Policing Advance Access originally published online on September 20, 2007
Policing 2007 1(3):255-264; doi:10.1093/police/pam043
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Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.
The Arming of Police Officers
* Mike Waldren was formerly Chief Superintendent in charge of the Metropolitan Police Firearms Unit. E-mail: mwaldren@dircon.co.uk
Mike Waldren is a former Chief Superintendent in charge of the Metropolitan Police Firearms Unit. In this article, he considers the reappraisal of unarmed policing in Britain. In recent news that armed officers would be patrolling the streets in London excited a great deal of attention but very little comment. It has now become an accepted fact of life that the police sometimes need guns. However, the use of a firearm by a police officer is the highest expression of the use of force by the State. This article examines why guns are issued to police officers and when they can use them.
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‘Armed officers will be patrolling the streets as part of a new task force set up to tackle a spate of fatal shootings in south London’ announced the BBC on 15 February 2007. It was reporting on a response by the Metropolitan Police to the shooting of 15-year-old Billy Cox in his home in Clapham the previous day. He was the fourth person and the third teenager to be shot dead in south London in the previous 2 weeks. The first had been 16-year-old James Smartt-Ford at an ice rink in Streatham followed by 15-year-old Michael Dosunmu 3 days later in his bedroom in Peckham. In the early hours of 4 February 2007 47-year-old Chamberlain Igwemba had been shot and killed in the same area of London.
The news that armed officers would be patrolling the street excited a great deal of media attention but very little adverse comment and
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Morale |
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Armed crime and terrorism |
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Public reassurance |
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The use of firearms |
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Less lethal weapons |
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The future |
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