Met Police marksman is arrested after fatal shooting of ‘gangster’
A POLICE marksman has been arrested over the fatal shooting of a man during an alleged attempt to spring two convicts from a prison van, it emerged yesterday.
The officer has been interviewed under caution ‘in respect of his use of lethal force’ following the shooting of Jermaine Baker, who died of a single gunshot wound near Wood Green Crown Court, north London, last Friday.
The arrest was disclosed by an Independent Police Complaints Commission official at a community meeting last night, where a senior Scotland Yard officer confirmed that Mr Baker, 28, was not on a police list of known gang members.
The police watchdog, which is investigating the alleged homicide, refused to say what offence the unnamed officer had been arrested for. The IPCC declined to comment when asked if he had been arrested on suspicion of murder.
IPCC Commissioner Cindy Butts told the noisy gathering in Tottenham, north London, that Mr Baker died during a police operation. It provoked some shouts of ‘murdered’. She added: ‘There was evidence to indicate that a potential criminal offence may have been committed by the officer in his use of lethal force.
‘We therefore made the decision to begin a criminal homicide investigation.
‘This afternoon a firearms officer has been arrested and interviewed under caution. All the other significant firearms officers have provided detailed statements as is normal practice. The evidence we have at this stage does not mean that the officer definitively committed a criminal act and nor does it mean he will necessarily be charged with a criminal offence.’
Miss Butts said she was limited as to what she could say due to the ongoing criminal investigation into the death of Mr Baker, from Tottenham. The evidence suggests he was in a black Audi when he was shot, and inside the car was what appears to be a non-police issue firearm, she said.
The commissioner added that she was unable to provide information about where in the car the firearm was found or where Mr Baker was sitting. No relevant CCTV has been identified and no body-worn police cameras filmed the incident.
The arrested officer shot Mr Baker as police detained four other men who allegedly plotted to storm a Serco security van while armed to spring two gangland assassins due to be sentenced at the court.
Four men have been charged with conspiring to break gangsters Erun Izzet and Erwin Amoyaw- Gyamfi out of the van. Izzet and Amoyaw-Gyamfi were jailed for 14 years each on Friday afternoon.
The arrested police marksman was suspended from duty on Wednesday after the IPCC announced on Sunday it had launched a homicide investigation.
Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Terry said: ‘As police officers, we are all fully aware that we will be asked to account for our actions. We are not exempt from the law and would not wish to be.
‘Every day in London our armed officers willingly respond to dangerous situations … This requires those armed officers having the confidence to make the most difficult of decisions, often in split seconds … We will continue to give our armed officers support and reassurance to ensure they have the confidence to keep fulfilling this crucial role.’
Earlier this week Mr Baker’s girlfriend Tia Demetrio, 25, said those behind the operation which left him dead will ‘not get away with it’. She attacked claims the father of her two children ‘came out firing’, insisting that ‘only one bullet was found’.
She added that she is ‘going to get the truth for him’ as she accused ‘so many people’ of lying about what took place.
Rumours continue to circulate that Mr Baker and the two other men in the car were asleep when he was shot. Lee Jasper, a black rights activist, claimed on his blog earlier this week that the men woke up only when police smashed a window.