Comment by David Alexander, Professor at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and principal adviser, UK police services.
The current debate about armed officers appearing to be deployed to routine incidents is reassuring, as it confirms that the public take the use of firearms seriously.
Great Britain is one of the few countries which has resisted having a routinely armed police service.
Robert Peel was keen that his new “Peelers” should not be confused with the armed military, hence their blue uniforms to distinguish them from the red clad soldiers.
The police have in earlier times made use of firearms but in an amateurish – and, therefore, dangerous – way.
Ammunition was carried in one pocket and a revolver in the other.
Sometimes weapons were borrowed from local gunsmiths. Training was almost non-existent, and there were no clear “rules of engagement”.
There is nothing amateurish about our current Authorised Firearms Officers (AFOs). The public can be reassured about the thought that has gone into ensuring its safety in terms of the choice of weapons and ammunition, training and tactics, and many guidelines and protocols.
For about 20 years, I contributed to the teaching of AFOs for the former Grampian Police, and undertook some of their training.
I was also deployed to certain incidents at which they too were deployed, and witnessed them at work during real incidents.
For a number of court cases, involving fatal police shootings, I was the expert witness.
These privileged opportunities persuaded me that we have plenty grounds to trust our AFOs, who have to fulfil extremely difficult and, at times, dangerous duties.
They use semi-automatic handguns.
The Glock 17 is a semi-automatic pistol which means each round can only be discharged with a separate trigger pull, and their carbine – the Heckler and Koch/MP5, used at airports – is set on single shot.
This ensures that AFOs fire in a restrained fashion, and do not indulge in “spray and pray”, as occurs in some countries.
Ammunition is generally chosen to have sufficient “stopping power”, but with relatively low penetrance in order that rounds do not exit the suspect and injure or kill an innocent person behind.
An AFO cannot be ordered to fire – it is an individual decision, and each shot must be accounted for by the officer who fired. This encourages discretion, and is in the interest of public safety.
Their discretion is consistently confirmed by national statistics.
For example, the Minister of State for Policing and Justice reported that between April 2012, and March 2013, AFOs were deployed on 10,996 occasions, but only three officers fired their weapons.
Very few persons are shot by British AFOs. Brazilian police manage to kill more than 3,000 per year.
No AFO has been found guilty of murder, although one in England has just been so charged, about seven years after the incident.
After each armed incident there is an investigation, by the Independent Police Complaints Commission in England and Wales, and by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.
Accountability has now been extended beyond the individual officer to the relevant constabulary.
This followed a judgment handed down by Justice Rafferty following a shooting of an unarmed man in 1998.
More senior officers were held to account, rather than the AFO.
This also happened after the killing by Metropolitan Police AFOs of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent but suspected suicide bomber.
The officers who shot him were vindicated, but the Metropolitan Police were found guilty of a number of errors. This is also in the public interest, and has augmented a culture of caution with regard to firearms use.
However this current dispute is resolved, the public should have confidence in our armed officers.
Most incidents they attend are resolved without harm to anybody, as the weapon they use most frequently and effectively rests just below their noses – negotiation and persuasion are powerful ammunition.