Evidently the police who first arrived were forced (?) to stand around and "watch" til armed police arrived! This is the result of incredibly foolish policy
Unfortunately health and safety etc prevents them doing what they should in my opinion be doing, though some nutter waving a gun about, would you?
Shame they didn't simply run the scroat with the gun over...
It's a sad indication of the way things have gone in the UK, though to be fair I have seen similar items in the US.
See
999 crews: We can't rescue drowning man from 3ft pond... it's too DEEP - Mirror Online