Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I have a problem with submachine guns in enclosed spaces full of people. What are they going to do, open up on the commuters?
Brixton tube: metal detectors and machine-gun toting police!
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Gixxer1000
cant wheelie a shaftie :(
I guess machetes arent standard issue in the metDonna Ferentes said:
i dislike the excessive show of force. I initially thought it was some ahem national security thingy. I dislike seeing police carrying guns without knowing why. Maybe they should just put up a big poster to explain their motives to the public. I am worried that one day people will stop even questioning why the police are armed.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Your point escapes me, as mine appears to have escaped you.Gixxer1000 said:I guess machetes arent standard issue in the met
chegrimandi
associated with adultery
editor: did the gun cops not mind you taking their pictures?!
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
chegrimandi said:editor: did the gun cops not mind you taking their pictures?!
Why should they?
It's not like they're the SAS 
chegrimandi
associated with adultery
Minnie_the_Minx said:Why should they?
cops generally while loving to take photos of everyone else with impunity aren't normally quite so keen to reciprocate.
Minnie_the_Minx said:Why should they?
That is the question that a Nottingham photographer will be putting to a court on 17 October...
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Minnie_the_Minx said:Why should they?
the police do not like people taking pictures of them.
still, i learnt the difference between here and france last weekend - over here if you're taking pictures of them misbehaving they'll threaten you with arrest. in france they don't even bother lying to you, one says "because i say so" and the other gets his baton out.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
so anyway, how many weapons did they find?
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
chegrimandi said:
You just pretend you're a tourist having your photo taking with a nice friendly British cop
With a big fuck-off gun in his hand
aurora green
Tectonic
laptop said:
poor old Tash eh? Let's hope they don't go through with it. He'll have loads of support if they do though.
Gixxer1000
cant wheelie a shaftie :(
The point is people were deterred from carrying once word got round which in itself is a success but hey Fuck the Police ehbluestreak said:
Gixxer1000 said:The point is people were deterred from carrying once word got round which in itself is a success but hey Fuck the Police eh
How do you know they were deterred? Sounds like you're guessing. My suspicion is that anyone carrying something towards the station would see the huge number of police vehicles, barking dogs and loitering policemen and turn the other way. Stockwell's only a short walk away after all - it's hardly going to deter the determined knife carrier is it.
We're not saying fuck the police at all, more like fuck all this posturing and inefficient use of police resources. It's all show, little efficacy.
My point was that it seemed clear it was something to do with the comings and goings from the Carnival ... which has a higher than normal proportion of black visitors. So cops stopping and speaking to lots of black people as part of the policing of the carnival criowd is not exactly unexpected.aurora green said:
Sounds like it may be something rather more than simply taking photographs. But it may shed some light on the power of the police to seize cameras, etc as evidence which is very unclear (see the OldSkoolRaver saga thread). Best result (for clarity) would be conviction and appeal, otherwise we would just have a magistrates decisoon which sets no actual precedent at all - can't see a prosecution appeal on a point of law if there is an acquittal so this would be the only way of getting it in front of the Appeal Courts.laptop said:
You can never know what you've prevented. But ask any crim and they will tell you that robust policing activity does deter them. From time to time crime statistics will show it - see the displacement of crime from area to area when there is differential policing (and off the range of the CCTV cameras). And there are lots of examples of people dropping knives / drugs / whatever or turning vehicles round on seeing check points.tarannau said:
I think most people would rather have some visible activity to deter weapons from an event like Carnival which has been a focus for steaming gangs armed with knives and guns in the past. And I know the police would rather have a load of hassle and no armed robberies / murders that no hassle and a book full of sewrious crimes and two bodies in the morgue like a few years ago.
Gixxer1000
cant wheelie a shaftie :(
Well donetarannau said:
thats pretty much what happened except it was more organised than that, it actually provided a welcome excuse for a lot of kids not to take knives or guns to the carnival without losing face, dont underestimate the power of peer pressure.
detective-boy said:
I don't think anyone would argue with some visible activity as a wise precaution for carnival. I object, however, to the sheer scale and overbearing nature of the while operation.
It also struck me as hugely wasteful. There seemed so many policemen (armed and unarmed) that it was hard not to believe there wasn't a better way of deploying such a mini army, perhaps at different locations. I appreciate the need for safety, but there seemed to be plenty of surplus officers doing little more than milling around and hindering the flow of people. As far as I could see anyone walking towards the station would see the logjam of vehicles and police outside the station and wander towards Stockwell where no such deterrent seemed to be in place.
I suspect it was meant to be reassuring. One look at the faces around my fellow travellers suggested it wasn't. It kind of drains the enthusiasm for a street party when you're surrounded by numerous unsmiling policemen holding big guns, inefficiently shuffling people around.
Gixxer1000
cant wheelie a shaftie :(
You obviously didnt see the size of some of the crews' going through, some of them seemed to be twenty + strong. What do you think is an appropriate leveling of policing when you're managing those numbers?tarannau said:
Didnt seem to be any aggro IMO as I went past most were resigned to it - similar to a local derby game- a necesary evil.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Conceivably, "not having weapons which could not be used without incurring serious casualties among the innocent".Gixxer1000 said:
Out of interest what happens if you are caught with a knife?? Are you arrested, or just the weapon conviscated?? And what constitutes a "knife"??
I only ask coz i was wondering around london last week with a Swiss army Knife in my bag from camping a few weeks ago. Would i have been a criminal???
I only ask coz i was wondering around london last week with a Swiss army Knife in my bag from camping a few weeks ago. Would i have been a criminal???
Donna Ferentes said:
Correct me if I'm wrong anyone. As detective boy said, the sub machine guns are standard issue to the ARVs. They can't leave those sub machine guns in a vehicle unattended so they would have to carry them. They also can't leave them back at the police station, on case they need to be called to an incident where they are needed.
Also, those weapons have more than 1 mode of operation, by default, when the safety catch is switched off, those guns only fire a single shot. I'm as sure as I can be that they have to throw a switch or a catch to have it fire like sub machine gun.
Kanda
Diving wanker
I think what Tonka means, is that if you flick the safety off, it defaults to single shot mode, regardless if it was in Semi-Auto mode before the safety was switched on. You have to actually switch to Semi-Auto fire AFTER taking the safety off. If yanno what I mean.... (Pretty sure when safety is on, no shots can be fired, as expected)
Gixxer1000 said:
Erm, do you really think I didn't 'see the size of some of the crews'(sic) going through?' I can't speak for police procedure, but I've helped organise security for a number of events - generally it's not seen as necessary to swamp and outnumber the numbers passing through 'just in case.' As I've said, I can understand some hesitance on the police's part, but this was overkill - I refuse to believe that 10, perhaps even 5 officers, officers couldn't efficiently man one metal detecting gate. The others acted as a hinderance in many ways, getting in the way of folks - you don't expect to see 20 odd bouncers in front of a club doorway for example, all duplicating tasks. Why can't they have far fewer officers in view - preferably the few with some degree of customer/public facing skills and the ability to smile - and rely on calling for backup if necessary?
BTW, 'resigned to it' is far from tacitly approving the operation and neither should a carnival crowd be considered in any way similar to a local derby game. Nor is a lack of aggro at the time necessarily indicative of a good operation - the lingering bad feeling at the wasteful and intimidating scale of the whole rigamarole adds to already negative perceptions about the way police operate. This wasn't community policing by consent or a 'necessary evil', this was an unnecessary and inefficient show of force - it shouldn't take a mini occupying army to shepherd people through one security gate.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
I saw this as well. I don't think it was solely the tube. Two single decker buses were pulled over and empty and sitting by the traffic lights by the tube.
