Armed Police - Casually strolling

[A fool and his money.....]

30 minutes ago, Barlow said:

 

Travelling say to South America or Far East on a British/British Manx Passport as opposed to a (**sniggers**) hypothetical Isle of Man Passport, you would soon know what it means to have that "British" word on your passport, and the automatic protection of embassies throughout the world etc. Worth every penny actually.

I'm as patriotic as the next Isle of Man resident, but fuck that full indepence nationalist carry on. Right off.

 

Is it worth every penny tho? We could have the much stronger "Irish" word on our passport, for probably a lot less.

[Omobono]

3 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

Is it worth every penny tho? We could have the much stronger "Irish" word on our passport, for probably a lot less.

Just wait until you need a visa to go anywhere in Europe   !   so much unfinished business with Brexit  those responsible like Gove and Co for negotiating a soft withdrawal should be hanging their heads in shame   we were conned and sadly the Isle of Man didn't even get a say ,

[Gladys]

44 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

Is it worth every penny tho? We could have the much stronger "Irish" word on our passport, for probably a lot less.

How would we get the Irish word on our passports?  Would they even want us? 

[Vaaish]

Incredible coincidence this morning…I popped into Costa at the Sea Terminal with my new flame-thrower, a couple of hand grenades and a zombie knife… moments later two armed coppers sat at the next table. Who’d have thought! 

[Gladys]

41 minutes ago, Vaaish said:

Incredible coincidence this morning…I popped into Costa at the Sea Terminal with my new flame-thrower, a couple of hand grenades and a zombie knife… moments later two armed coppers sat at the next table. Who’d have thought! 

Hope you had your bandana on. 

[alpha-acid]

21 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Hope you had your bandana on. 

And a Balaclava

[Derek Flint]

2 hours ago, Two-lane said:

And these people passed?

https://cclark.uk/pulrose/399918104_706842287722193_8128986331039914762_n.mp4

Yep. Don't know the deployment context

2 hours ago, A fool and his money..... said:

Do we really need shooters for a six against one on some drunk fella in Pully?

Talk about a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

I can only imagine the chaos if are armed response unit had taken an hour to deploy and this fella continued to do no harm to anyone for all that time.

As above

1 hour ago, Blade Runner said:

I don't think what a place is called makes any difference TBH

The crime/ problems come from where the people living there were brought up/ and what morals they were given when growing up

Inviting people who have unknown morals to move to the island just to pay the CS Blob will not end well IMHO

 

Deployment doesn't discriminate 

56 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

Don’t be a jerk Derek, this new CC seems hell bent on getting firearms out for no good reason.

I think he's more concerned about not getting his arse handed to him on a plate by indefensible response times to incidents meeting the criteria for deployment of armed officers 

52 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

Really?? There’s only so many times you can crawl up the arses of the IOM plod. Why the sudden requirement to arm the police? Don’t just point out APSTRA as a pointless excuse.

The APSTRA isn't a pointless excuse. 

The inquiry:

"Chief Constable, did the ASTRA not give you a clear picture of the prevailing threat and risk?"

"It did sir".

"So why didn't you take note of its context and build in appropriate response times?"

"Well we're working more off Manx Forums and Facebook opinion and advice to be honest..."

I'm not doing any arse crawling. It's an area where I have subject matter expertise so am trying to convey the facts as they stand.

 

39 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

Someone in an above post mentioned seeing the police in Strand Street carrying assault rifles. Mind-boggling.

The problem for the politicians is not so much that they should not be involved in day-to-day policing actions (although policy perhaps so), but they are caught in a dilemma:

1. They want to emphasis that the IoM is a good place to be where it is safe to bring up children - e.g. no guns

2. Like the Derek Flint, the Chief Constable and others, they are obsessed with the display of power. They want to go to the next big meeting of G7 and say "Hey, we're big boys now. We got SWAT teams with armoured tanks and all that stuff"

And as members of the ruling elite, they will never criticise the police anyway.

Edited to add:

When we arrived here a couple of decades ago with a very young child, we thought the place was quiet and peaceful. If we had seen police with automatic rifles walking down the street, we (in particular my wife) would have been heading straight back to the boat.

And it is actually safer now the cops can deploy faster

6 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

It's not so long ago that coppers had little more than a truncheon/stick, a pair of handcuffs, and a bit of the old common sense. Above all, they also had the willingness to get stuck in, because that's what policing is when all else fails. It worked too and people had respect. They knew where the line was. That's all changed and it's been trained out of them. The scrote in Port Erin on that video was surrounded by a SWAT team armed to the teeth with lethal weapons but he was still taunting them and taking the piss. Years ago, two unarmed coppers would have taken him down straight away and there was no need for guns, procedure or protocol. Just a bit of old fashioned authority and in the van in thirty seconds. You still see it in plenty of other countries. I know what the counter arguments will be, but we've forgotten what basic policing is and jumped too far to the hardware. 

Not true.

Pre- PAVA, taser, armour, we got hurt, often and sometimes badly. It's called 'personal protective equipment' for a reason.

[Gladys]

6 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

 

1."Well we're working more off Manx Forums and Facebook opinion and advice to be honest..."

 

2. Pre- PAVA, taser, armour, we got hurt, often and sometimes badly. It's called 'personal protective equipment' for a reason.

1.  Just look at it as public opinion. 

2. With all that equipment, (no problem with it), why the need to carry guns? 

[Derek Flint]

4 hours ago, A fool and his money..... said:

It's an absolute nonsense to have police walking around with guns in Douglas and a complete waste of money.

It's like the millions we continue to pay every year for defence. Who the hell do they think is going to attack us?

Throwing money away on non existent threats.

If it softens it a bit the stuff they use today was bought and paid for back in 2016 when I had the portfolio 

4 hours ago, immortalpuppet said:

Have we seen the end of community policing?

I don’t see how a gym queen in a posh tracksuit and police baseball cap  carrying a firearm is going to gain the same level of respect as a traditional Bobby.
 

Conscious bias aside, I wouldn’t expect many people would see some of the current displays of local police staff as approachable or empathetic.

And that is important, and needs feeding back. If someone is impolite or intolerant then make sure they know either directly or via their supervisor. We all get it wrong at times

3 hours ago, cissolt said:

Non existent threats is quite correct. No evidence of an increase in weapons being used, 1-2 knife incidents a year doesn't warrant a full cadre of armed police.

Most people would attribute the rise in anti social behaviour to a lack of police on foot patrol, these incidents are happening nightly around the island.  What we need is foot patrols, but the new police seem too keen to play rambo and forget the basic stuff.

https://www.three.fm/news/isle-of-man-news/antisocial-behaviour-contributed-to-pensioners-death/

Foot patrols are great if they are with a clear purpose. Otherwise it is a poor deployment of an expensive resource. Overall though, the presence of a capable guardian does benefit crime reduction.

3 hours ago, Shake me up Judy said:

They're no longer seen as serving the public. The police have become an instrument of the State. Most of them don't even look like coppers these days and they've dropped the uniform.

Guns are for the military and you have to be prepared to pull the trigger. They're not much use for arresting people or keeping the peace on the streets. A taser is actually far more effective because you can actually use the damn thing. At the end of the day it's a bit of muscle that wins the day if all else has failed. The public used to understand and respect that. They still would.  

So you'd prefer a paramilitary response to policing matters?

3 hours ago, kevster said:

I pulled in behind an ARV (I could tell from the decals in the rear window) at the sea terminal a couple of weeks ago. Two coppers got out, with holstered sidearms and went into the building - but turned right and into the security office. My main reaction was how young one of them looked - but even prime ministers look young to me these days.

When I worked in Castletown a couple of years ago, I would see armed police popping into the co-op. Not sure if they were from the airport or (as a work colleague said) they'd been on a traing session somewhere local.

They weren't airport police. Quite possibly on a training exercise which we did in the public domain for the last 20 years.

[Derek Flint]

8 minutes ago, Gladys said:

1.  Just look at it as public opinion. 

2. With all that equipment, (no problem with it), why the need to carry guns? 

It is always a good litmus to read MF. It's why I used it when I was serving.

The need to carry guns is, regrettably the last ratchet in the use of force continuum. The other thing that is missed is that AFO' have a high level of  training in life support, and the cars carry some very specialised medical equipment.

The much maligned Schoey directly saved two lives that i know of, as a result of those skills and training. The standard of his intervention was recognised by the doctors at the hospital.

So there are fringe benefits on an island with limited ambulance cover 

[Barlow]

I don't think it is maligned, it's just if you put yourself up for a bit of stick you're going to get it. He's one of the most well known police, other than that performing clown down at Bushy's TT years ago.

Edited Saturday at 10:08 PM by Barlow

[Gladys]

1 minute ago, Derek Flint said:

It is always a good litmus to read MF. It's why I used it when I was serving.

The need to carry guns is, regrettably the last ratchet in the use of force continuum. The other thing that is missed is that AFO' have a high level of  training in life support, and the cars carry some very specialised medical equipment.

The much maligned Schoey directly saved two lives that i know of, as a result of those skills and training. The standard of his intervention was recognised by the doctors at the hospital.

So there are fringe benefits on an island with limited ambulance cover 

Glad you acknowledge MF as a good litmus.  Many views may not be fully informed and some may be knee jerk, but are indicative of wider opinion.  That indicates a need for clear communication, surely? 

As for your continuum, what is propelling that continuum here?  What happened here that has needed the general deployment of armed police?  

The life support argument does not justify the actual deployment of armed police.  It justifies, or is a secondary benefit, of the training, not those trained personnel walking around fully armed.  It is a bizarre argument.

[Derek Flint]

17 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Glad you acknowledge MF as a good litmus.  Many views may not be fully informed and some may be knee jerk, but are indicative of wider opinion.  That indicates a need for clear communication, surely? 

As for your continuum, what is propelling that continuum here?  What happened here that has needed the general deployment of armed police?  

The life support argument does not justify the actual deployment of armed police.  It justifies, or is a secondary benefit, of the training, not those trained personnel walking around fully armed.  It is a bizarre argument.

The officers aren't deployed until they are deployed. A standing authority provides a degree of readiness.

The best way to try and put context on it is in a short survey.

You live in Andreas. A situation develops where the criteria for deployment is met. 

What would you deem acceptable as a response time?

(A) one hour 

(B) fifteen minutes?

 

[Gladys]

1 minute ago, Derek Flint said:

The officers aren't deployed until they are deployed. A standing authority provides a degree of readiness.

The best way to try and put context on it is in a short survey.

You live in Andreas. A situation develops where the criteria for deployment is met. 

What would you deem acceptable as a response time?

(A) one hour 

(B) fifteen minutes?

 

OK, so deployed is the wrong term, but there are still police officers wandering around armed.  And your short survey above still has not answered what has happened here to justify police officers in the community armed as routine?

[Kopek]

The problems that arise from armed police is that, the more often they are seen, the more of them that are used the more worried the public are that something could go wrong. Something that couuld affect them?

The U.S. always armed police are a good example, so many 'accidents' involving innocent victims or, worse, bystanders. The American police must go through similar training but still get it wrong on too many occasions, of course American gun laws don't help, too many nervous trigger fingers expecting the worst!!!

Then of course there are other Countries, Brasil??/, where vigilante police do as they wish!

On the Island, the more the public cannot see the reason for these police, the less respect they will have for the police in general and the more worried they will be for their own safety?

The Sea terminal case seems to be a little OTT? Even if the police have 'intelligence' that some drug Barons are on the boat, they don't need to kit up until the boat is in the Bay? and they certainly don't need to go for a coffee armed? It is just the wrong impression!

It would seem to be, not a response to an imminent threat but 'conditioning' of the public to get used to this!!!