Menezes health and safety hearing

Sorry for bringing this one up again. It's daft that it could come down to a health and safety hearing as the last chance to actually find out who screwed up, but that's the way I guess. Anyway, reading on the news http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7045122.stm about the hollow points used (which isn't actually news, it has been out a long time) and the firearms specialist called to give testimony detailed the training regime - "told the court officers were required to achieve 70% accuracy with their shooting and underwent two periods of four full days' training every year".

Now, the same specialist also detailed how a headshot would be the "only way to be sure" in explaining the targeting to the head. This bit is important. Eleven shots were fired. 7 hit his head, 1 hit his shoulder, 3 missed. So, the shot to the shoulder - does that count as a miss? Because if it does, they only acheived 63.6% accuracy, at near as damn it point blank range, against a restrained target. Even if we count the shoulder as a hit, they only managed 72.7% accuracy.

So what happens if you can maintain required accuracy in training but not out in the field? Well, you get promoted it seems...

Sorry for bringing this one up again, it's a subject close to my heart.

PS. Just so we don't go over old arguments again, some FACTS right from the off. I stand by these FACTS 100% and can provide links to MULTIPLE OFFICIAL sources and inquiries. They are, FACTS.
1. He did not run vault barriers etc. He walked into the tube station, picked up a free paper, used his oyster card to pay the fare and walked through the barriers and went down the escalator at normal pace. On arriving at the platform he ran across the platform to the newly arrived train. He got on and sat down.
2. He was not wearing "bulky clothing, suspiciously so for warm weather", he was wearing a denim jacket.
3. He did not disobey an instruction from the police. In both official enquiries so far at neither one did the Police state that they gave any indication of who they were or what they wanted before he was shot. The only confirmed shouting of "Police!" occured after at least one shot was fired.

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

This bit is important. Eleven shots were fired. 7 hit his head, 1 hit his shoulder, 3 missed. So, the shot to the shoulder - does that count as a miss? Because if it does, they only acheived 63.6% accuracy, at near as damn it point blank range, against a restrained target. Even if we count the shoulder as a hit, they only managed 72.7% accuracy.

So what happens if you can maintain required accuracy in training but not out in the field? Well, you get promoted it seems...

Sorry for bringing this one up again, it's a subject close to my heart.

PS. Just so we don't go over old arguments again, some FACTS right from the off. I stand by these FACTS 100% and can provide links to MULTIPLE OFFICIAL sources and inquiries. They are, FACTS.
1. He did not run vault barriers etc. He walked into the tube station, picked up a free paper, used his oyster card to pay the fare and walked through the barriers and went down the escalator at normal pace. On arriving at the platform he ran across the platform to the newly arrived train. He got on and sat down.
2. He was not wearing "bulky clothing, suspiciously so for warm weather", he was wearing a denim jacket.
3. He did not disobey an instruction from the police. In both official enquiries so far at neither one did the Police state that they gave any indication of who they were or what they wanted before he was shot. The only confirmed shouting of "Police!" occured after at least one shot was fired.

maybe he had no head left after 7 shots were fired - the other 3 went through an empty void?

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

So what happens if you can maintain required accuracy in training but not out in the field?

Thankfully, most firearms officers will never find out just how "good" they are in the field. They don't want to, either. That is something we should be very grateful for in the UK.

I'm pretty certain that there was a terrible mistake here. Personally, though, I think the lessons will be learned by those involved and I don't think that public exposure is necessarily a good thing.

It's always a shame that innocent people get killed or injured going about their daily business, in whatever circumstances. I am sad to sense that you have suffered with something similar in the past. However, I'm not sure that this is the correct forum for this sort of debate.

(For complete transparency, I am not employed in law enforcement. However, I do have friends and relatives in military, police and other law enforcement jobs, and I probably have a fairly right wing attitude to law & order. My personal bugbear is leniency towards those who put innocents' lives at risk through TWOC 'joyriding' and other extreme, dangerous motoring activity on the road.)

[timwilky]

I am not a cop, never have been. But I used to shoot with quite a few of the lancs/manchester/Mersyside ones. Many of who were their forces firearms instructors.

Standard PAA targets have the score box centred on the chest. You are not trained to take head shots, but to go for the largest area, ie, the chest.

As I understand it, advice (Supposedly from Isreal) was that a chest shot could leave a suicide bomber with sufficient time to explode whatever they were carrying and therefore an instant kill was required, ie remove as much brain as to render the suicide bomber incapable of activating his bomb.

Given the close confines of the train where this is supposed to have occurred, double taps against the smaller target that a head represents, it is not surprising to me that not all shots hit.


Now for the part to upset the PC brigade. This guy was here illegally. He failed to respond to an order. If he had done as he should and gone home when his visa expired he would still be alive. Let this be a lesson to all. You break the law, there is a chance that extreme force may be used against you.

I have been firerm trained and find this whole thing amazing.

Firing that number of shots in a public place is unacceptable.

Firing a weapon without cast iron threat is unacceptable.

Not following any kind of ROE is unacceptable.

I have no problem with pulling the trigger but the shooter must be accountable for every round fired. And I aint seen that here.

I work next to a police range. They practice their firing fully automatic... I can't work out why. THey do 4 days training a week - and that's just Gwent police

Originally Posted by Ruffy

I am sad to sense that you have suffered with something similar in the past.

No, I better clear this up, thankfully I have no personal experience of this. It's close to my heart as I'm deeply concerned about the climate of fear that has been encouraged over the last few years, I think it is precisely this that leads to nervousness and "itchy trigger fingers" and I see nothing that has really been learnt so as to prevent something like this happening again to anyone.

Originally Posted by timwilky

Now for the part to upset the PC brigade. This guy was here illegally. He failed to respond to an order. If he had done as he should and gone home when his visa expired he would still be alive. Let this be a lesson to all. You break the law, there is a chance that extreme force may be used against you.

Dogs chase sticks I can't resist That can only be a justification if you're prepared for it to be a justification for the immediate execution of everyone who's owned up to minor infringements in this thread. That thread is full of people who've been drunk and disorderly, ****ed up against cop cars, been in posession of controlled substances, etc - ie. far more likely to wind up receiving 11 bullets but none of them did. My point is that if every one of those minor infringements resulted in a death people wouldn't be trotting out the "you break the law, you pay the price" line; as such if the argument is not valid when applied to all such cases then it's not valid when applied to one individual case.

Originally Posted by gettin2dizzy

I work next to a police range. They practice their firing fully automatic... I can't work out why. THey do 4 days training a week - and that's just Gwent police

Not sure if the Police use full auto but there is plenty of firearms on the streets and guy who shoots first wins.

[G]

I dont know the full story but they had inteligence that there were further bomber..........which turned out to be true as they attempted and failed a couple of week after this killing.

There was a risk that this guy was a bomber as inteligence said so.

ONE life taken or 20+ taken if he turned out to be a bomber.

Although it turned out he wasnt a bomber had it been the other way around and they had not taken the shot yet he was a bomber, I gaurantee the news stories would have been intirely different,

-POLICE FAIL TO STOP BOMBER
-INTELIGENCE SAID HE WAS BOMBER, YET THEY LET HIM WALK ONTO THE UNDERGROUD
-ETC ETC ETC

Its a loose/loose situation for the goverment/police nowdays, people will literally moan and pick faults with everything they do. People will be for and against whatever they do.

I personally think it was a justified killing, sadly with an unfortunate ending.

Originally Posted by graemepaterson

I dont know the full story but they had inteligence that there were further bomber..........which turned out to be true as they attempted and failed a couple of week after this killing.

There was a risk that this guy was a bomber as inteligence said so.

ONE life taken or 20+ taken if he turned out to be a bomber.

Although it turned out he wasnt a bomber had it been the other way around and they had not taken the shot yet he was a bomber, I gaurantee the news stories would have been intirely different,

-POLICE FAIL TO STOP BOMBER
-INTELIGENCE SAID HE WAS BOMBER, YET THEY LET HIM WALK ONTO THE UNDERGROUD
-ETC ETC ETC

Its a loose/loose situation for the goverment/police nowdays, people will literally moan and pick faults with everything they do. People will be for and against whatever they do.

I personally think it was a justified killing, sadly with an unfortunate ending.

While I'd agree with your sentiment I don't think it's applicable to this situation.

The police were following him along time before he got anywhere near the tube, so if he was a bomber they let him onto the tube anyway. In the end, they blew the brains out of someone who they thought was innocent, or they let a suspected bomber get onto the tube. Either way the police displayed monumental incompetance and need to be disciplined for it.