“Met police firearms officers are right to pick up their guns and return to work. They can’t have prestige without risks” | The Guardian Opinion piece
As first seen in The Guardian on Wednesday 27 September 2023
PHOTO: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty
The protest over the charging of a marksman in the Chris Kaba case was damaging to British policing.
There were many reactions this week when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) made known its decision to charge a police firearms officer with the murder of Chris Kaba a year ago. Mine was: why has it taken so long?
I was thinking of the pain and suffering the family had gone through waiting for the decision. And about the officer, and the anxiety he must have gone through waiting for a disproportionate amount of time to see what would happen next. I knew there would be an outcry by his colleagues in the various armed response units across the Met. That was right.
I had in mind the reaction of firearms officers after the shooting of Mark Duggan in August 2011. I was in the Met when the CPS was considering the findings from the independent investigation and firearm officers threatened to hand back their guns and authorisations if their colleague was charged to appear at court. That threat was never acted upon because the officer concerned was not charged. I thought then it was just a hollow one.
But this time, 12 years later, firearms officers did carry out their threat, creating public unrest and a media storm, all of which caused further reputational damage to the Met and to policing, particularly when, in their stead, army marksmen were placed on standby.
What I found utterly amazing were these acts of solidarity across the country, made by individual officers and their staff associations and the UK Police Federation, but based on scant information about the Chris Kaba killing. Policing is supposed to be evidence-based, however a critical mass of armed officers put their rational thinking to one side and joined this mass hysteria of handing back their firearms authorisation. If it wasn’t so serious, you’d think it was some kind of pantomime.
What this showed me was the toxic culture of some in the firearms fraternity. It appears as hostile as ever and not in the public interest. I would like to think that this is the minority of firearms officers and the majority are well-meaning public servants. I made a point of speaking to some of the officers who didn’t get caught up in this mass hysteria to find out what their point of view was, some even took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to make their opinions known and were shouted down. Andrew George, a serving police officer in the UK, a firearms officer of well over 10 years in the most hostile environments of Northern Ireland and president of the National Black Police Association, made clear his view that the briefness of the action showed that it “was a protest rather than a general reflection on whether to carry firearms or not”. He added: “It shouldn’t happen again and big changes to the culture need to happen.” I totally agree with him.
I also agree with those who say we need a long, hard look at the unhelpful, reckless pronouncements of the home secretary, Suella Braverman, which can only further fuel the fire. “We depend on our brave firearms officers to protect us from the most dangerous and violent in society. In the interest of public safety they have to make split-second decisions under extraordinary pressures,” she tweeted in reaction to a Daily Telegraph story that carried the image of a “Justice for Chris Kaba” banner. “They mustn’t fear ending up in the dock for carrying out their duties.”
Is that, in these febrile circumstances, the statement of someone truly qualified to strike the right balance between protecting the public and holding officers carrying lethal weapons to account?
I welcome the reassuring message that the armed forces have been stood down and there is sufficient capacity within the firearms unit to police key places of concern for terrorism. However, I hope each and every officer reflects seriously on why they carry out their role, and reminds themselves of the rewards and risks that apply when first they seek to join the firearms command, things that are reiterated to them during training. The reward, for some, is the glamour of carrying firearms and the associated paraphernalia; the risk is the scrutiny that follows the discharging of a firearm and the possibility of ending up in court to defend their actions as proportionate and necessary.
Recent actions suggest to the public that some seek the glamour without the scrutiny. That isn’t possible, nor should it be.
Leroy Logan is a former superintendent in the Metropolitan police and a former chair of the Black Police Association. He is the author of Closing Ranks: My Life As a Cop
