New Met chief faces immediate call to arm more officers with Tasers
SCOTLAND Yard’s newly appointed Commissioner Cressida Dick is to face immediate calls for more officers to be armed with Taser to protect against violent attacks.
Rank-and-file officers are demanding an increase in the number of frontline officers equipped with the stun gun amid a rise in the number of assaults on police and the threat of a terror attack.
Ken Marsh, the chairman of the Met Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said he would seek an urgent meeting with the new Commissioner to ask for more officers to be armed with
Taser.
He said: “It is a matter of protection for our officers.
We are in a more dangerous society today than we have ever been.
“There is a misunderstanding that everyone uses Tasers willy-nilly and that we are gun happy, but officers rarely discharge Tasers. They are a huge deterrent and a success in preventing violence.”
His comments came after a recent Met Police Federation survey of 11,000 London officers found that three quarters believe Tasers should be issued as a matter of routine.
Today Ms Dick issued a call to rally the troops saying she planned to visit as many police stations and officers as she could in the coming weeks.
In an internal message to the Met’s 31,000 officers and 13,000 civil staff she declared: “I know that we will achieve great things together.”
Her appointment to the £270,000-ayear position by the Home Secretary yesterday has been widely welcomed within the Met.
Ms Dick, 56, a former Met chief of counter terrorism, currently holds a senior Foreign Office position and will have to be re-sworn in as a police officer when she takes up her post in the coming weeks.
The first woman to lead the Met since the force was created in 1829, she is also the first Commissioner in the modern era to get the job without holding the position of chief constable.
Insiders say that she is likely to give higher priority to London’s community groups, with her immediate attention being concentrated on the terror threat and “stabilising the ship” in the face of expected £400 million budget cuts.
She spoke yesterday of her delight at winning the race to the most senior job in British policing saying her appointment was “b e yo n d my w i l d e s t dreams”.
She added: “I look forward to serving the people of London and protecting the people of London.”