'Senior management see them as expendable' (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Say what you like about Suella Braverman and her mixed reception among the general population, but she continues to enjoy the support of a key political, if not electoral, demographic: the Metropolitan Police. Following the shooting of Chris Kaba on Streatham Hill last September, and the charge of murder that is now hanging over the armed officer accused of firing a single round at the 24-year-old, the Home Secretary, unlike many of her predecessors, has accrued something of a fan club at the beleaguered Met. She is praised for championing both rank-and-file officers and their Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley.
The rule of sub judice dictates that little can be said about the case against the defendant, whom we only know as NX121. But this hasn’t stopped Braverman from publicly stating that firearms officers have to make “split-second decisions” and must not fear “ending up in the dock for carrying out their duties” — words that one legal expert told me sound uncomfortably prejudicial.
Hot on the heels of her announcement, Rowley strategically published an open letter in which he “welcomed” Braverman’s support and argued for “the need to let the police police”. At best, open letters are like newspaper crosswords: coded for a particular audience but easily figured out by the average bus passenger. At worst, they can read like a career-suicide note, were circumstances change radically for the author. In this case, should NX121 go down for murder, Rowley’s reputation will take a dive with him. No Met commissioner wants that kind of publicity on their watch.
That said, it is too early to say what the effect of Braverman’s intervention, and Rowley’s tacit support for it, will be. For his part, Rowley’s hastily written gesture only came after more than 100 Specialist Firearms Command officers handed in their blue authorisation cards in protest. As for Braverman, it is unclear what the strategic review she has ordered will achieve.
Tony Long, a former police marksman, is sceptical that the proposed solutions are anything more than a sticking plaster. “The powers that be were talking about bringing the army in, but the only thing that squaddies can do under the circumstances is stand on doors with weapons that aren’t even loaded,” he says. “The aim is to take all the DPG [Diplomatic Protection Group] crews that have been standing on these doors, and redeploy them to do the job currently being done by ARVs [armed response vehicles].” The problem, he says, is that a DPG officer is only trained for four weeks, as opposed to the 14-week initial training course for ARV officers. “Once you’ve done your 14 weeks and been on the team for about a year, only then can you apply to do the CTFSO [Counter Terrorist Specialist Firearms Officer] course which is an additional 21 weeks.”
In the acronymic world of armed policing, where the Met’s specialist firearms unit SCO19 reigns supreme, taking out drug dealers, bank robbers or jihadists requires a skillset that your average embassy cop simply doesn’t have. As far as Braverman and Rowley are concerned, sending in unarmed soldiers or under-trained officers to protect the capital is once again about optics rather than operational capability.
By contrast, few understand the Met’s operational strengths and managerial weaknesses better than Long. A highly commended veteran of 33 years, 25 of which were spent in the force’s ever-evolving specialist firearms unit, he shot five suspects in the line of duty, killing three. He is also acutely aware of the politics surrounding NX121’s situation, having stood trial at the Old Bailey for murder in 2015 following the fatal shooting of Azelle Rodney — who, like Chris Kaba, was aged 24 and sat in a car when a police operation culminated in a “hard stop”.
Ultimately, Long was acquitted by a jury of his peers. Unlike NX121, however, he didn’t have the luxury of anonymity, something that Chris Kaba’s family, understandably, has questioned given the seriousness of the charge against him. One can only speculate as to why NX121’s continued anonymity was granted during his brief court appearance last week, but the secrecy only adds to a sense of distrust in a police force mired in scandals.
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SubscribeI think the issue is more whether the officer involved is being made a sacrificial lamb to assuage the lynch mob mentality and ever present threat of civil disturbance and violence by the black community.
The author will forgive me for being intemperate but I, and many others, have reached the end of our tether with the black community and its vast institutional support pointing the finger at how others need to “fix” themselves and how they should be held accountable.
As per usual for these type of cases, Kaba’s history has been safely quarantined in the media, and the obligatory photo of a smiley faced innocent dug out from the family album and distributed to the press.
I would recommend a piece from the Epoch Times entitled: Feuds Between Drill Gangs Could Hold Clue to Death of Chris Kaba. It details Kaba’s membership of 67, one of the numerous violent, murderous black gangs engaged in gang wars on the streets of our capital city. The piece does not detail the attempted murder that Kaba and six of his gang members allegedly committed six days before he was shot, for which they are now facing trial.
The media’s pallid description of Kapa as a 24 year old, unarmed black man, rapper and soon to be father doesn’t quite paint the picture of how a member of violent criminal gang came to be in a car that was linked on the police computer to an armed robbery committed by his gang. Neither does the omission of witness reports that Kaba was attempting to ram his way out of the police block when he was shot.
The author could have provided an insight in to black criminal gangs as the author of the Epoch Times did. He could have been reflective on why, despite the likes of Kaba, the black gangs and criminals being a scourge on the community, who make life harder and miserable for decent hard working, law abiding black people, the black community are psychologically tuned to defend them no matter how obviously they bear personal responsibility for events.
Perhaps he could have expressed some understanding for the police officers who are forced to deal on a daily basis with the threat posed by dealing with armed violent gangs who are becoming increasingly comfortable with resorting to using guns against them. Now added to that, the threat that they will not be treated fairly by a criminal justice system now riddled at every level with rabid ideological adherents to ideas such as critical race theory and systemic racism. Fortunately for the officer involved they have the body cam footage.
But no. No thought as to how the black community may be at fault for their predictable knee jerk reaction of defending criminals instead of wanting them driven out of their communities. No thought on how they can “fix” themselves.
Precisely right.
Does anyone think for one moment that the officer concerned would have been charged had he shot a white person. The prosecution only happened to placate the black mob who would have rioted had the CPS arrived at any other decision. Still same on the CPS for taking the knee before the mob.
What should have happened is that Mr Kaba’s family should take some responsibility for raising a career criminal and should come out and say that the prosecution of the officer is plain wrong.
Thank you for having the courage to state what so many people feel about these issues!
Agreed. Most MSM will not print the negative info available on Kaba but prefer to go with the “good boy” picture and family tributes. This is from available online data…
After shots were fired in the Canning Town area of east London on December 30, 2017, he was charged with possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
In January 2019, he appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court and was found guilty of possessing an imitation firearm.
He was sentenced to four years in a Young Offenders Institute but was released the following year on probation.
However, he was returned to jail in August of that year after being caught driving without insurance and with a knife in his car.
Because the offences were committed while he was still on probation, he was sentenced to an additional five months in prison.
According to court records, Mr Kaba was served with a 28-day domestic violence protection order relating to the mother of his unborn child in April of this year, prohibiting him from contacting her on social media or entering the street where she lives.
How is it they always seem to have children
“The Epoch Times…” Hahahahaha!
This is another case of what occurred during the incident.
An Audi Q8 (not the smallest of vehicles) is suspected of being linked to shooting the previous night and is blocked in by the police. The driver, rather than exiting the vehicle as instructed decides to ram his way through the blockade. And gets shot by armed police.
The context is everything.
If the police are telling you to do something. Just do it.
Smashing a 2 ton Q8 into a police blockade is not going to end well.
Indeed, a law breaker in any case and one less to plague society
Execution first, trial later?
Look at the known facts about this case on wikipedia. The background of the young man killed, his actions during the “hard stop”, and the reasons the police had for effecting the “hard stop”. Don’t engage with all the posturing and trying to paint individuals in a poor light while talking up your “own side”. Just the facts.
Then ask yourself how this could ever result in a charge of murder being levelled against the police officer. That’s the issue here. Senior members of the establishment are corrupted by current ideologies, and hence are losing the support of the guys who do the work. It’s happening in lots of other organisations, too, isn’t it?
It’s interesting when you look at the scale of the issue of police shootings in the UK.
According to Statista, three, that’s right, three people have been shot dead by the police in England and Wales in 2022/23.
2016/17 is a high point. Six.
I think it’s safe to say we do not have a problem with police shootings based on those figures.
In the case described it’s worth noting what led to the incident.
If anything this whole thing just proves the armed coppers (like all officers) should have bodycams. Nothing defuses anger and court action like seeing the stupidity of a ‘victim’ failing to follow commands on video when men are aiming guns at him. In America they have youtube channels dedicated to publishing these videos which tend to show that most of those shot by the police deserve it for reaching while a rifle is trained on them.
They do have bodycams and the family were shown the footage by the IPCC. It will be used in evidence at trial and will have been considered by the CPS before a decision was made to charge.
There are countless YouTube channels containing police body cam footage of routine vehicle stops in which the people being questioned escalate the most commonplace situations by becoming inexplicably psychotic and abusive. One woman, caught red-handed with a shopping cart full of stolen items worth $1400, was cuffed and questioned. The officers were calm and respectful throughout, when suddenly the woman – hands in manacles behind her back – ran off! The cops gave chase, one saying “What the h*ll?! Are you kidding me? Unbelievable!’ Of course they caught her in less than a minute, and she was charged now with multiple crimes instead of theft. In another, a kid caught speeding was found to have a dead body in the trunk. He was too stoned to react Ike a maniac.
What these police officers have to put up with just for every day petty incidents is shocking enough, but those who have to deal with violent gang bangers only to be demonized in the media and ruined by their own departments is mind boggling. Keep it up, and you won’t have a police force.
The problem with the police is with the management. Graduate, fast-track officers get promoted to a desk job and they try to condense the whole of policing into a desk job – forms to fill in, multi-signatories to every document, etc. It is not in the interest of the management to change the status quo.
What should be in the dock is the Progressive Left’s determined and ongoing effort to vilify the police by blaming them for the necessary result of criminally violent decisions by lawbreakers. Why anyone is willing to be a police officer in the current big-city environment is beyond me.
I agree. Why anyone would willingly want to work all hours, all days, getting shouted at, spat at, shot at, for a wage that is comparable to a reasonably average 9-5 desk job, and then abandoned by the management and hounded by the media, is beyond me. There really will be no-one to defend our streets if this doesn’t change.
(Disclaimer: I used to be a copper)
How does the training of Police Fire Arm Officers compare with say 42 Commando Royal Marines ?
Counter Piracy and Pilot Rescue | Royal Marines – YouTube
Duplication, due to slow censorship.
May be there should be a professionalised national armed police unit which has sufficient discretion to take necessary action without fear of prosecution. There would need to be safeguards but public protection is a priority.
Someone with (i) a firearm and (ii) immunity from prosecution does not make me feel particularly protected, I would have to say.
Absent the possibility of prosecution, what exactly would these ‘safeguards’ be?
None.
I am happy with that, I am a law abiding citizen, I won’t be ramming roadblocks or dealing drugs or carrying offensive weapons (other than my wit of course)! Do we ordinary citizens need worry?
No.
Will you be jumping around and hurling abuse at a Police officer ?
Extremely high level of selection and training as undertaken by 42 Royal Marine Commando in it’s anti- piracy role.
Counter Piracy and Pilot Rescue | Royal Marines – YouTube
Call it what you like but in my book this is Mutiny and the Police Firearms Units should be immediately disbanded and replaced by the Army.
Firstly firearms deaths are down by almost one third on their high in 1996 when 84 were slain (albeit some at Dunblane.) Regardless of that Armed Police numbers have simply ballooned, so that we now have over 6,000 of them, the equivalent of 9 Infantry Battalions! This is ‘empire building’ on an epic scale.
Secondly during the same period our ‘Special Forces’ have also ballooned, so that we now have the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service, the Special Forces Support Group, and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment!*One wonders how many more ‘special’ units we can dream up!
Thirdly surely our under employed Army plus our ‘Special Forces’ could put together a far better Firearms Unit than the Police could ever manage? Call and dress them as you like if the word Army is so offensive, but at least they will DO the job and NOT throw a hissy fit as the present rascals have done.
(*Not to mention the new Ranger Regiment, whatever’s that is.)
You might have said this before. The police only recruit graduates now. You could recruit ex-service personnel into an Armed Police Group and manage it separately. But the ex-squaddies probably would’nt be graduates. Something needs to change.
‘They’ used to recruit former soldiers, the Met for example was full of former Guardsmen but NOT any longer.
As you say it’s all graduates with worthless degrees from worthless, so called universities, so what can one expect? Answer: ROBOCOP.
:
Historically many Chief Constables were former Army Officers, I think the lowest rank accepted was colonel. Air Chief Marshal Viscount Trenchard , founder of RAF was Metropolitan Commissioner in 1920s. Historically people could move from Armed Forces into Police: Sergeant to Sergeant, Captain to Chief Inspector and Major to Superintendant. The City of London recruited ex Guards and RM/ RN POs. Many ex Guards had spent time in Army Commandos/SF in WW2.
During the pull out of Empire, Special Branch led the fight against terrorism. Consequently, these officers had expertise in close quarter combat, running agents, analysing intelligence, learning languages, customs, religions, history and history of various countries. In Malaya, a good knowledge of Cantonese, Malay and Tamil would have been needed. I think all Special Branch needed the same entry requirements as officers in Armed Forces. Consequently when former SB officers joined British Police they brought with a vast amount of experience. A friend considered the cessation of ex colonial SB entering the Police has led to a decline in performance.
The British Police have never had a an officer class but thy had a sufficient number of highly experienced former military personnel. Examples are :Assistant Commissioner Ernie Bond, Scots Guards and SAS; Sir Kenneth Newman served in RAF in WW2 and then Palestine Special Branch and Sir Kenneth Mark was an officer in RAC and elite Phantom Reconnaissance Unit in WW2 .
A few years ago a Garrison Sergeant Major told me the Police have a policy of not recruiting ex Armed Forces personnel.
What is being ignored is the politics. Police do not live within inner city areas. Since the late 1960s Trotskyist Groups such as Socialist Action have taken over many council departments. The number of criminals are small but they are surrounded by a very much larger Demi-monde comprising family, friends and neighbours. The demi- monde have votes. One can be a council employee in one borough and a councillor in the next door. Adverts placed by local councils in local newspapers and in The Guardian for jobs give them immense power in the Media. The BBC advertises for jobs in The Guardian. Many solicitors and teachers are also Trotskyists within inner city areas. Middle class people who buy drugs from the Demi- monde have an interest in not being arrested, especially their children.
The interests of Criminals, Demi-monde, Trotskyists, Guardian, BBC, lay in vast amounts of tax payers money being spent within inner city areas combined with thriving criminal activity. Many lawyers in inner city areas main income is from crime so it is not in their interest for it to decline. A start would be stop local councils and BBC advertising jobs with BBC and local newspapers; make it all online. Assess jobs in local government and decide what is absolutely vital- heavy cullling needed. Bring back Police houses so for first two years they live in area in which they work. Increase physical fitness and hand to hand combat skills of Police, regular patrolling; right to stop and frisk suspects on streets. Someone may be found innocent of mugging, shop lifting , etc but if they resisted arrest, that would be a crime.
That is not the issue. A Police officer who has colours in rugby, rowing, hockey, boxing,judo. a degree in classics, law, languages, engineering, science from a top 10 university would be superb but they are not recruiting that type of graduate; they are going into Armed Forces or top companies.
We do NOT need such a heavily armed paramilitary Police Force.
They have neither the discipline, training, esprit de corps or courage for such a role, as has been demonstrably proved over many years.
If the situation is as desperate as we are told it should be the Army’s responsibility and the Army’s alone.
Other “lesser breeds” (to use Mr Kipling’s phrase) may want ROBOCOPS, we should not.!
I often enjoy your comments, but I have to say that I find this one disappointing.
It is clear from the article that armed police officers do undergo extensive training, increasing with the demands of their duties.
I would expect that the fact that they are volunteers and undergo this training, together with the nature of their duties does create a powerful esprit de corps.
You do not want a heavily-armed paramilitary police force, but recommend that these duties be carried out by the Army. In other words, a heavily-armed military force.
Our tradition is one of policing by consent, by fellow-citizens who have volunteered to become police officers. The Army doesn’t fit that model.
And surely the Army dreads entanglement in civilian – and possibly political – affairs. (Peterloo? Northern Ireland?)
Finally, for the avoidance of doubt, I firmly believe that arming our police should be rigorously confined to the smallest possible minority of officers.
I am sorry that you found my comment disappointing, however I totally agree with you final paragraph.
However over many years now I have observed our ‘armed police’ behave in a simply appalling manner. These ‘incidents’ are far too numerous to regurgitate here, but suffice to say there should have been NONE.
Top of the list of malefactors were the RUC* and their malignant ‘B Specials’, a more worthless bunch of homicidal cretins would be hard to imagine. Fortunately none of the UK Constabularies have so far behaved quite so badly, but I’m not optimistic about the future.
The Army that kept the peace in Northern Ireland was NOT heavily armed, in fact very from it for obvious reasons. Frankly those in the caption photograph are indistinguishable from an Army, are they not?
Finally the crux of the problem is that the Police are NOT properly officered, and thus the ‘Canteen Culture’ reigns supreme, as has so often been shown, as in yesterday’s
‘down tools’ incident. ‘We’ deserve better.
(*Royal Ulster Constabulary, now the Police Service of Northern Ireland or PSNI.)
You may be right that the Police is not properly “officered”, but reform in this area will take ten years plus to have an impact. If one takes the Met specifically – and on the basis that the best way to deal with a big problem is to break it down into several smaller ones – I suspect there is something in the idea that the Met should be broken up into say five regions plus a group of national squads. There seems to be something dysfunctional about Met central management and this may provide a route of the morass. Each region / group would be a more mageable size and far easier for a single individual to lead and reform. If so, this approach might have a faster impact than reforming the “officering” overall but leaving the size of the institution unchanged.
I seem to recall that just before the War there was an attempt to set up a Police equivalent to Sandhurst, Dartmouth and Cranwell, for the training of future Police Officers.
On the joining instructions, the ‘Cadets’ were told amongst the kit they should bring, there should be a Dinner Jacket!
Needless to say post war the whole idea was dropped.
Interesting final paragraph.
Just how big should this minority of officers be.
In 2022/23 in England and Wales we have approximately 135,500 officers. Of that number 6,038 are licensed to carry firearms.
So, what’s that… 4.5%?
What figure would you prefer? 1%?!
The pollution of England and Wales is nearly 60 million.
Does a force of 6k sound adequate?
I’m amazed it’s only 6k.
“Pollution “ was that a deliberate error or a typo?
I think it’s safe to say it’s a typo. Damn that predictive text!
You can say that again!
For a moment I thought it was a ‘Freudian slip.’
In any organisation the standard of it’s operation depends upon standard of entry, rigour of training and selection.
Make entry requirement A Levels in classics, languages, history and sciences. Make training last two years to achieve Royal Marine Commando Standard with additional 9 week anti piracy course for those who carry weapons.
What percentage of the Police are prepared to go through this exacting training ?
I agree with your opening line. But, just to point out, police officer entry routes often require degrees or the ability to earn a degree during training. And police officer probation is still two years. So, technically all substantive police officers have been prepared to go through what you describe (though I would accept they aren’t being trained as Commandos, nor should they be). Specialist firearms officers, as the article suggests, go through considerably more than 9 weeks additional training to do their work.
What is their level of fitness?
Post WW2 , it was the SAS who developed body guard training and then Counter Revolutionary Warfare with the RMs taking over marine counter insurgency role.
A RMP Corporal who went though the 6 months SAS bodyguard course said the first month was fitness training.
That is 9 weeks on top of their 9 months of Commando Training. 60 % of RMs have the academic qualifications to be officers.
Degrees are meaningless today. In the mid 19th century a degree was either Classics or Maths from Oxford or Cambridge and someone would be fluent in French and German. Compare the standard of French,German, Latin, Greek, Maths, Physics, Chemistry , etc in a Oxford or Cambridge Scholarship exam of the pre 1980s or Higher Leaving Certificate of the 1940s with some degrees of today.
Historically Police included sergeants with Commando/SF /ex Colonial Special Branch experience who spoke several languages and understood religious concerns.