British cops don’t need guns.
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Indeed
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Just took a quick google image search on “London MET police” as far as I can tell they carry the H&K UMP.
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I’ll stick with Barney’s crew.
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I certainly appreciate the article pointing to what a surveillance state the UK has become but otherwise you might well think policing here (as represented in drama) is some sort of Peelian principles utopia which of course couldn’t be further from the truth. Let’s not forget that the police tend to close ranks over things like institutional racism and the disastrous mishandling of Hillsborough.
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Not a great day to distinguish US and Irish police today.
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Although reading the article it does sound like they didnt go in guns blazing.
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Interesting that you point out Tatort, as it just recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. For those not in Germany and Austria, it’s a detective anthology series set in different cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The detectives (Kommissare in German) range from quiet plodders to hotheads, depending on the creative team. I for my part prefer the more mundane episodes, such as the Nuremberg team.
CCTV rarely plays a role in German police dramas, by the way. More often, the plot revolves around slowly chipping away at the clues, resulting in a dramatic showdown where the big guns of the SEK (think SWAT in the USA) closing in on the perp.
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No. He did attack them with a knife.
He should still be alive. This is a huge failure in policing that he was killed by them. Last time they killed someone who was mentally ill and threatening them was a few years ago iirc but this was worse.
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What would you suggest police do in that situation?
Not kill him. Deescalate and disarm. That they got that wrong is where it starts going wrong.
They will face an investigation, this is a scandal, it will have serious consequences in the community outside of one person who is mentally ill being killed by the Guards. Shooting him to death was not what they would want to have done. It’s not a successful resolution. The guard will probably have PTSD after this.
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You are right, but the police need the tools to do the job. Tasers and OC spray are unreliable. Police have to defend themselves as well and others around them. It would be nice if they had the freedom to sit back and wait the situation out, but that is not always the case.
My favourite British Cop Show is “A Mind To Kill”. One of the most threadbare, world-weary shows I’ve seen. Phillip Madoc was born to play tired and angry.
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Bring in the rolling rubbish bin squad.
But seriously, there are tools for exactly this. Three officers with theifcatchers (long poles ending in a Y) can isolate and lock down assailants with hand-to-hand weapons relatively safely.
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The cast of the French series, “Spiral” is nicely pre-owned.
Indeed, Pepper Stray and a Garden Fence is a great replacement for shooting some guy who is having a massively crap day.
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he had injured someone earlier, but according to the article he was walking outside and the police were following him. they shot him as he was walking away from them.
at any rate: either he was as an imminent threat to someone in which case shooting at him would be bad because it would have endangered the other person’s life, or he wasn’t an imminent threat to anyone in which case shooting him would be uncalled for.
separating him and the general public wasn’t mentioned. if it wasnt possible because he was too near other people, then shooting him would have also been an endangerment to others.
so where’s the rationale?
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The true-crime based detective story “Jakten på en mördare” (2020), about a murder in 1989 that plagued Swedish consciousness for more than a decade, is gloriously grey and drab. I don’t think there are any police using guns. Mostly suspects just show up voluntarily at the police station for interrogations. Has some flaws (unnatural exposition dialog in last half of the six episodes), but I highly recommend it. Both scary and comforting.
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Actual American police say that’s one of the most realistic cop shows ever.
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