I have been troubled by this shooting and by the length of time it is taking the Independent Office for Police Conduct to report on what appears, from two hundred miles away, to have been a straightforward, but fatally botched operation. A length of time which means that, inter alia, those in charge or otherwise involved at the time are quite likely to have retired out of harm’s way. It would be better if justice could be seen to be done rather faster than seems to be case. And better if police forces did not have so much trouble publicly admitting to sometimes making mistakes. To which end it would also be better if the rest of us could contain our fondness for front-line scapegoats.
A few days ago saw the publication of a report into another police shooting, this one near Manchester. In brief, quoting from the report: ‘… an authorised firearms officer of Greater Manchester Police (“GMP”) shot and killed Anthony Grainger on the evening of Saturday 3 March 2012…’. That is to say, something more that seven years ago. This report can be found at reference 4.
For the avoidance of doubt, I note that the victims of both these shootings appear to have been career criminals of the middling sort; that is to say neither juvenile delinquents nor masters of crime.
One of the conclusions of the report is: '... for it turns out that Anthony Grainger’s untimely death was not the consequence of one wrong decision but of many. As often happens, it took a combination of errors and blunders to produce so calamitous an outcome – an outcome for which I have concluded that Greater Manchester Police is to blame...'. Which means that, on this occasion at least, the chaps on the front-line have not been hung out to take the whole blame.
That said, the impression given is that the management and conduct of police armed response units generally falls well short of what we might reasonably expect.
In particular, I do not understand how it comes to be thought to be appropriate to box in a car containing criminals and for one of those criminals to be dead within seconds. Surely there are better ways to do such things? Perhaps more proportionate to the circumstances?
The snap above of the scene near Manchester has been copied from Figure 8 of the report: position of the stolen Audi (red) and the Alpha car (white). Two of the other police vehicles involved (Bravo and Charlie) can be seen immediately behind the Alpha car. All the police vehicles appear to have been unmarked and the incident took place in the evening, in the dark.
And I am puzzled by all the talk of secret material in section B of chapter 1. What can possibly be so secret in the affairs of criminals in the north of England that we can be given no hint? The judge writing the report claims that he has managed quite well without disclosing any secrets, which may well be true. But I would be more comfortable if he could have given us some hints.
Nor have I yet found any general comment about the squeeze on resources across the board trickling down to individual operations. If the whole system is under financial stress, things are going to go wrong.
Maybe, if I ever get beyond chapter one, I will be more comfortable.
And in the meantime, let us hope that we do not have to wait for another five years before we learn what really happened in Huddersfield.
PS: and let us not forget that the current Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis was the officer in command on the day of the fatal shooting of an innocent Brazilian in a tube train, at Stockwell, in the wake of terrorist incidents in said Metropolis.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=huddersfield.
Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=huddersfield.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/01/justice.html. The first time I posted about the Huddersfield shooting.
Reference 4: https://www.graingerinquiry.org.uk/.
No comments:
Post a Comment