The Vast Majority of U.K. Police Don't Carry Guns. Here's Why.
"George Floyd: Five pieces of context to understand the protests "These 4 charts describe police violence in America "Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on George Floyd, has murder charge upgraded; three other officers charged"""
Yay for a different culture any semblance of which the NRA was a paramount player in shoving off the American radar. It was about 1977
How the NRA Went From Best Friend of the Nation's Police to Harsh Enemy of Law Enforcement. .. linked in .. Tearex, Your article is so starkly stuffed with inanity, illogicality and misinformation so as to be virtually irrelevant. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=159645088
A London police officer blocks off a street following the attack targeting the U.K. Parliament in March.Carl Court / Getty Images
March 24, 2017, 12:13 AM AEDT / Updated Sept. 15, 2017, 11:08 PM AEST
[That video doesn't want to load for me. And went dark when the embedded one in the article was clicked on.]
The Metropolitan Police, which covers most of London, was founded in 1829 on the principle of "policing by consent" rather than by force.
Giving everyday police officers guns sends the wrong message to communities, so this thinking goes, and can actually cause more problems than it solves.
Although there are higher numbers of armed police guarding Parliament, the attacker who rushed its gates in March was shot dead by a relatively rare member of the country's security forces — one who had been trained to use a firearm.
"None of us want to live in a police state"
Some of these gun-wielding officers patrol the city in pairs, others are members of crack response teams — units dressed in body-armor, helmets and carrying long rifles — who are called to the scene of violent incidents like these.
In most instances, they don't use their weapons.
In the year up to March 2016, police in England and Wales only fired seven bullets. (Although these government figures do not include accidental shots, shooting out tires, or killing dangerous or injured animals.)
Counterterrorism officers with London's Metropolitan Police.Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
These officers fatally shot just five people during that period, according to British charity Inquest .. http://www.inquest.org.uk/ , which helps families after police-related deaths.
In August, when a teenager suffering an episode of paranoid schizophrenia killed an American tourist in a busy London street, armed police rushed to the scene but not a single bullet was fired.
Of course it's easier for police to remain unarmed if civilians do the same. Out of every 100 people in Britain, fewer than four of them owns a firearm, according to GunPolicy.org .. http://www.gunpolicy.org/ , a project run by Australia's University of Sydney. In the U.S. there is more than one gun per person.
Members of the emergency services work outside Parsons Green Tube station after a fire on a train Friday.Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP - Getty Images
"In a free and democratic society, there is going to be a balance between democracy, freedom and openness, and a police state — and none of us want to live in a police state," said Brian Dillon, former head of the Met's firearms command who now runs the counterterrorism consultancy Rubicon Resilience.
"Therefore at some point some attacks are regrettably going to hit home, that's inevitable," he added. "Not everything can be stopped."
While shootings involving police are relatively common in the U.S., authorities in Britain say they review each one with painstaking diligence.
Every time a British police officer shoots and injures or kills someone, it is automatically referred to an separate watchdog called the Independent Police Complaints Commission, or IPCC.
This process is not without its critics.
Some police have complained that officers are reluctant to sign up for firearms training because they fear being dragged through years of lengthy investigations in the unlikely event they have to use their weapon.
"Officers have seen what happens to their colleagues who have had to use lethal force to protect the public," outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe told reporters earlier this year. "Increasingly, they seem to be portrayed as suspects, based, I can only assume, on an underlying belief that they must have acted in a criminal fashion if someone has died."
British police are attempting to recruit more firearms officers but the overwhelming majority will remain unarmed. Officials believe they have the balance about right.
"An attacker attempted to break into Parliament and was shot dead within 20 yards of the gate," Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers after the March attack. "If his intention was to gain access to this building we should be clear that he did not succeed. The police heroically did their job." Image: Alexander SmithAlexander Smith
Alexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.
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George Floyd death: How US police are trying to win back trust
"George Floyd: Five pieces of context to understand the protests "These 4 charts describe police violence in America "Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on George Floyd, has murder charge upgraded; three other officers charged"" "
By Clive Myrie BBC News, Ferguson, Missouri
Published 1 day ago
Police officer in Ferguson consoles a bereaved family Getty Images
It must be hard being a police officer in America, especially after the death of George Floyd.
Damn right too, some would argue, given the shocking video of his last moments alive.
Patrol woman Brittany Richardson is 34 and a 12-year veteran.
She's now with the Ferguson Police Department, a suburb of St Louis in Missouri, and was at home with her wife and two children when she first saw the images of Derek Chauvin's knee on Mr Floyd's neck.
"There were so many videos of police engaged in the wrong kinds of interactions with people," Brittany says, "but this was heartbreaking."
The police are not all like that, she says, but the public don't see the men and women in uniform as individuals. "If one cop does something like this, we're seen as all the same. I was watching on my phone and I just kept thinking 'why is he on him, there's no need for this'.
There was no need for that amount of force, she says.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Watching my wife's reaction, she was saying the same thing the rest of the world was saying. Why, just why?"
Look at us as individuals, urges police officer Brittany Richardson
Brittany takes me out on patrol with her. Ferguson isn't very big - typical smalltown America. Easy on the eye.
"It's hard to believe that on television this place looked like a war zone," I suggest, gazing out of the window from the passenger seat at little white picket fences and manicured lawns.
"Yeah that was a lot of trouble that went on for weeks."
She's referring to the nightly pictures beamed around the world of the running battles between riot police and protestors in 2014, following the killing of the African American teenager, Michael Brown, who was shot six times by a white police officer.
[Headings outed here] Timeline of US police killings that led to protests 17 July 2014: Eric Garner 9 August 2014: Michael Brown 22 November 2014: Tamir Rice 4 April 2015: Walter Scott 5 July 2016: Alton Sterling 6 July 2016: Philando Castile 18 March 2018: Stephon Clark 13 March 2020: Breonna Taylor 25 May 2020: George Floyd 11 April 2021: Daunte Wright https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52905408
Pictures show his body lying in the middle of the road in a pool of blood. His sneakered feet poking out from beneath a white blanket.
"I'd been a police officer for about five years up to that point, and looking at Facebook isn't a good idea, when there's been a police killing" Brittany shrugs.
VIDEO - George Floyd death: What’s changed, 100 days later?
"It was the same after George Floyd died. You see comments like - all the police want to do is kill us. But that's not what it's about, being a police officer."
Up ahead, we see a liquor store on the corner of the street.
"Watch this," Brittany says, "you see those five cars parked outside, as soon as we pull up, they'll drive off."
Sure enough, that's what happens, the vehicles scatter on the arrival of the patrol car.
"The drunks don't like me hanging around," she says "in case they do something stupid. But I worry every day that someone will pull out a knife or a gun and I won't go home back to my kids and my family at night."
"Do you pray before you go to work?" I ask. "Yes, every day. I pray outside the room of my kids that they'll be safe, and to make sure they know they're loved, and I pray I return home to them."
The death of Michael Brown was investigated by President Barack Obama's Department of Justice and they cleared the police officer of wrongdoing on the basis of witness statements and forensic evidence.
But it was scathing about the Ferguson Police Department and its report led to the resignation of the police chief. To this day the force must adhere to a strict set of rules governing how it conducts its business.
The current Ferguson police chief, Jason Armstrong, has been in the job for two years, trying to maintain a steady course on the road to the force's redemption.
"We're doing what we can," he says. I cannot guarantee or promise you there won't be another police shooting, of course not, but what I can promise and guarantee, is that we are going to handle that problem the right way, that there will be accountability. Only time can build trust, but we're getting there."
No police shootings since 2015, says Ferguson police chief Jason Armstrong
But what about the fabled "thin blue line", that unbreakable bond between cops? It used to mean your buddy's got your back in a shoot-out, but it also meant he or she had your back if you did something stupid, or wrong, or even illegal. In other words, they'd lie to cover for you.
"We have new disciplinary procedures," says Chief Armstrong. "Our Duty to Report policy means that if an officer sees a colleague engaged in activity that would discredit the force, then they're duty bound to report what happened, and failing to do so could result in penalties similar to those imposed for committing the offence itself. "
It is a long road to the atonement past police injustices require. But Chief Armstrong says there hasn't been a single police shooting in Ferguson since Michael Brown died. No officer has had to discharge their weapon.
The chief was taking part in a fun run on the day I arrived in St Louis, jogging alongside local people. A different kind of community policing on a sunny Saturday afternoon. No big deal, no great fanfare, but the visible manifestation of a sense of community the police department is trying to foster.
The town sits next to the city of St Louis, the US murder capital and the worst place in America for civilian deaths at the hands of the police. I meet patrol officer Jay Schroeder, in the bar of the St Louis Police Officer's Association.
He's the president, and on the walls in four large frames are passport style pictures of 166 St Louis police officers. Each one is dated, the first in grainy black and white is of a man called John Sturdy. Beneath his name are the letters EOW, which stand for End of Watch, and the date he died - 1863.
Jay Schroeder (right) shows the BBC's Clive Myrie tributes to fallen officers
Jay says several of the officers whose pictures are on the wall died in the late 19th, and early 20th Century and were victims of electrocution, after trying to use the cast iron police call boxes, which were poorly designed. But many others were shot in the line of duty.
"That's Gregory Erson," he says looking at one photograph, this time in colour. "He was working in vice and was ambushed by a prostitute's pimp. EOW-1983.
"Four of these guys I worked with, and Norvelle Brown- EOW August 2007, was the first who was shot and killed. Murdered after being fired on from inside a house where he was attending an incident. He didn't stand a chance."
I gently make the point to Jay that the city of St Louis has the highest level of civilian deaths at the hands of the police, anywhere in America.
"Yes but it is a dangerous place with violent crime rising," he counters. "But we understand public concern and we've been trying to work better with local communities, and we were doing good. Then George Floyd happened, and that set law enforcement back across this country. Sometimes things look bad on video. This one was bad, and for all the progress we've made since Ferguson, it wiped it out, just like that."
Jay comes from a family of police officers, six generations to be exact. His great, great, great, great, great grandfather emigrated from Ireland to America in 1891 and joined the police force, and there's been an officer from the Schroeder family in the ranks continuously, ever since.
As America marks the one year anniversary of George Floyd's death, it's not just civilians who'll be reflecting on what happened.
The police will be too, determined to show that Derek Chauvin does not represent who they are.
You may also be interested in: VIDEO - What happened when a city disbanded its police force
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The city of Camden, N.J., a city once known as the most dangerous in the United States, dismantled its police force seven years ago and rebuilt it from scratch. Canadian expat Bruce Main explains how it happened
Five Officers Charged With Murder in Memphis Police Killing... As the city awaits video of the fatal encounter with Tyre Nichols,... [...]‘It never stops’: killings by US police reach record high in 2022 [...]“These are routine police encounters that escalate to a killing,” said Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and policy analyst who founded Mapping Police Violence and provided 2022 data to the Guardian. “The reduction in the conversation around police violence does not mean that this issue is going away. What’s clear is that it’s continuing to get worse, and that it’s deeply systemic.” https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171061680
Hopefully not one provocateur gets one cent.
Posted 26m ago
A man is arrested at a George Floyd protest by NYPD officers during a march on June 4, 2020. (AP Photo: John Minchillo)
Protesters who were arrested or beaten by police during George Floyd death protests in 2020 could receive a share in more than $US13 million ($19.2 million) after New York City agreed to pay them in a civil rights settlement.
Key points:
* Protests erupted across the US after the death of George Floyd in 2020
* Thousands were arrested or beaten by police across the country
* Plaintiffs in the class action could receive thousands of dollars each
The class action on behalf of 1,300 people, focused on 18 of the many protests that erupted in the city the week after Mr Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.
The settlement which was filed to Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, will be among the most expensive payouts ever awarded in a lawsuit over mass arrests if approved by a judge.
With certain exceptions, people arrested or subjected to force by NYPD officers at those events will each be eligible for $US9,950 in compensation, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.
The agreement, one of several stemming from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, allows the city to avoid a trial that could be both expensive and politically fraught.
Many other cities across the US are negotiating their own settlements with protesters who spilled into the streets to decry racist police brutality after Mr Floyd's death, a period of unrest that saw 10,000 people arrested in the span of a few days.
Adama Sow, one of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said their group of marchers were trapped by police without warning.
They said the other arrestees were placed in zip ties until their hands turned purple, then held in a sweltering correctional bus for several hours.
"It was so disorganised, but so intentional," they said said.
"They seemed set on traumatising everyone."
'Indiscriminate brutality'
Lawyers with the National Lawyers Guild, which represented the plaintiffs in New York, accused NYPD leaders of depriving protesters of their 1st Amendment rights through a "coordinated" campaign of indiscriminate brutality and unlawful arrests.
"The harmful realities we were protesting in 2020 persist. Black and brown people are disproportionately harassed, prosecuted, jailed and killed by police," Savitri Durkee, one of the named plaintiffs, said in a statement.
Through more than two years of litigation, lawyers for the city maintained that police were responding to a chaotic and unprecedented situation.
People participate in a Black Lives Matter rally on June 14, 2020, in Brooklyn. (AP Photo: Kathy Willen )
They pointed to some unruly protests in which police vehicles were set on fire and officers pelted with rocks and plastic bottles.
A spokesperson for the NYPD deferred questions to the city's Law Department, which did not respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press.
During some of the 2020 protest marches, officers deployed a crowd control tactic known as "kettling" against peaceful protesters, corralling them in tight spaces and attacking them with batons and pepper spray before making mass arrests.
Protesters who were arrested on certain charges — including trespassing, property destruction, assaulting an officer, arson or weapons possession — will be excluded from the settlement.
Those who were seen on video blocking police from making arrests may also be ineligible.
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