. They said the armed police would take 20 minutes to arrive, because they never had any in our town.
At that point I calmed down and we all hid upstairs. The instinct was to hide. The incident blew over and everything has been fine since. This was nearly 10 years ago now.
However, the people were never caught, and twice I thought they had come back. The first time my instinct was to look for a weapon and then prepare to beg when I couldn’t find one and the second time I thought someone had just kicked the door down and I sprinted towards it as fast as I could without thought, prepared to jump on whoever just came into the house. In reality, someone had kicked a football against the front door. 🙂 However, I was paranoid after the first incident.
A lot of knee jerk reactions to a propaganda film by the police trade union. The number of police officers killed in the whole of the UK (not just Scotland) in the last 115 years is 23. Far fewer than killed in RTAs and not much more than those dying of heart attacks chasing suspects or falling through/off roofs.
So we’re supposed to arm our police routinely to respond to an event that while horrific is so unusual to be irrelevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty
That should be a total of 23 killed by stabbing in 115 years.
Exiled Scot 2nd Nov ’14 – 2:07am
……,,,23 killed by stabbing in 115 years.
Thank you for providing a useful and informative piece of evidence. It really does provide some perspective. I hope others who have commented in this thread will consider carefullly.
653 murders in 2011. Arming police is not about protecting them but us. It is all very well wanting to preserve a traditional nostalgic view of policing but Hungerford didn’t stop Dunblane and Dunblane didn’t stop Cumbria. Sleepy backwaters not big cities and where many citizens still have legal access to firearms. We should not be frightened by the false comparison to the US although New Hampshire has a murder rate similar to ours. We should look to the 20+ countries with armed police and lower murder rates. It is possible that 8 of Bird’s 12 victims might still be alive had Cumbrian police been armed. It is likely that dozens of Breivigs victims in Norway would still be alive had their police been armed. I’m not sure I see the relevance of statistics on police deaths by stabbing going back to 1900 to policing challenges in 2015.
Stevan, “Arming police is not about protecting them but us.” OK but I think Caron’s thread was about what we would do in the policewoman’s position.
You may have a view that the police should be routinely armed but if you look at the 653 murders in 2011 just how many of these were committed in the presence of the police? Murderers tend not to carry out such acts in the presence of the police. Armed or not.
On their website the Police Federation provide some useful information:
http://www.polfed.org/aboutus/155.aspx
The summary states: “The response rate was high and the message emphatic. An overwhelming majority of 82 per cent stated that they do not want all officers to be routinely armed on duty. This is particularly significant given that there has been almost no change in police officers’ opinions since we conducted the previous surveys in 2003 and 1995, and this despite the massive rise in gun related crime. ”
Just how much of this increase is drugs and gang related might more reasonably fit in with our developing policy on drugs.
OK, Caron asked what we would do in this situation – my answer would be follow the training.
Whilst not having served as a policeman, I happen to know this includes
1) Operate the ‘officer in need of assistance’ button on the communications device (yes, Richard Dean – the police have had one for years)
2)Start repeatedly shouting at the suspect to drop his weapon and get on the floor (there are sound psychological reasons for doing this)
3) Draw baton and pepper spray and if the suspect does not follow my instructions use first the spray and then the baton until he is subdued.
Of course, if I followed MY training I would use sudden and extreme violence whilst screaming as loud as possible in order to disorientate the enemy. This would continue until he stopped resisting.
Stevan Rose
Your analysis of both the Cumbrian and Norwegian tragedies is heavily flawed.
First, the police were not informed until two people had already died and even then were given wrong information. They could not shoot or arrest Bird early on because they didn’t have a description of either himself or his car. Note that even after armed police were drafted in in huge numbers Derek Bird was still not stopped until he killed himself.
When Breivik committed mass murder he did so on an island where there were no police at all, and so it wouldn’t have mattered if they were armed or not. Even when he exploded a bomb he did so remotely and so could not have been linked to it immediately.
Finally, your use of murders to further your argument is wrong – you should have been looking at just mass murder by shooting. But then of course your argument would have been erroneous since the incidence of mass murder is much higher where the police are armed
@Stephen. That poll is 9 years old. The dangers today are somewhat different. I don’t know how many murders could have been prevented by having armed police but I would have thought there would likely be some deterrent effect. It would be an interesting piece of research that I suspect would take an awful lot of effort.
@A Social Liberal. Bird had killed 3 victims before being confronted by unarmed police. And pointing his shotgun at them, forcing them to take cover and allowing him to escape. Had they been armed 9 further victims would still be alive today.
Stevan Rose 2nd Nov ’14 – 6:50pm
@Stephen. That poll is 9 years old. The dangers today are somewhat different.
Stevan
This sort of research goes on all the time. Perception of crime and the reality are shown by Home Office data to be very different,
If you take gun crime in London for example, you might be under the false impression that during the last few years such violent crime has been on the increase. You could not be more wrong. See this website —
http://www.citizensreportuk.org/news/2013/06/24/london-gun-crime-offences-per-borough-2006-to-2013/
As you will see gun crime in London has gone down by about 20% every year since 2010 as follows –
2010—3460
2011—2708
2012—2404
2013—1913
My guess is that one of the reasons why 82% of police officers remain resolutely opposed to increasing the use of firearms is because they know these data and know that increasing the incidence of armed police would only make things worse.
@John. But 70% of police officers in that same link would seem to have no problem being armed if that decision was made. And only 7% would resign. We can quote different numbers back and forth all night. In Woolwich unarmed police and the public were at serious risk for 5 minutes until armed police arrived. I would feel safer myself if our police were carrying sidearms. It’s not a problem in 24 of the 25 countries withe the lowest murder rates.
Gun crime has gone down in London. It may be lead free petrol. It could be the costa livin crisis making bullets too expensive to afford. It could be smarter policing or a new generation of more polite criminals who solve disputes with paper rock scissors. Who knows. I do know from my travels that areas in London I would once have never dreamed of walking through at night now appear a lot safer. The presence of blocks of expensive apartments indicates the cause might be gentrification of many areas.
Stevan – can you link to a report which states that Bird was confronted by policemen. I cannot find anything which supports your statement.