fast bloke

The flip side is that they shoot first and ask questions later, which has led to quite a number of innocents being killed in Belfast.

One guy was shot 60 times by armed police when he answered the door naked. Eventually turned out that he was not actually the occupant of the house, but was merely ******* the occupant's missus. (The occupant probably would have been armed)

Another (possibly called McCartan) was shot dead by the RUC for painting the word 'Provo' on a bridge. The police claimed they thought the can of paint was a gun

Brendan Hughes

Friend of my brother's used to have a T-shirt with bloody bullet holes and the caption "I drive Minis in Kensington"

(That'll bring the oldies out of the woodwork...)

mad555

iTrader: (1)

If I remember right this guy was drinking in a pub,because of his accent (Scottish) the barman thought he was from Northern Ireland so called the police as he thought he was carrying a firearm(A table leg) wrapped up.

Tiggs

as i recall from 6 years ago......bloke was carrying a table leg that he was fixing....stopped in a pub (someone in pub mistakenly thought he had an irish accent...they put 2 and 2 together and concluded he was a physco terrorist with a shot gun...and called the police.

bloke finished beer and left where the police shot him dead as he strolled down the road.

maybe way off but thats what i recall.

T

Tiggs

i think the point is that when a bloke is armed with a table leg there should exist enough room for hesitation to decide if they do need to shoot.

in this case at what point did PC Trigger happy decide that there was no option but to fire? when he saw that the target was holding something?

no expert but it seems a tad keen!

mad555

iTrader: (1)

What about all the brave policemen/woman who have been murder??.There is a lot of 'innocent' people in Northern Ireland who have been killed,most of the provo ones were just going down to the shop to get their ma a loaf of bread like one of the Shankill bombers who killed numerous people with his bomb,and thankfully blew himself up!!

fast bloke

There are plently of people who claimed to be innocent - My view would be that if you want to be an 'activist' or go out rioting or stealing cars and you happen to get shot dead in the process then fair play to the shooter, they have done civilisation a favour. However, there have been really innocent people shot for no reason as well

CrisPDuk

Sad as it is, it doesn't matter how many police officers are killed in the line of duty, it still doesn't give the police the right to effectively shoot on sight, which is what happened in this case. We're not in America FFS, people don't generally go to the pub carrying shotguns

Chris5-0

Please!

To compare the incident the lads were arrested for today to stuff that happened a long time ago in a very dangerous and violent time in Irelands history is ridiculous!

As is the 'shoot first ask questions later' quote. Do you know anything about firearms training in the police force? Have you been to ranges and seen the stuff we do? No? Then don't make judgements about a very sad incident which cost one man his life and has cost 2 officers 6 years and possibly a jail sentence!

Chris5-0

Shoot on sight!! Oh my god! Do you know what happened that night? Were you there? How do you know he was shot on sight? As for guns into pubs you obviously live a nice quiet life, there there, go back to sleep. Guns are a way of life in all big cities and i can guarantee if you are out in a major city this weekend you will be in a pub/club/taxi queue with someone carrying either a knife or a firearm.

CrisPDuk

Chris, actually I think I must lead a nice quite life, in all the years I have been going to pubs & clubs in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, etc I have never once seen or been involved in any form of aggro let alone any involving firearms
But the fact remains there must have been more than a hint of trigger happiness involved in this case, as the guy was patently NOT CARRYING A WEAPON!

Chris5-0

It was dark, he was at a distance, intelligence SUFFICIENT ENOUGH TO WARRANT WEAPONS TO BE DRAWN, SAID HE WAS CARRYING A FIREARM. He was carrying a table leg wrapped up in a plastic bag(? in a pub!) which resembled the outline shape of a firearm. He was confronted by two armed police officers and made gestures towards them which both officers deemed to be of a threatening nature with an item both officers perceived to be a firearm. He will have been challenged (we DO NOT shoot on sight) and his actions led to the officers perceiving the threat to the general public and themselves being so great that they both engaged him with their firearms.

I do not know the men involved neither do i know the dead man. I do however know firearms training and know what the officers did procedurally before the shooting (after the shooting i have no knowledge). I will not comment on the mans behaviour out of respect to his family but something he did caused armed officers to attend the scene.

As for your safe nights out in major cities, good for you, its people like us that keep the armed villains in check and keep decent hardworking people like yourself safe. I just worry what precedent will be set if this goes to court and how many firearms officers will not think the risks are worth it anymore. If a crime was committed and is duly proved beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law then justice must be seen to be done, but lets not give ammo to the pacifistic whiners who want to curb police response to armed incidents and take us a way i do not wish to forsee!

GC8

Im not disputing what you say here Chris; but ultimately they shot an un-armed man, and that killing was not lawful. There have been a number of incidents which have had a similar outcome and unhelpful and provocative reporting aside, people need to be called to account.

It must be an extremely difficult job; I certainly wouldnt touch it with a ****ty stick!

Simon

fast bloke

I would imagine that the question that should have been asked first was "Is there any possibility that I am about to kill an innocent man" - Seems that this did not enter into the heads of the 'trained' firearms officers. How many days/weeks/months did you spend on your firearms training courses? How many times the training officer tell you it was fair enough to shoot someone carrying a long pointy thing? - As you correctly point out - I know nothing about what goes on on the ranges, but I would make a fair bet that no-one ever told you you could do this. - If I am correct in this assumption then I have to wonder why the two officers in question thought it might be the correct thing to do?

fast bloke

as I said above - I have no issue with people getting shot for breaking the law - however - pointing out that shooting a man with a table leg dead isn't really 100% fair is hardly being a 'pacifistic whiners who want to curb police response to armed incidents'

TheBigMan

tbh, I don't think any of us can "comment" on this.

Unless we know details of the investigation we are in no position to (comment)........we don't, so we can't.

Spoon

I think the Police were more concerned about splinter groups.

fast bloke

Spoon - behave -

anyway - is shooting an armed man really that different from shooting a legged man

warrenm2

as Chris says - bloke they have intelligence on (that is, carrying a weapon) is seen holding bag that is long and pointy (like a shotgun), is challenged by armed police..... AT THIS POINT - WHAT WOULD YOU DO? If I was the guy I would drop the bag pronto and get my empty hands up! If I was the policeman and the guy starts waving the bag around I would shoot him too. What do you F****NG expect when armed police are pointing guns at you? In America this is known as "suicide by police".....

djuk

As much as we would all love to make assumptions about the events of that night there are only 2 living people who really know what happened at this point in time.

However, as has already been pointed out I would guess that the police officers would give some sort of warning or chance to resolve the situation before it got to that stage rather than randomly opening fire on harmless DIYers.

Based on the reports the officers had received prior to confronting the suspect they had every right to be on their guard.

Combine this with the fact that when two uniformed police officers holding automatic weapons start shouting at you the impulse reaction should really be to get rid of whatever is bugging them pretty sharpish and look innocent - something which I am assuming didn't happen here!

I appreciate that we don't want to get into a situation where the police have carte blanche on firing at anything that moves but on the other hand we could well end up with a police force who are afraid to fire at anything full stop for fear of getting it wrong.

David

GC8

Broadcast news indicates that the Police officers in question, are about to be charged with perverting the course of justice. In light of this I have to wonder whether Chris still regards them as 'the lads'?

Simon

dexter

David, this sort of thing is happening within the Police already mate.

I`m not particularly talking about armed officers here, but the way that Society in general is now reacting to anything that involves the Police, and goes wrong, ie: the usual "kids" in a stolen car being pursued by Police, and then killing themselves in the process when they crash, or the arrest of a violent person, who then sues the Police for excessive force, and gets away with it, is making officers feel more and more that their hands are tied.

Never mind, the do-gooders will eventually get their way, and we`ll have virtual anarchy on our hands, because there will be nobody around to stop it any longer.

matt85

Agree 100%.

'Suicide by Cop' is apparently quite common, basically going out knowing that you are going to get shot, save yourself the bother of doing it yourself.

Leslie

Was he walking about aiming the table leg at people?

I get the impression sometimes that some of the armed coppers are trigger happy and looking for any excuse!

Of course they have to react if they honestly think life is at risk however. But that must mean a positive threat.

Les

NotoriousREV

IIRC, when previous enquiries took place it was reported that when they challenged him to drop the "weapon" he actually "took aim" at them as if it was a shotgun.

As above, if 2 armed coppers ask me to drop my weapon, whatever I'm carrying would be on the ground quicker than my bowels could empty.

Leslie

If thats what happened then it is understandable, bit unwise of him to do that!

Les

CrisPDuk

The 'sufficient intelligence' they received was one phone call from a barman who said that their was "p!ssed up Irishman in his pub waving what appeared to be a shotgun around". Whereas witness statements from other people at the pub said he had merely called in for a drink & was showing the repair work he had done to the table leg to a couple of his mates, before taking it back to it's owner. Makes you wonder if Alastair Campbell read the original reports of the case and formulated his ideas about WMD dossiers.

For the record, the tosser behind the bar didn't even get the guy's nationality right, Harry Stanley was in fact Scottish.

CrisPDuk

If the two coppers are being charged with perverting the course of justice, I suspect that they didn't actually follow proper procedure and tryed to conceal that fact afterwards.

PS Chris5-0 FWIW, I do believe that the vast majority of police officers are decent honest people doing a (very) sh!tty job in the face of increasing (and in the main undeserved) public antipathy/hostility, brought about by the (in)actions of the judiciary and increasingly insane government policy