Met to use armed officers in crackdown on gangs

Armed officers are to patrol on foot in the parts of London worst hit by gang violence in what will be a significant shift in British policing.

The Metropolitan Police, the country’s biggest force, wants to send officers armed with guns to deal directly with violent criminals in the areas most affected by gang feuds and knife crime.

Officers deployed with visible weapons would mark a change in firearms policy. They have previously been restricted to foot patrols in areas most at risk of terrorist attack, such as the Palace of Westminster.

Critics warned that armed officers walking around streets and council estates in areas such as Tottenham, in north London, and Newham, in east London, would be ‘‘provocative’’ and risked alienating communities.

Scotland Yard, which acknowledged that the patrols would be a ‘‘significant change’’, is dealing with an epidemic of violence that has led to more than 120 homicide investigations this year. It is already embroiled in controversy over its tactic of using police cars to knock suspects off mopeds and scooters, which have been used in thousands of thefts, muggings and acid attacks.

Cressida Dick, the police commissioner, was forced yesterday to deny claims by a London assembly member that this approach could be regarded as police meting out ‘‘corporal punishment’’.

She said that the officers were highly trained and that no suspects had been seriously injured.

Defending the latest changes to armed police tactics, Dick said that 40 per cent of killings were gangrelated and that police needed to be able to adjust to the problem. At present most armed officers drive around London in armed response vehicles from which they can be deployed for incidents such as gang violence.

Dick told the London assembly that officers would now take a ‘‘very short foot patrol in extreme circumstances’’ in areas where there was intelligence of potential violence.

The proposal will be controversial because of Britain’s long tradition of unarmed policing, with fewer than 10 per cent of officers trained to use weapons.

Concerns were raised last year over plans, still under consideration, to issue a handgun to every frontline officer in England and Wales in response to the growing terrorism threat.

Len Duvall, a Labour member of the London assembly, questioned why the Met had carried out limited consultation on a plan that represented a ‘‘major change in policing activity’’. He expressed concern that armed foot patrols could ‘‘sneak up and become the norm’’.

Stafford Scott, a community activist in Tottenham, where the 2011 riots began after police shot dead Mark Duggan, said that it was an ‘‘oppressive measure’’.

The Met has asked its firearms and Taser reference group, an independent community advisory panel, about the proposal. In an email, seen by the Times, the force said: ‘‘The purpose of any such initiative must be to enhance public and unarmed officer safety, and to improve not hinder community confidence. As such, it is recognised that any change in armed posture in response to spikes in violence may be counter-productive.’’ –