‘A Testament To The Professionalism Of Firearms Officers’

FIREARMS being discharged only 15 times in 15,000 firearms operations is a testament to the professionalism of firearms officers.

The figure also proves just how well firearms officers are trained, said Essex Police Federation Chairman Steve Taylor.

He said: “I think it’s an absolutely fantastic indictment of the legitimate use of force exercised by the British bobby.

“I think it’s a testament to those firearms officers and to those wider police organisations responsible for delivering that training, that we can have such a minuscule amount of actual discharges for 15,000 incidents, where the deployment of police firearms has been deemed necessary.

“I know that the threshold for those deployments is really high so it’s a cracking indictment and testament to the legitimate use of force in our country which the public expect and should rightly be proud of.”

Steve believes the figure should quell calls for police not to be armed.

He added: “On 15,000 occasions, officers charged with protecting the public have been deployed to an incident so serious enough to warrant firearms being deployed, and for that officers in that position to have discharged a weapon only 15 times – the public absolutely should be proud of that.

“Trigger happy is not a label you could attribute to the British bobby when it comes to police authorised use of firearms.”