Do the public care a police officer has been shot dead? (UK)?

Question

For doing his duty in protecting the public?
He has paid the ultimate price.

Do the Briish public appreciate this?
And will it make them realise the REAL dangers our un-armed officers face on a daily basis?

Answer 1

I am so sorry for your loss.

My hat is off to British officers, I have no idea how they do their jobs without being allowed to carry a sidearm. That takes real courage.

Answer 2

I would like to think that the overwhelming majority of the public do care. The ones that don't will generally be the small minority of low life that we deal with every day!! i.e the career criminal!! Yesterday someone lost a son, husband?, father?, doing his job / carrying out his duty. In this profession there are ever increasing dangers, probably more so from knives than guns. I'm not sure that arming all police is the answer. A sidearm may not have prevented this. You wouldnt go to every job with your gun out anticipating that the offender has a gun. Possibly the issue of Taser in the first instance may be the answer.

Whatever happens we have lost another brave colleague, striving to make a difference and make the streets safer.

I've now discovered that the officer was a fellow firearms colleague who was in fact armed and attending a firearms incident at that address where two unarmed colleagues were being held at gunpoint. This goes to show that just because you are armed does not mean you are no longer vulnerable. My thoughts are with his family and friends.

Answer 3

Hell yes!
I am really worrying about it though because i think that the guy who shot him was an old friend from years ago & wander just what might have been going through his head - if it was him i cant imagine what made him do it. He was a gamekeeper so the weapon probably wasnt illegal. He was an amazing photographer - i still have some of his photos at home. Really messing with my head.
The police do a brilliant job, mired down with unnecessary paperwork, & the thought that a person could take the life of anyone, let alone a policeman, is beyond my comprehension. I hope this doesnt scare people off joining the police force.
Police shouldnt be armed though. Fighting guns with guns is not the way forward. If there were no guns then this terrible act could never have taken place.
My thoughts go out to the family of the policeman & to the family of the person who commited this crime - if it is who i think it is then something went terribly wrong. I hope it isnt

Answer 4

Well this member of the public cares very deeply, and appreciates the dangerous situations out police officers go into not knowing what to expect.

The men and women on the front line of policing in the UK face tougher challenges every day. The majority of the public of the UK have little face to face contact with police officers on a day to day basis, and we all put our reliance on them when we find crime touching our lives.

Maybe the loss of yet another police officer in the line of duty will make the law abiding amongst us sit up and take notice of the dangerous job they do, the situations they go into without any consideration for their own personal safety...and all this to protect a public who in some instances do not appreciate the safety the officers afford us!

My heart goes out to this officers family, friends and colleagues...and I thank him for his bravery.

Answer 5

Of course any decent law abiding person would be sorry for the officer who lost his life. But it isn't that long ago that British policemen and policewomen were being shot and blown up on a daily basis in Northern Ireland by the people that the british Goverment now have as fellow MP's. I am just wondering where all the sympathy was for the many Police officers who lost thier lives in the course of their duties. And just one for the pot, a lot of the money that went into the terrorists pockets to do all thre killing and maiming came from the American people.

Answer 6

As far as I understand, there are already a lot of plods armed in the UK. They just don't normally wear them as part of their normal uniform and only use them when they are responding to a firearm offence or something else as nasty. I think the weapons are locked up in the back of their vehicles (again not all of them). As to numbers, I'm not really sure how many police are in these armed response units. Have a look at the met police web site, I know that they've recently changed some of their SO's (I think that's what they r called) and there seems to be a fair bit of information about this issue. As for arming all of them, I don't agree, however I do think that they should have a lot more police qualified in weapon use "just in case"

Answer 7

The British public MUST care, who else is there to protect them.
My deepest sympathies to this officer's family and friends. An officer doing a most important job and cheated out of life.

One question that needs answering " Was he single crewed ?" if so where was the funding to get the right number of Police Officers to support each other and have enough to truly protect UK citizens.

Answer 8

Yes, everyone should care and I believe most do, and appreciate the dangers of policing. But lets make a clear distinction there exists both a gun and knife culture that is not indigenous to this country. It has been brought here along with a drug culture and is degenerative to our British culture, which to some degree now accept it as the norm.

Crime detection, law enforcement, and the judiciary should be more proactive in the eradication of such incidents. Any gun toting or knife wielding yobs should be dealt with appropriately.

Police officers are not perfect but neither should they be in fear of doing their job simply because government are failing them and society as a whole.

Consider Sharon Beshenivsky, murdered by the Jama brothers in a bungled robbery in Bradford, one escaped capture through a London airport dressed as a woman. Both were Somalian economic refugees. I rest my case!!

Answer 9

I'd give all cops in the UK guns... if they all wanted them which they don't. It was put to an open vote at the Police Federation conference fairly recently, last year I think, and they voted against it.
I've got the greatest sympathy for the dead officer and his family. Not only has he been taken from his family, he's had the indignity of the Sun referring to him as a 'hero policeman.'
You know, I bet he'd rather be alive than a hero. I can't stand the Sun.

Answer 10

I for one appreciate every police officer. Their job is difficult, their powers have slowly been eroded over the last 10 years and they are increasingly going up against armed criminals, with knives and guns.

There was a time when I thought I would like to join the Police Force, but I'm not sure I could deal with the dangers that they have to deal with every day.

They are our home security. We give soldiers guns, tanks, missiles to go fighting overseas and what do we give our Police officers fighting war on our home soil? A load of abuse generally.

Answer 11

Any sane person with an ounce of conscious would be outraged and saddened at the tragic death of someone who puts his or her life on the line for the rest of us. The British Governments gun ban in 1997 was touted as the "gold standard". In fact it's been nothing but a disaster. Now criminals in Britain can rape pillage and plunder with impunity because they know that Joe Citizen is extremely unlikely to have any type of firearm whatsoever to defend themselves. What a good plan! The least the Parliament can do is properly train and arm the Police.

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http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html