UK police deal with machete wielding man (video via link)

[Korgeta]

Sorry if the tone is sarcastic, but the extent to which the British people have nerfed their police officers annoys me tremendously.

When I was in London in 2008 I saw far more officers carrying around MP-5s than I did your standard unarmed bobby.

Just sayin'.

London though is very different, it has a great varation of crinimal gangs, many armed, I remember when being there a few years back there were some people, ten to fifteen who walked round in several groups carrying bats, possibly some conceled weapons and prowled the street with a few Staffordshire bull terriers. It was an intimdating sight to see, and that's probably on the mid scale risk the police in london face. While the majority of police are unarmed, there is still a good number of armed officers, especially in London.

[Captain Seafort]

London though is very different, it has a great varation of crinimal gangs, many armed, I remember when being there a few years back there were some people, ten to fifteen who walked round in several groups carrying bats, possibly some conceled weapons and prowled the street with a few Staffordshire bull terriers. It was an intimdating sight to see, and that's probably on the mid scale risk the police in london face. While the majority of police are unarmed, there is still a good number of armed officers, especially in London.

Moreover, Ando was probably in the touristy bits in the middle. Westminster, unsurprisingly, is crawling with armed coppers.

[Korgeta]

Very true, and take the 7/7 attacks into account the those areas would have armed police somewhere near by.

[Teebs]

When I was in London in 2008 I saw far more officers carrying around MP-5s than I did your standard unarmed bobby.

Just sayin'.

London has a much larger number of armed officers than the rest of the country, and they tend to hang around in the more tourist heavy spots - airports, stations, parliament etc

[Rye]

Okay. Still, I wonder how the dynamics of UK law enforcement works, and what police corruption is like there. What would British police abuses of power look like, when their officers aren't even usually granted the power to carry guns? Are they similarly de-powered in other ways, which makes power-abuses more difficult? It's hard to imagine a crooked cop when all the heat he's packing is just a beating-stick.

Generally they pick on protesters or people near protests suspected of being protesters.




The second one also covered up his numbers so he'd be less identifiable. I think that practise has been banned since.

[Zaune]

The second one also covered up his numbers so he'd be less identifiable. I think that practise has been banned since.

It's been banned since well before those protests, probably been banned for as long as police officers have had ID numbers on their epaulettes in fact, but there's allegations flying around that Territorial Support Group officers were ordered to cover them up.

[NecronLord]

Nope. Tasers are usually only used when the opponent is armed with another long range weapon. There was a case a few months ago where the Police had to go up against a man armed with a rifle and pistol hidden in a forest, who had sworn a crusade to hunt down and kill any police officer he saw. The people that shot him were armed with tasers. The taser may have caused him to squeeze his firearm, causing him to shoot himself in the face. The investigation into whether or not there was police misconduct is ongoing.

That's not quite the whole story. Most of the two dozen or so police who cornered Roul Moat were armed with live weapons, they pulled out a taser when he decided to threaten to shoot himself.

Specifically, they pulled out a shotgun equipped with taser rounds. TASER XREP – the eXtended Range Electronic Projectile.



If you look at the pictures of Raol Moat's death, there's about a dozen police around with a combination of longarms and pistols pointed at the guy, and the guy with the XREP, which is identifiable by having stock and pump-slide in bright yellow, to tell them apart from standard shotguns. Needless to say, there'd be no shortage of firepower if he had posed an immediate threat, but they wanted to take him alive, so gave the XREP a shot.

Using a taser against a person wielding a firearm is insane.

Fear not, that's not expected at all.

[Hawkwings]

My first sighting of London police officers (or at least police officers in London, they may have been a different organization) were these two officers standing all nonchalant in Heathrow, just before the exit, with tricked-out MP5s. Needless to say that made a strong first impression. I can't say I've noticed that many armed police officers on the streets, even the mean streets of the apparently-dangerous East End where I am. They do tend to cruise around in fluorescent-checkered police cars though, and those guys are probably packing. Seeing a pair of officers with pistols is not rare. Honestly now that I think about it, most of the real officers I've seen have been armed, it's the community service officers that are all unarmed, and with a much higher presence.

For the royal wedding, I walked through one of the police and medical crew staging areas. 30 guys in kevlar and MP5s, hanging around their riot vans and the little snack booth they had set up. No big deal.

[Chirios]

My first sighting of London police officers (or at least police officers in London, they may have been a different organization) were these two officers standing all nonchalant in Heathrow, just before the exit, with tricked-out MP5s. Needless to say that made a strong first impression. I can't say I've noticed that many armed police officers on the streets, even the mean streets of the apparently-dangerous East End where I am. They do tend to cruise around in fluorescent-checkered police cars though, and those guys are probably packing. Seeing a pair of officers with pistols is not rare. Honestly now that I think about it, most of the real officers I've seen have been armed, it's the community service officers that are all unarmed, and with a much higher presence.

For the royal wedding, I walked through one of the police and medical crew staging areas. 30 guys in kevlar and MP5s, hanging around their riot vans and the little snack booth they had set up. No big deal.

Officers in airports are usually armed, as are those in the major train stations. The ones in the cars aren't. And East London is quite rough, but so long as you don't run around with the people who usually cause the problems you'll be fine.