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BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Dana Lewis is a veteran World Affairs Correspondent. He's been everywhere. From global war zones to the streets of London where he is based.
He has been based in Jerusalem, and Moscow.
And he loves talking to people about whats behind the headlines. Award winning. "A real in the trenches reporter". Great interviewing skills and easy to listen to.
BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
POLICE AND LETHAL FORCE IN THE MET
Ever wondered why more than 300 London Met police officers decided to protest by refusing to carry firearms? Are you intrigued by the intricate labyrinth of laws, ethics, and emotions surrounding police use of lethal force? This episode of Backstory with Dana Lewis discusses this complex issue. We welcome Tony Long, a former Metropolitan Police Specialist Firearms Officer and author of 'Lethal Force,' to share his firsthand perspective on the subject.
different world elsewhere in the world where every single police officer carries a firearm NX-121 is really the sort of straw that's broken the camel back, really, because there's been a whole range of issues in relation not just to anonymity but the way that armed police officers are treated after they get involved in shootings.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Backstory. I'm Dana Lewis, this week policing in London, which is a place like no other. Most police don't even carry weapons here. Those that do are specialized units UK Embassy security police who guard parliament anti-terrorist police and they are threatening to return those guns in protest over a fellow policeman who was charged with murder of a black man last September. September 2022. In fact, last weekend, about 300 police said they would refuse to carry guns because the murder charge was so severe. Why, they ask, would they protect a public that won't recognize instances where police have to pull the trigger to defend themselves? The situation became so serious that the British army was put on standby to fill the posts vacated by armed police.
Speaker 2:Now I started my career as a crime reporter in Toronto, so I have a pretty good sense of what is demanded from police and the sacrifices they make in protecting us and the Met. Police have a lot of internal problems, there's no question, but do police get to defend themselves and under what circumstances? So, on backstory, I talked to Tony Long. He is a former armed police officer who himself was charged with murder in 2005, charged and later acquitted, but it took a decade of his life to fight that charge. Tony Long is a former Metropolitan Police Specialist Firearms Officer. He wrote a book called Lethal Force and he has used Lethal Force on his job as an armed British policeman. And he joins me now. Hi, tony, good morning, how you doing so? You clarified when I was introducing you wrongly the first time that there is a difference between a Met Firearms and a Met Specialist Firearms Officer.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it's basically. I suppose an SFO. In North American terms would be what you would call SWAT, but in my opinion, having done SWAT training in the States, they are trained to a probably much higher standard than most. Their initial selection course is 21 weeks, for instance, to do that, to be a basic Specialist Firearms Officer.
Speaker 2:Well, specialist Firearms Officers, by the dozens, have refused to report for work this week with their weapons. Can you tell me what has happened?
Speaker 1:and why now? Well, it's not just SFOs or Specialist Firearms Officers, it's also armed response vehicles, which are the sort of next level down who provide the 24-hour mobile response to any 999 call involving firearms or knives. And it's also a large amount of other AFOs or authorized firearms officers who visitors to London will see standing outside the Palace or Westminster armed or 10 Downing Street or any of the other key locations. And we also have other officers who are trained in the use of firearms, for instance, specialist Surveillance Officers who work on cases involving armed, heavily armed criminals, and sections of all of those different grades of firearms officers have surrendered their firearms ticket or their license to carry a firearm, and what's actually been the straw that has broken the camel's back in relation to this is the appearance in court of an officer who's got, at the moment, an anonymity code of NX121.
Speaker 1:Now, what Police Firearms Officers do have is an anonymity code, and if they get involved in a shooting, when they write their statement, they write it using that anonymity code, as do all of their colleagues, and so when the all the paperwork is being processed and being investigated, no one other than the individual officers and their unit commander know their true identity. Now that is an internal thing that we do and normally it's honoured at court. So when I appeared at court in 2015 at the Central Criminal Court charged with murder, for instance, as soon as I was charged with murder, I lost my anonymity code and then the public by the press knew that I was Anthony Long, former firearms officer. All of my colleagues who were still serving were allowed to give their evidence using their anonymity codes, so Echo 1, echo 2, echo 3, etc. So this is something that's always been reliant on the courts. Some courts will look at it and go no, we don't recognise the anonymity code. You are all going to have to give your evidence in person using your real name. So it's something that it's an internal procedure, but it's normally honoured by the courts, unless you are charged with murder.
Speaker 1:Well, nx 121 was involved in a situation that we can't talk about in British law because it's now what we call sub-dutycy, which means he has been charged and it cannot be discussed publicly. The evidence is heard in court. There is a hearing an anonymity hearing this Thursday coming at the Old Bailey, where the officer will have to appear, and there's a very high probability that the judge at the Central Criminal Court will withdraw that anonymity and from that point on the world will know his name. Well, in the United Kingdom, to be a firearms officer is a completely voluntary thing. So, for instance, in the Metropolitan Police, which is the largest force in the country, which covers London, there's something.
Speaker 2:I wanted just to backtrack with you there, because a lot of people don't understand that British police are not armed. But they are armed and it gets confusing. I said it's un-clarified. Yeah, the average beat policeman, policewoman, doesn't carry a firearm. They might have a taser, but there are armed response units for the case of, let's say, as you mentioned, vip security or protection embassies. Or let's say there's a terrorist incident, then there are guns on the street and those armed response officers attend. They are called within minutes. They're supposed to have zones that they patrol and furthermore, just coming to your point, that's voluntary. They do not, as part of their job, have to carry weapons. They volunteer to be in those units correct.
Speaker 1:That is absolutely correct. So, for instance, out of the Metropolitan Police there are roughly 40,000 police officers. Only two and a half thousand of those officers are trained in the use of firearms and it's a very difficult course to pass, even at basic level. It's a very expensive course. So by the time someone gets to the top of the tree and becomes a CT at Camp Territory Specialist Firearms Officer you're talking over a year of training in order to get into that role.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Thursday he will appear in court. If he is identified by the court by name at that point, why is that viewed as negative by other police officers and what may happen?
Speaker 1:Well, it's not.
Speaker 1:It's viewed as being a negative thing by all police officers, I would say, and those that don't carry a firearm.
Speaker 1:But because it's such a unique role in the United Kingdom that you know, and because these officers are employed on counter terrorist operations, they really don't want their photographs taken or their name released publicly. That's the issue, Because there has been an issue in the past where people's home address has been compromised and they've had to move out. It's a different world elsewhere, in the world where every single police officer carries a firearm, and so, as I said earlier, NX 121 is really the sort of straw that's broken, the camel bat really, because there's been a whole range of issues in relation not just to anonymity but the way that armed police officers are treated after they get involved in shootings. So I don't know what the situation is in Canada or the United States. I know you're different. I mean, for instance, it took 10 years between my shooting and me appearing in court. There are serving officers now still waiting three, five years after they've been involved in a shooting. It's just simply to go back to work.
Speaker 2:You mentioned that you were charged with murder, which I wanted to come to in the shooting. As I understand it from your book, which I read some time ago, that this was a gang, a person or organized criminal who was on his way potentially to carry out the shooting of somebody else, that's how you were briefed.
Speaker 1:We were briefed that a group of criminals from an organized crime group, as it turned out, there was three of them would be going to a location in North London where they were going to rob and kill rival Colombian drug dealers who they dealt with in the past so clearly the fact that they bought drugs off these Colombians in the past. They weren't going to just turn up with guns and steal the drugs, because the Colombians knew who they were.
Speaker 2:Okay, you were charged with murder and it's an incredible story that people have to read your book to get a full accounting of. We just don't have time to go through all of that case now. But can you tell me, policemen are human beings just like anybody else. To have that you were acquitted first of all is what we should have said to have that hanging over your head for 10 years? Are you serious?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it was complicated and, as you said, read the book because then you'll find out why it was so complicated and it was all around the Galatee.
Speaker 1:But one of the issues that I would make is that an X-121 appeared in court last week and was taken to the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, because a magistrate, a sort of lower level judge, can't issue bail for murder. That has to be done by a senior judge at a senior court. And exactly the same process happened to me and I remember sitting in the witness box and the judge asking a group of about 10 journalists who were sitting at the back of the court what their opinion was on whether or not I should get anonymity. And they weren't represented in court. So he allowed one of them to stand up as a spokesman, as a spokesperson, and explain why it was that they, collectively from newspapers, different TV programs, didn't agree with me getting anonymity. And I just sat there with my mouth open and thinking, well, what's going on here? And it just shows, really, that the freedom and the precedent in the United Kingdom is considered no-transcript right up there, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, your press are certainly famous, but the idea that a magistrate would turn to journalists in the courtroom and ask them their opinion on whether an officer should be identified or not.
Speaker 1:Well, this time around this Thursday, I'm doubting that the press have. I know that the press have got their act together and they have all collectively got a single barrister or senior lawyer to argue their case and they will argue that it infringes their right and freedom of the press. Well, you know, I understand that we all rely on the press, but that the press over the years I've been involved in quite a few shooting incidents who have simply made stuff up about me. I mean, even the day I was acquitted, one of the main British newspapers referred to me as Anthony Long police constable and the Specialist Firearms team, known as his colleagues as the executor. Well, completely made up, completely and utterly made up, as were half a dozen others.
Speaker 2:I know, I know in Canada I mean returning to the law in Canada if a policeman is charged with murder, he would certainly be identified, but I take your point that these are counter-terrorism operations as well. So a member of MI6 or Canadian Intelligence or the CIA or FBI or they would receive different treatment.
Speaker 1:That's a very good point. I hadn't really thought about that, but yeah, I would put that in the same in the UK, because of the fact that they're all volunteers and many of them are heavily involved in counter-terrorism work and also work against organized crime groups, I would definitely equate that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and who would want to serve in a unit dealing with counter-terrorism or dealing with organized criminals if you were going to be identified and potentially your address given out, and I can understand why the officers?
Speaker 1:are angry about that, but it goes beyond identification now. No, absolutely it does.
Speaker 2:Because police feel that this guy is being sold down the river and should not be charged with murder In a case where Chris Cabba, a 24-year-old man, is shot dead following a police chase a year ago. So we come back to the timing of this charge again. He refused, reportedly, to stop. He ran a checkpoint, or at least his police. His vehicle came into contact with other police vehicles. This police officer who discharged his weapon at Cabba was in fact standing in front of the car. So they will say that he wasn't armed. But can I ask you as a policeman a former policeman if a car is coming at you, is the car not considered to be a weapon? And if that weapon, if you're standing in front of it it seems to me that and you're identified and you're in your uniform it certainly would not be a murder charge. In many jurisdictions most policemen would never face that charge.
Speaker 1:So more police officers are being killed by vehicles proven at them ever in the UK than being shot at, and we have more fatalities on our roads every year than we do criminal shootings or stabbing. So, yes, absolutely, a car would be treated as a lethal weapon and certainly, police officers are trained. And this is the issue is that an awful lot of stuff has been put before the courts, and courts have come back with what we would call perverse decision, which has rendered things that have been taught to police officers. Yes, if you do this, you'll be looked after by the law. One of those things is honestly held belief In British law.
Speaker 1:If you, let's say, for instance, shot somebody because you feared that your life was in immediate danger, or your colleagues or other people's lives were in immediate danger, then provided, and you thought they had a gun, but it turned out that they didn't have a gun, then if you shot them, working on the premise that you had an honestly held belief that that they did have a gun, or that the gun was real or that he was a suicide bomber in the case of John Charles Manezze, for instance, in 2005, then the courts would look after you. What's happened is the independent office of police complaints that's what they're called. This week I've lost track of them, but they're the independent body that investigate. Police after instance, such as shootings, have taken this honestly held belief to higher courts and it's now been decided by the courts that that level of force, if you use that level of force, certainly from a civil standpoint, you're not entitled to that honestly held belief. It's very complicated, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it's not so complicated, and it's really important here because in your case you were briefed that there was going to be a shooting. These guys were on their way to carry out a killing.
Speaker 1:And then we were told specifically what type of weaponry they had as well, which was too many.
Speaker 2:There were wiretaps and other evidence that you could not use for your own defense, which I found bizarre, but you were briefed as an armed officer. This is what you're going to deal with In this case of Chris Cabba. It has already come out that that vehicle was linked to a shooting the day before. This is not a routine traffic stop, like some of these incidents in America. That vehicle is wanted in connection with an armed incident and he is sent to stop that vehicle, so in his mind he is dealing with potentially an armed suspect. He would be an idiot to think otherwise.
Speaker 1:So, dan, I'm quite uncomfortable talking about the incident in that much detail. I mean, everything you said I wouldn't disagree with.
Speaker 2:But the briefings that these officers receive. They are told this is what you're going out to deal with. That's in their mind.
Speaker 1:If that evidence that you just said and, as I said, I'm uncomfortable talking about it simply because of British law, yeah, so, but if you were to read the press, you would describe. It would be described by the press as being an unarmed young black man shot dead by police. As El Rodney, the guy that I shot, was in a car. They had balaclavas in their pockets, they had gloves in their pockets, they had plastic cable ties to handcuff up their victims and they had three guns. Now, the guns weren't the specific type that were described to us, because they were talking in Patois on the phone, so it was an interpretation, but we absolutely believed they were armed and they were armed. However, when I approached the vehicle, as El Rodney was sitting in the back seat and he ducked down and he came up and his body language told me 100 percent he's armed himself, he's picked the gun up off the off the vehicle floor or whatever, and he's armed and it transpired he was. The gun was find out underneath his body.
Speaker 1:But my evidence was that I didn't see a gun, which I didn't Now. Had it been in the 1970s or 80s, I would have probably just gone. You know what? I saw a gun, but I didn't. Yeah, I knew the, I knew the incident was videoed, so I told, told the court exactly what I saw, as El Rodney to this day and obviously it's all coming up again now because of this currency current thing is still described by the press as an unarmed Batman, even though it's gone through the courts and it's been proved beyond doubt that he did have guns in the vehicle. The press are still describing in that way and that's the problem. One of the problems with the cab or incident is whatever actually happened and, as I said, I feel uncomfortable without talking about it, and so I want.
Speaker 1:But whatever the true story has been suppressed and has been boiled down to police have shot an unarmed Batman because it fits the narrative.
Speaker 2:That causes sensationalism and, unfortunately, I'm not sure I would blame the press here. I know you and I would would probably differ on these in on this kind of stuff. But a lot of the information is released by the man and it's released by his commanding officers and it's released by the independent investigation Supposedly independent investigation so that I mean the press has led down the trail on some of this stuff.
Speaker 1:But it may well be. But, for instance, I know of only one newspaper that reported a key fact because from an eye witness, and that information only appeared in one newspaper. So is there?
Speaker 2:a better way, rather than a policeman who and I am not defending this policeman, I have no stake in one way or the other in this but it strikes me as quite bizarre, coming from the North American system, that he is charged with murder at this point. Is there not another system where you have people demonstrating in the street angry that an unarmed black man was killed, as the newspapers reported it? Is there not another forum other than a murder charge, which potentially destroys that officer's life and makes other officers unwilling to serve, where the public gets to hear the real evidence and there is a forum for for fact rather than rumor and what the I think the reason.
Speaker 1:I'd make two points. The first is, I think and this has been discussed, as you're probably aware the commissioner has gone to the Home Secretary with a list of things that firearms officers think would make things more open but, at the same time, would brief the public and would benefit them, because they're just seen as the bad guys, as are cops generally at the moment. You know, we're going through a particularly bad patch. But the first thing is and that's relevant, by the way, yeah, but first is following exactly. The first is following sort of the American style system that we see on YouTube and, you know, on social media all day long, which is where the chief of police stands up in front of the press and gives a brief, including body warm, video footage of what actually happened. You know, not cutting out, obviously at the, you know the gory details, but basically so that everybody knows right, yeah, this guy was doing this and this is why the police ended up having to interact with him. This is what he did when they interacted him and this is why he ended up shot or tazored or punched in the face or whatever it might be. So that's the first thing. The second thing is. As I said earlier, these men and women that volunteer to carry firearms are just that they're volunteers and like you, I suspect, I think it's totally wrong that when they do what they're trained to do with an honestly held belief, the only course of action that the IOPC and the British legal system seems to have available to it is to charge them with a criminal offense. Now, if you were to look at other bodies so for instance the bodies that oversee doctors licensing, paramedics licensing, nurses licensing that isn't the first course of action. If one of those people accidentally kills someone, I think perfectly good faith, in the pouring rain, on a dark night with bad lighting, a paramedic accidentally gives the wrong type of adrenaline to somebody having a heart attack, then they could kill them and you could say that they were negligent. But if they did it for the right reasons, it wouldn't be held to be criminal. Same with a surgeon If a surgeon carried out a procedure and it turned out that procedure was the wrong procedure for the problem and the person died, the first course of action would be for any of these people, for their governing bodies to look at it and go right okay, you need retraining Now, you need for the next two years to only be able to work or insert as a surgeon, while mentored by another experienced surgeon. You know you might just come down to words of advice or whatever, but that would be the course of action rather than go to criminality.
Speaker 1:There's two famous cases in the UK that you're, I'm sure you're aware of. One was a doctor called Harold Shipman who was just on an industrial scale killing his elderly patients. This was about 10, 15, 20 years ago. Now that's murder. That's murder. That's not he accidentally gave them the wrong drugs. That's murder. And more recently, literally within the last couple of weeks, a nurse has been convicted of murdering babies, you know, on an industrial scale. You know giving them dangerous drugs. And they found out because, oh, it's just so happens to, this particular nurse is on duty when all of these murders take place and she has been convicted of that. That is murder.
Speaker 1:If you go out to catch an armed criminal, at 99% of the time that I'm criminal will surrender or he'll throw away his gun and run and you'll catch him and you'll taser him or you'll, you know, grab him and throw him to the ground. So it's a very rare occasion that normally, on average, out of thousands and thousands, something like in excess of 8,000 on deployments a year. They'll, they'll. In the whole of the UK this is 42 police forces. They'll kill on average about or shoot kill about, two suspects. That's not 0.05% of the operations they're involved in. It's extremely rare and that, of course, is one of the problems. It's such a rarity that when it happens in the UK we get a press frenzy and people who are, who don't live in a firearm society, who don't understand why police officers might have to resort to the fire use of firearms, object. And that's really fundamentally why these volunteers are in the position that they're in.
Speaker 2:The mood in the United Kingdom, especially with the Met, is quite exceptional right now because there was a report that came out said they were institutionally racist, institutionally misogynist. There was the, the murder by a Met armed officer of a young lady during the pandemic, the mood and anger towards the police right now which, if people don't live here should know it is seething. So do you think that that sets the backdrop for what would be an unfair charge, potentially against a policeman who was doing his duty, and can this guy even get a fair trial?
Speaker 1:Well, I'll talk about the last point you made. First is that, yes, I strongly suspect, as is with the case with the Zell Rodney, that because he was a young black man, because Chris Cabell was a young black man, that the Crown Prosecution Service, which is sort of our equivalent of the American DA's office, I guess we make a decision about whether to charge. I think they are influenced by it. I know for a fact that Crown Prosecution Service officers, or lawyers in my case, did everything they could to swerve being becoming involved in the Zell Rodney case because they saw it as political. They saw it as the fact that, you know, in my terms, I was given a shit sandwich and I had to take a bite of it and they didn't really want anything to do with it. So that's the first thing.
Speaker 1:So, yes, there is and this there's a connectivity with the international thing here. The Paris police are getting exactly the same criticism, although they are far, far more robust in their dealings with minority groups and the like than the UK police. I think the UK police is totally different from the rest of the world. But most of this revolves around the George Floyd shooting. It's got progressively worse because of that.
Speaker 2:But the other thing is I mean, I'm all you and I may also walk a different path here in terms of scrutiny, and I'm all for serious scrutiny for an incident that takes somebody's life one way or the other. And the same for police. I mean, policemen are on the line of fine order deserve our protection.
Speaker 2:But if this isn't handled, if crime prosecutions become politically sensitive to the point that they just lay a murder charge because they want to quiet the street in essence they want to stop the demonstrations how many officers are ever going to become armed officers in the UK?
Speaker 1:Well, so normally there's 300 or 400 applicants for the armed response vehicles. When they put out for applicants every year, this year they were 50. Out of those 50, probably about 50% will not get through the training. So you're probably going to end up with 20, 25 officers.
Speaker 1:And, as we know now I don't know if you're aware of this, but I woke up to a text message to say that Sky were contacted anonymously by a serving police officer last night to say that if he loses his anonymity, there will be a mass handing in of blue cards.
Speaker 1:Because I don't know if you're also aware that I believe yesterday that some of the officers had returned based on the promises made by the commissioner that they would try and sort some of these issues that the police of the foreign officers have. So yes, I think it is political. Yes, I think it is. But what I would say is it's very easy and again it sounds like I'm press bashing, but that isn't my intention but it's very, very easy for the press to put their lens on an individual person you know brand is getting it at the moment, you know other celebrities have had it in the past or an organization, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the Met Police in particular, but the police in the UK generally have been in the sights and taken fire for some considerable time, probably since George Floyd, and it's completely unbalanced.
Speaker 2:For me this case is less about the policeman's identity. I understand it's so important to policemen that anonymity, but it's more about the laying of the most serious charge in the criminal code as far as I can think of a murder charge which will change this man's life forever, when he may well be acting, you know, in the public's best interest on the street and whether that harsh procedure is warranted and I guess we'll only know by following the court case and understanding what comes out later. But the concern by other officers who no longer want to carry weapons. Now you know you can certainly understand why many of them feel that way. Tony Long, author of Lethal Force. It's a book that came out several years ago but it kind of brings you to a lot of what we're talking about right now. So it's a good background.
Speaker 2:There's a historical link to all of that. Tony, thank you so much. Thank you, and that's our backstory this week. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards the highest of highest In the UK. Policing by consent is a philosophy that police base their legitimacy on having the confidence of the public rather than imposing order through sheer force alone. Thanks for listening to Backstory. I'm Dana Lewis and I'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2:Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. And that's our story. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards. Policing is complex and officers have to be held to the highest standards.
