Cronus wrote:I told you I don't suffer fools and therefore our conversation has run its course.

Good day to you.

SmokeyTA wrote:erm yes.

Quote:More to the point, if you're trapped with your kids on the third floor of a building which rioters are trying to torch, would you prefer that the police actively tried to stop the rioters torching the building, or would you be happy if they just video'd it, so there was a possibility that some of the arsonists who fried you and your family would be later identified?

Quote:Should this very specific and highly unlikely situation ever arise, then there is already, provision in the law for the police and members of the public to react proportionally to the threat with the necessary force.

Smokey TA wrote:Yes, and in that very specific and highly rare situation then as I said the necessary force could include lethal force. Though im not sure why you have brought up such a rare and specific example? are we going to go through all rare and specific examples where lethal force may be necessary or just this one?

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:You have either lost the plot, or having lost this point, are deliberately obfuscating as a smokescreen. It won't work. This particular bit of the discussion was born from the discussion opened by the authorities on whether things could or should be done differently, including whether the use of non-lethal and lethal weapons could or should be applied.

It was never suggested that thare aren't already armed police. It was never suggested that the police don't already have a route whereby 'rubber bulets' could be fired. They do have arms and they do have facilities. We all know this. The question was rather whether, operationally, they ought to use direct and possibly lethal force in some exreme situations such as were seen in the riots.

Quote:Some widened this discussion by suggesting that the risk of 'innocent people' being injured or killed by police firearms was unacceptable and so suggesting that the passive approach was as good as it should get. I suggested that in extreme circumstances i would rather the police took an active approach, and if the choice was between (for example) shooting would-be arsonists on the one hand, and allowing tem to torch possibly ccupied residences on the other, I would have favoured the use of force, even lethal force. As my view is that the right to life of the innocent occupants far outweighs the right to life of the person intent on burning down their residence regardless of the likelihood that innocent residents will be seriously injured or die.

Quote:that is the context of the discussion. So I asked:

I think you must have been living in a sealed box during the riots since you oddly replied:

The whole point, which your remark spectacularly missed, is that I was referring to specific cases which had actually arisen, before the world's media, even if they had passed you by.

I was not suggesting that there wasn't already "provision in law" for use of necessary force, nor was anyone else. The issue was why the police had not used it.

Accepting that you innocently knew nothing of people having actually had to jump from burning buildings, I offered you one of the images which you had somehow missed seeing or knowing of.

And so I'm baffled at your next response:
I did not bring it up. The report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary brought it up. I was simply adding my comments. The report called for clear rules of engagement to establish ‘an agreed envelope of available tactics and associated use of force, that are likely to maintain public support’. The specific issue I raised was people having de facto been trapped in torched buildings, and of police having [de facto[/i] stood by and watched in some cases buildings being torched. Due amongst other things to their interpretation at the time of their current 'rules of engagement'.

If you don't now get this, after that, then I can't help you. I would suggest that you write to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and point out that they are wasting their tiime and money as should such very specific and highly unlikely situations ever arise, then there is already, provision in the law for the police and members of the public to react proportionally to the threat with the necessary force, and so there's nothing to discuss and the report was presumably in your view a waste of paper.

Shoot You Down wrote:Are we any different from Syria if these actions take place?

Quote:east stander wrote:If you do nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about.

This has been proven wrong time and time again. Why do people still bother to trot it out?