Wiltshire Firearms Unit article
2nd January 2012
Armed police squad prepared for violent crime
4:50pm Sunday 1st January 2012
NO matter how unlikely a terrorist or gunman attack in Swindon might seem, Wiltsh-ire Police’s crack firearms squad is ready to deal with it.
The county’s highly-trained firearms officers have recently completed annual training in ‘active shooter’ scenarios, such as the airport massacre in Mumbai or the rampage of Derek Bird, in Cumbria.
The force’s Armed Response Group, which consists of 55 specialist officers, has a presence on the streets around the clock ready to deal with the most violent of incidents and criminals.
Their work is little-known to the public but their duties can range from providing close protection for public figures to neutralising armed threats and hostage rescue.
While they are only called upon in their specialist capacity on average 90 times a year and most of the time act as regular officers, the difficulty of their work is such that each officer is trained to an exceptional standard – something Inspector Alan Webb said is necessary to maintain: “We need to be prepared for incidents like Derek Bird or the shooting in Norway,” he said.
“I have no information to suggest such a thing would happen in Wiltshire but if we are trained for it then, heaven forbid, were it to happen here or elsewhere we could deal with it or support other forces.”
One incident that springs to mind for Insp Webb is the 1987 Hungerford massacre, which began in Savernake Forest and ended in the Berkshire town. In total, 16 people were killed.
“I think Hungerford is always in people’s psyche,” he said.
“It’s my perception that it changed firearms training and saw national guidance come in.
“Now the National Police Improvement Agency ensure there is consistency and every shooting is investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
“In the UK last year around seven people were shot by police. To my knowledge there is no record that Wiltshire Police have ever shot anybody, which I think proves we live in the safest county in the country.”
The use of firearms is perhaps the most publicly contentious issue of policing, and a heightened sense of terrorist threats since 2001 and more recently the widespread rioting and looting in major cities this summer has put the issues in sharper focus.
A study by the London School of Economics and the Guardian into the reasons for the disorder, which lasted five days, suggested many rioters took to the streets in anger at police practices.
And earlier this month The Inspectorate of Constabulary published a report in response to August’s disturbances, suggesting the rules of engagement around the use of firearms be made clear to the public.
Locally, a typical ARG officer is deployed with a Heckler and Koch G36 semi-automatic carbine, a shotgun, a tazer, ballistic body armour and helmet and an enhanced first-aid kit.
While the tazer itself has been controversial as a non-lethal weapon, Insp Webb hopes police will only have need for this type of option in the future.
“Tazers have been effective as a less-than-lethal option in dealing with people carrying knives or who are extremely aggressive,” said Insp Webb.
“They can reduce the chance of injury to officers and to the subject. For example one of our officers was called to deal with two people, believed to be brothers, fighting in the street.
“They showed no sign of stopping and so our officer deployed his tazer to one of them in drive-stun mode.
“He immediately became compliant, while other officers who were not equipped with tazers had to use other techniques to detain the other man.
“In these situations officers have a duty to protect others as well as themselves. We are there to stop the incident taking place and bring criminals to justice. We are not judge and jury.”
