How do they get promoted?

[coyn]

Colin Cramphorn West Yorkshire Chief constable has said that after much soul searching he has concluded that he did everything he could, and he is satisfied that the two officers had the right protective equipment and back up to deal with the robbery in Bradford.

Really Colin? If that's true why is WPC Beshenivsky dead?

Let me see if I can give you a clue Colin.

Firstly two inexperienced women police officers shouldn't be partnered up, they should be with senior experienced officers, secondly they should have been wearing bullet proof vests not stab proof vests as these two women were,

I know it's a difficult concept to grasp Col but a "stab" proof vest doesen't stop bullets just knives.

Thirdly Col, officers shouldn't be sent to a gun fight unless they have a gun.

[andy hughes]

Although I agree that two inexperienced officers should not be paired, police don;t wear bullet-proof vests because the weight would make them impractical for operational duties.

Perhaps some of the millions used to support an imperialist invasion of another country could have been used to research and develop a light-weight bullet-proof vest for domestic police officers to wear.

It's a thought isn't it?

[Ward-Minter]

andy H I disagree. Some forces do wear bullet proof vests. Triple kevlar such as in Sussex Police stop the vast majority of ballistics. info found on www.meggitt.com who supply many constabularies.

Secondly in this sad case the officer was shot in the neck. No vest would stop that.

Thirdly they did not know they were going to a gun incident. It was a panic button activation. 99.9999 percent of these are false alarms or a stroppy customers etc. If they knew they were going to a gun fight they would be told to observe only and not put any member of the public nor themselves in danger. There are enough firearm officers in place esp. since Hungerford, which was the wake up call and even more since the London attacks.

Last decent pole, 82 percent of UK police officers did not want routine arming on the streets. Surely it is those we should listen to.

This is a very sad case but I do not think there are any lessons to learn. The brave officer died in the line of duty and should so be remembered along with the armed services.

The only way I can envisage for gun crime to reduce is the death penalty. I know this thread isn't asking for that debate per ce, but that's my belief.

[Ward-Minter]

PS just to add coyn, you are right a stab vest would not stop bullets but also bullet-proof vests do not stop knives or more increasingly needles. I know it doesn't make sense but its someything to do with the physics of the kevlar or whatever material they use.

Knives and needles are much more a risk to the everyday officer in this country.

[andy hughes]

Thanks for your valuable input Ward-Minter, I am happy to stand corrected.

My observation was made on the basis of an item I saw on TV, but I am well aware of your superior knowledge and experience in these matters. I shall be better able to add to any personal debates i am involved in, with the additional info, you have supplied.

[coyn]

Ward minter, are you defending this complete fiasco because if you are I would like to nominate you as the new chief of police in West Yorkshire.

You clearly have the same perception as George Oldfield and Dick Holland, the two most successful police officers in Yorkshire history.

[Dom Tuk]

Its also a matter of economics. The full ballistics protection that some vests offer is not justifiable from the point of view of number of times a bullet is fired at an officer. The stab vest offers some protection from some calibres of bullets. Besides there isnt enough Kevlar in the world to kit out our police force. It may take years to manufacture the stuff (the last bit may be anecdotal but i have heard mention of it)

[libertie]

Sorry.....but I did'nt realise that they had knowingly been sent to a gun fight!!

[coyn]

No Libertie, they were sent to a robbery in progress which probably meant the bad guys wer threatening the staff with a bunnch of daffodils.

[Ward-Minter]

I am not defending him coyn as such, it's just i see where he is coming from.

The biggest cause of death to our heroic police officers is car related. Money should be spent on that aswell.

Then again if we stopped all asylum and immigration the poor officer would still be alive. But that really is off the point i suppose. Sorry.

[jake-the-peg]

It's worth putting things in perspective.

Tragic as it was and notwithstanding 2 inexperienced officers being alone, I think it's been nearly 2 years since a policeman was shot on duty in the UK

In the US it's about 160 a year.

The firearms officers that shot and killed Jean Charles de Menezes were specialist officers how many more accidental shootings would we see if we routinely armed Policemen?

As for the death penalty - I cannot believe it would have prevented this

[libertie]

My mistake, obviously I'm not up to date with the latest news, as the last I heard was that they were unaware the there was indeed an armed robbery in progress!

[Oneeyedvic]

"if we stopped asylum and immigation the poor officer would still be alive" - hows that then?

[Ward-Minter]

because somewhere down the line one eyed man the vile shootist did not come from UK. Simple as that!

[qapmoc]

Ward, I assume you are referring to the fact that the assailants were said to be ''not white'' and so therefore they must be immigrants, but what if they were 3rd or 4th generation descendants of immigrants what then ? and if you go back far enough you might find your family is descended from viking immigrants or a Roman soldier so does that make you bad as well ?

[Oneeyedvic]

qamoc - beat me to it. I will be very careful here as I have been assuming too much in people's posts:

"did not come from the UK" - if someone's parents were born here - are they "from the UK"? What about gradparents? Does that have to be on both sides? How far back to they have to be able to trace to be able to "come from the UK"?

I would just say that the information I read is that one suspect is Asian and two are black. If you have any further info that these people were not from the UK, could you send me a link.

[Chessman]

Sme very interesting posts, i've learnt quite a bit about the different types of protection, and their failings, BUT, and i've said this before, even if these thugs were unarmed, what could the two inexperienced WPCs have done?.

[lady_p_gold]

I believe that in an ideal world the officers would not have done this or been paired up as that, but the fact is that when an alarm or an incident comes in, it then goes to a dispatcher who is sitting at a screen. They are only as good as the information they receive and it can be very sketchy and half the time they have not got any officers to go as they have about ten incidents on their screen and only about two or three officers available. With hindsight these things can always be looked at differently 'why didn't they do this' 'why didn't they do that' but most of the time it is just firefighting as there are simply not enough police to go round.

[lady_p_gold]

Also Coyn - if they were with 'two experienced officers' that makes four officers .. are you suggesting that four officers are sent to every alarm call which I believe this was ? There would be nobody left for any other policing in Bradford !

[Ward-Minter]

one eyed man and quapmoc. As I said "somewhere down the line" and I don't care if i come from from the Vikings (which i don't!!!!!!!!!) I am not a killer.

Simple fact. If we didn't have immigration we would not have another dead police officer. That is a fact. Simple as that. Arguments about immigration are not for here but it's true.

[brachiopod]

And the relevance of this particular point of your argument?

I don't remember "Harry Roberts is our friend" being sung by 'hordes of young black youths'.

A death is a death - civilian or police officer. If it wasn't for for rascist white thug David Copeland, there wouldn't have been deaths by bombing in Brixton and Soho.

I was almost with you on your first post, W-M, but bringing this sort of racist drivel into a thread specific in its questioning beggars belief, even from you.

*(Cue accusations of being a 'Bleeding Heart Liberal' etc. etc. etc.)*