Alternatively, the first Officers on the scene assess that the situation may escalate into a massacre and therefore prevention of that escalation is a priority. The casualty may or may not be beyond assistance but attending to him would put the Officers at risk of attack. The knife-wielding thug and his possibly-armed companion are wearing heavy clothing, and therefore unlikely to be subdued with a one-shot Tazer, and the ARV will arrive shortly. Attempting to clobber one or both with the patrol-car seems pointless, since both are clearly capable of stepping out of the way.

It's only my POV, and I wasn't there, so, IMHO, they did a pretty-good job of preventing further casualties.

[QUOTAlternatively, the first Officers on the scene assess that the situation may escalate into a massacre and therefore prevention of that escalation is a priority. The casualty may or may not be beyond assistance but attending to him would put the Officers at risk of attack. The knife-wielding thug and his possibly-armed companion are wearing heavy clothing, and therefore unlikely to be subdued with a one-shot Tazer, and the ARV will arrive shortly. Attempting to clobbering one or both with the patrol-car seems pointless, since both are clearly capable of stepping out of the way.

It's only my POV, and I wasn't there, so, IMHO, they did a pretty-good job of preventing further casualties. E][/QUOTE]

Digininagain,pretty much my view. Easy to second guess & pontificate without knowing the ground truth.
The police aren’t perfect, but their aim is to act professionally, minimise risk to life & to apprehend suspects.
I start from the viewpoint that our military & emergency services conduct themselves in a professional manner & fortunately am rarely disappointed.

To be honest, This is the Military Forum. I normally tred lightly here.

Out of respect for the guys at the sharp end, I have to say that I have nothing more to add to this weak and limp discussion.

Cheers
El G.

Not trying to do either, simply trying to relay to our colleague over the pond as to the current state of play on how things are dealt with this side of it, hence my would you? My opinion as to what they should be doing is based on my belief that they should all be armed with more than a smile and a stick.. Problem there though is unlike the Services you may find some unsuitable to be armed... With the services Musket work is carried out in basic training, those failing the standards get chopped at the outset, something you would struggle to do with a 20 year served Plod.

And where would these armed soldiers have come from? Armed guards are placed at main points of entry as well as roaming patrols inside the 'wire'. This incident was nowhere near a main point of entry, occurred outside the 'wire' and it is very likely that there was no patrol anywhere near that point in the 'wire' at the time of the incident. :ugh:

Speechless with anger.
The BBC debate sickens me with its PC platitudes. Why are we so reasonable?

We - the British - are very angry.

RIP, young Trooper cut down in your prime...

So, in America, how could it have played out with both armed police and armed civilians (carrying covertly)?

Scumbags run down soldier and jump out to attack him,

Covertly armed individual realises this is more than a road traffic incident and opens fire,

Both scumbags and an unfortunate passer by get shot,

Armed police arrive and see 4 dying people and one guy (or girl) with a gun in their hands and open fire,

Covert carrier plus another unfortunate passer by go down,

All applaud the idea that guns make America safe:ugh:


As has been shown, the UK police reaction was both proportionate and correct - if the first police officers had attacked the scumbags, it would not have saved poor Drummer Rigby's life and could have led to far more bloodshed.

However, I hope that the WPC managed to shoot them both in the bollocks and not just the legs.

I wish people would stop saying that 'Christians kill more people than Muslims in this country.' Of course they do, there are more of them (just about). I don't doubt that at least some of Ian Huntley, Myra Hindley, Fred West &c were Christian, at least nominally.

But we don't have homicidal knife-wielding maniacs killing people in the name of Christianity. We do, in the name of Islam, and we have people preaching that this is a good thing. So, there is a problem with Islam. It might be a small one, but Islam is definitely not irrelevant to the discussion.

Tim

The reaction has begun. It must have already been there just under the surface. I am not surprised in the least,and indeed predicted it 15 years ago.

BBC News - Newcastle EDL march 'attracts thousands'


Woolwich: EDL Protests As Mosques Targeted

:D

Similarly we have many other religions in the country, some of whom fled persecution in their own countries, who are both content to be here and to a greater or lesser extent integrate in to our society.

Of course most people who comment say they do not support these extremists - they would be barking mad to say they did. But do they all mean it? Similarly while people may say they do not support the EDL, do they really not support the EDL?

What people say and what people think are often different.

The same nationalistic ability to blame a whole cultural or religious group for the actions of 2 misguided individuals as was expressed in Germany in the 30's.

Muslims (or any immigrants for that matter) are not to blame for the ills of British society - the same white underclass that tends to align with BNP and EDF are far more damaging on a daily basis to the integrity of this country.

It goes deeper than misguided individuals(low intelligence, easily led with psychopathic traits, conditioned a while ago).

BBC News - Woolwich murder probe: Three more arrests

It starts with extremists on both sides, then spreads to others.

Crab, while one cannot disagree with what you say, you cannot change the minds of many who were brought up in a different England. As I said, my MiL fears these people. My aunt, dead these past 20 years, worked with a particular set of women during the war and vehemently hated the whole of that group.

Right or wrong it remains a fact, it also works both ways.

PS

What distresses me, and should distress every right minded Asian, is how many reports from our favourite broadcaster and in the media blame Asians for certain crimes when Indians, Thais, Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos, Chinese, Sri Lankans etc are wholly innocent. For too long we have avoided calling a spade a spade.

This comes from the BBC report of the Newcastle protests.

Compared to the total lack of action by the police when faced with placard carrying muslims calling for death to "the infidel" et al during city demonstrations, it can only serve to increase the divide.

First four items of news on the BBC 11.00hrs bulletin.

Woolwich attack

Paris attack

PIA incident

Hizzbolah

El G.

Possible Walt At Woolwich
 

The Sunday Torygraph has a montage of photographs of the flower display near the murder site.

It describes one uniformed man as being an: 'SAS Captain'. The gentleman is certainly wearing a uniform - of what I don't know and has several rows of medal ribbons and what looks like a peaked cap with a white top cover.

Anybody got any ideas - the lapel tags certainly look like a winged dagger!!

Old Duffer

Quite strange. Here we have a group of people falling over themselves to disassociate the two murderers in Woolwich from the Muslim religion, yet only a month ago that same group was baying for blood and blaming everyone in the Catholic religion, from the Pope down, for the tragic failings towards youth within the Catholic church.:confused:

Pontius - my MiL is similar in viewpoint to yours (and reads the Daily Mail to boot) and generational bigotry won't disappear until that generation does.

However, reacting against all muslims because of this terrible crime will achieve nothing (apart from making a small, aggressive and unthinking minority feel better) and will probably increase racial/religious tensions to the point where more atrocities will be perpetrated.

I don't think it is woolly, liberal or dangerous to let the legal process run its course - it is far better that the scumbags survived to face justice than martyr themselves and inspire other idiots.

Yes. His links to the Services are tenuous at best. Or he dressed in the dark in an Army-surplus store.

Hmm, wonder if the foregoing will still be said in 100 years time?

Well that depends on whether the facists and xenophobes take control, ethnically cleanse the UK and restore white supremacy in the future - because that is what some here believe is the right way to tackle the problem.