When Police Kill

[dan_999uk]

Police officers, like every other citizen of this country, rely on Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 to justify their use of force against another person.

Quote

A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large.

Common law provides further protection regarding self defence.

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"It is both good law and good sense that a man who is attacked may defend himself. It is both good law and good sense that he may do, but only do, what is reasonably necessary."

When considering a prosecution the prosecutors are required to consider:

• was the use of force necessary in the circumstances, i.e. Was there a need for any force at all?; and
• was the force used reasonable in the circumstances?

 

I note that "more than 100" Metropolitan Police officers have handed back their permits to carry firearms after one of their colleagues, known as NX121, shot an unarmed Black man in disputed circumstances in September 2022.

 

The Home Secretary has offered her support to firearms officers who work in difficult circumstances making split second decisions. 

 

Should agents of the state who kill fellow citizens face scrutiny of their justification for taking a life? Are the criminal courts the right places to hear these circumstances in front of a jury? Should there be some other process or should there be no oversight?

[Axe]

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It later emerged that the Audi the 24-year-old was driving, which did not belong to him, had been linked by police to a gun incident the previous day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66875035

[dan_999uk]

Driving a car that doesn't belong to you that was reported to be involved in a crime isn't a capital offence. Did the police simply target the car? Did they know that the man they killed for driving it was the same person involved in the incident the previous day? Was it the same car or a cloned numberplate? What safeguards were in place?

 

Presumably these are points the prosecutors have considered before authorising the charge. 

[The_DADDY]

1 hour ago, dan_999uk said:

 

Should agents of the state who kill fellow citizens face scrutiny of their justification for taking a life? Are the criminal courts the right places to hear these circumstances in front of a jury? Should there be some other process or should there be no oversight?

Bold

Absolutely they should.

 

Underlined 

Yes

 

Italics 

No.

[aardvark6535]

Justice should not only be done, but should also be SEEN to be done,  as the saying goes, and a truer statement has never been said. Officers who have handed in their ticket ( Stopped handling firearms ) in support of this Officer Obviously don't have the correct attitude to be in the armed police to start with, in my opinion, as they seem to think that they should be able to shoot and Kill anyone they like, or should that be dislike, without any scrutiny what so ever.

Now this officer is Innoncent in the eyes of British law and should be treated as such, However there is a question mark over his use of a fire arm in this case and the only way to answer any doubts is to bring the case to court, an OPEN court, anyone who thinks this is the wrong course of action is against the British Justice system.

[Findlay]

I'm so glad we live in a mostly civil society where incidents of great violence are less common than other in countries. This does however lead to a great divide in peoples knowledge of such events and they simply do not know what they are talking about.
Armed police units carry very little ballistic armour, only enough to protect vital organs. Their defence is their weapon, training and situation intelligence.
I would think that the police officers that have downed arms have done so as they feel they would not have done anything different in the same situation and it could be any of them now inline to be prosecuted.

In these situations it is not one man but a whole team at work, intelligence providers, communications, colleagues, supervisors all are part of that operation yet they have blamed the entire outcome on one person.
Like drugs mules being the sacrificial line for experienced dealers, frontline police officers are being hung out to dry when it's the people in charge that should be facing the consequences or this will happen again and again.

Is it for the courts or is it a cause for an immediate review of police doctrine and training of all those involved in such operations?

A tragic outcome that no-one wants but the culmination of all those inputs, decisions and actions led to that outcome from everyone that took part.

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Findlay

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, aardvark6535 said:

Justice should not only be done, but should also be SEEN to be done,  as the saying goes, and a truer statement has never been said. Officers who have handed in their ticket ( Stopped handling firearms ) in support of this Officer Obviously don't have the correct attitude to be in the armed police to start with, in my opinion, as they seem to think that they should be able to shoot and Kill anyone they like, or should that be dislike, without any scrutiny what so ever.

Now this officer is Innoncent in the eyes of British law and should be treated as such, However there is a question mark over his use of a fire arm in this case and the only way to answer any doubts is to bring the case to court, an OPEN court, anyone who thinks this is the wrong course of action is against the British Justice system.

I agree completely with this view.

Quite obviously, neither the police nor anyone else,  can be allowed to shoot unarmed citizens,  without the legal system getting involved to determine whether this action is lawful or not.

Let the law rule on this and meanwhile,  carry on using our military until it's decided.  Any officer who hands in his ticket should be clear that this is a permanent arrangement and we would have to train some more.

 

[Axe]

1 hour ago, aardvark6535 said:

Justice should not only be done, but should also be SEEN to be done,  as the saying goes, and a truer statement has never been said. Officers who have handed in their ticket ( Stopped handling firearms ) in support of this Officer Obviously don't have the correct attitude to be in the armed police to start with, in my opinion, as they seem to think that they should be able to shoot and Kill anyone they like, or should that be dislike, without any scrutiny what so ever.

Now this officer is Innoncent in the eyes of British law and should be treated as such, However there is a question mark over his use of a fire arm in this case and the only way to answer any doubts is to bring the case to court, an OPEN court, anyone who thinks this is the wrong course of action is against the British Justice system.

The officers who have handed in their ticket will have more knowledge about what actually happened than the public does.  They are not handing in their ticket because they think they should be able to kill anyone.  They are most likely worried they could  also end up on a murder charge if a similar incident occurred involving a car used for a gun incident driven by a person with a criminal record.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Axe said:

The officers who have handed in their ticket will have more knowledge about what actually happened than the public does.  They are not handing in their ticket because they think they should be able to kill anyone.  They are most likely worried they could  also end up on a murder charge if a similar incident occurred involving a car used for a gun incident driven by a person with a criminal record.

Dress it up how you like but     -     BRITISH LAW DOES NOT ALLOW THE KILLING OF UNARMED CITIZENS    -    and in my opinion,   righty so.

I don't care why they've handed their tickets back,  as long as they know,  that if they kill an unarmed citizen,  they will face consequences because our law does not allow that.

 

[melthebell]

NOBODY should be above the law, including ex soldiers in Northern ireland, you do bad stuff you should expect to be tried on it.