Arming all officers not the answer – top police chief

THE rapid response by firearms officers in shooting dead three terrorists as they went on a murderous rampage in central London has renewed the debate on whether all police officers should carry guns.

Reacting to Saturday’s attacks, the UK’s most senior police officer, Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick, has said she does not think the move would be a good idea.

“Personally, at the moment I do not think the answer is to arm all our officers,” she said. “I also do believe that highly trained, highly equipped, highly mobile officers is a very much better set of people to have than, as some people have suggested, for example, every officer should be carrying a sidearm.

“I simply don’t think that is a sensible response or likely to be effective against this threat.”

Police Federation vice-chairman Calum Macleod also discounted any ideas that routinely arming all police was the answer.

“When we last surveyed our members, 80% told us they did not want to routinely carry firearms,” he said. “They do, however want access to better equipment, such as Taser and spit guards.”

He was referring to a survey conducted by the Metropolitan Police Federation earlier this year, which was conducted to gauge attitudes towards carrying firearms amongst its members.

It found almost half of respondents (43.6%) stated there should be more specialist firearms officers in the Met – but not all officers should be routinely armed. Just one in four (26%) said they believe all police officers should be routinely armed, while 12% said they would not carry a firearm on duty.

Only 6% of those polled believe there is currently an “adequate” quantity of gun-carrying officers in the capital, while there was strong support for increasing the number of personnel who carry Tasers.

Three in four respondents (75%) indicated they believe all Met Police officers should be issued with the stun guns while on duty.

The three terrorists were shot dead by marksmen just eight minutes after police were called on Saturday night.

Eight officers fired 50 bullets, in an “unprecedented number of rounds”, the Met’s assistant commissioner Mark Rowley said. “The situation these officers were confronted with was critical – a matter of life and death – three armed men wearing what appeared to be suicide belts,” he added.