To be (armed) or not to be (armed)

A debate whose time has come?

While the Police Association is not calling for the general arming of Police, President Greg O’Connor is not impressed with ‘political’ attempts to stop any discussion on the issue.

In the last 12 months, two police officers, Len Snee and Don Wilkinson, have died at the hands of armed offenders while another four officers have been shot and wounded.

Over the last two decades, the Police Association has canvassed opinion on theissue amongst its members and with each passing survey the pendulum has steadily moved in favour of general arming. Twenty years ago about three in every four officers were against routine arming but by 2005 that had come down to 64%. In 2007 a survey indicated that 69% were opposed.

Police split on issue 

The latest Association survey (see graph below), conducted last year by Nielsen, indicates that members are evenly split on the issue of general arming. In total, forty eight percent (48%) of police employees are in favour of general arming of police officers while forty-seven percent (47%) are opposed to the idea. Five percent (5%) are undecided.

It would be fair to say that there is slightly more reticence amongst those most likely to have to carry firearms (constables) with 49% opposed and 46% supportive then there is amongst non-sworn employees wishing to see police officers armed (50% supportive, 42% opposed).

Although the question wording was slightly different, compared to the 2005 research, there appears to have been a shift among members towards greater support of arming police. In 2005, just over a quarter (26%) of constables supported the general arming of police, while in 2008 48% support the general arming of police with firearms.

General Arming - Firearms There is almost an even split in members' opinions in relation to whether they support or oppose the general arming of police with firearms.

 

Frontline opinions

Not surprisingly, those at the coalface are more in favour, with Road Policing (55%) and General Duties Branch (GDB) frontline (54%) staff being more in favour of general arming than other groups. Support is also higher among members who have been in the NZ Police for four years or less (58%).

Sworn Administration, planning and support staff (61%), GDB community relations (60%) and Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) (58%) staff are more likely to be opposed to general arming. This is also the case with members who have been in the NZ Police for more than 15 years (57%).

There is higher support among members who have been in a situation where an offender has been injured (50% support), have been attacked by an offender (53% support) or injured by an offender (54% support), threatened with any other weapon (54% support), while of those actually threatened with a firearm, the support for general arming was at 65%.

How many more officers have to be seriously wounded or killed before a sensible debate on the issue of arming can take place? – Greg O’Connor, President, NZ

Public support 

Public opinion is also changing. In the same Associaton/Nielsen survey conducted last year, 55% of the public approved of arming the police, while 32% were opposed (see graph below). This is in stark contrast to a survey conducted in 2003 by Research New Zealand in which only 33% of the public supported police carrying arms. The latest Research NZ survey, conducted last year, mirrored the Police Association survey with a 53% public approval rating for general arming.

“How many more officers have to be seriously wounded or killed before a sensible debate on the issue of arming can take place?” Mr O’Connor asked recently.

General Public - View on Firearms There is slightly more support for arming of police among the general public than among members themselves.

The need for debate 

In an address to the Wairarapa Chamber of Commerce, only a few days prior to the Christchurch incident in which a paraplegic man shot and wounded an Armed Offenders Squad member and a member of the public, Mr O’Connor challenged politicians to stump up on the issue of the arming of police. “Tell us what you want us to do and we’ll work out what power we need,” he said, challenging Justice Minister Simon Power on the issue of resourcing.

Mr O’Connor said that Prime Minister John Key and Commissioner of Police Howard Broad had attempted to “close down the discussion that needs to be had on arming”. “I am not saying we should arm every police officer at this time but perhaps it is timely, in light of the Napier shootings, in which a good cop in Len Snee lost his life and two other good cops in Grant Diver and Bruce Miller were seriously wounded and narrowly escaped with their lives, that we should, as a society, be engaged in this debate. Instead, we have those who seek to sweep these issues under the carpet in the hope that they will disappear.”

The reality on the frontline is that most police officers are not afraid of being shot. Police officers are more likely to be afraid of having to shoot someone in the execution of their duty to protect the public or themselves. In the event of that happening, the officer knows that he or she will be subject to media vilification before any official inquiry has begun. Years may pass before the Independent Police Conduct Authority has completed its investigations or the officer may be subject to a private prosecution. That’s years of stress for the police officer and his or her family.

Tasers 

Mr O’Connor says that Tasers do not provide the answer to armed offenders. “They have a limited range and I think the day is coming when Police will have to grapple with the reality that the best option may be to have a gun readily available in lock boxes in each patrol car, as they do in Norway,” Mr O’Connor said.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad posed his own question on the issue at Len Snee’s funeral in May: What more could have been done to protect our police? After admitting that the fatal shooting of Constable Snee and the serious wounding of Constables Diver and Miller was “our worst fear” he went on to say: “Should we make decisions based on our worst fears? If there was a slim chance our officers could return fire, would that make us a better or safer police?"

It’s an interesting question.

The answer, though Commissioner Broad may have an understandable level of discomfort with it – may be “Yes”. It is not so much reacting to fear that is at the heart of the issue, rather it is reacting to an increased danger and level of violence on the frontline, which the Police’s own statistics bear out.

Coincidentally, among the first responders in the Napier siege were Youth Aid workers on day shift. Many Youth Aid workers are exempted from firearms training as Police seek to reduce defensive tactics training. Yet Napier shows the folly of this approach in that any officer can be called upon to respond to a potentially life-threatening incident at any time.

21st century policing
 

Senior Sergeant Malcolm Ward, an Operations Manager on the Technical Support Unit for 20 years and with 42 years frontline experience, says that times have changed and Police need to change with the times. Mr Ward was present when Don Wilkinson was shot during a surveillance operation.

“We are in the 21st century now and times have changed drastically. We are facing serious issues of violence on the frontline, the magnitude of which we have not seen previously, and we have to respond to that. I prefer a model where a member who deems it necessary for the risks faced should be able to decide for him or herself whether it is appropriate to carry a firearm. I can assure you I have no desire whatsoever to carry a firearm, nor for the responsibility that goes with it, but with the reality of policing today I believe it’s become a ‘no-brainer’.”

Mr Ward said that policing is very fluid and things can change to violence in the blink of an eye. “You can’t say to an offender who is hell bent on grievously harming or killing you that you’d like a few minutes to whip back to your patrol car to get a firearm out of the lockbox,” Mr Ward told Police News.

“Of course, we would need to have far better firearms training than we have now if that was to work though,” he added. “Picking up a firearm two days a year, firing off a few shots at a target and saying I’m accomplished enough to be armed is quite frankly, nonsense. If we were to give people the discretion to use firearms according to the circumstances then we would certainly need to think about more intensive firearms training to back that up,” he said.

“In my experience, the Police Executive have ignored, or ‘fudged over’ this and other issues for a long time now. If there is a positive response, it is usually a ‘one size fits all’ reply rather than anything specific to a particular group’s requirements. This has caused, or causes frontline staff to operate in less than desirable circumstances, take unnecessary risks and allows complacency to creep in to get the job done” Mr Ward said.

Opinions varied 

Officers spoken to by Police News reflected the results of the survey split suggesting unease with the current situation. Of about a dozen frontline officers spoken to by Police News, most favoured a change to firearms being readily available in every frontline car.

This would mean they would not have to return to the station or meet up with a NCO (non-commissioned officer) at a critical incident. “If this happened there would be less perceived need for everyone to be armed,” one senior sergeant said.

“In an ideal situation frontline vehicles would be fitted with long-barrelled weapons secured in the front of them. This would give staff access to them before they exit the vehicle. The long-barrelled weapon (rather than a pistol) is important because of the practical problems with using a pistol for anything other than self-defence (their accuracy and stopping power over anything more than 5 metres is very limited). The management of their use could be done via a seal on the cabinet or lock that could be checked by the NCO at appropriate times and then resealed after use, meaning the administration part of issuing firearms could be done after a critical incident rather than before as is the case at present,” the officer added.

Some officers expressed concerns about having Tasers in locked cabinets in a vehicle too. “Having the thing in a locked cabinet in a vehicle is no use if something suddenly happens that wasn’t foreseeable. If we are going to issue them, we should be carrying them,” one officer said in summing up a view held by several officers spoken to by Police News.

A shift supervisor, who did not wish to be named, said: “We would need to adopt and train our staff in a totally different style of policing that focused on weapon retention. One has to think twice about entering populated areas (like pubs and clubs). One has to think twice about actually physically grappling with a person. When cops need guns they tend to need them immediately - having them in a locked box isn't helpful.”

Perhaps the threshold at which we draw firearms might need to be lower,” he said. A superintendent told Police News: “While we don’t carry side-arms on our person, we are in a sense quietly armed as we carry them in patrol cars and so they are fairly readily available to us as the need arises. But I wouldn’t want to see us generally armed.”

Officer who was shot

Senior Constable Mark Prendergast of Ashburton can speak from the unique perspective of someone who has been shot. In April 1998, he and his partner went to a routine domestic incident where Mr Prendergast was shot in the back with a shotgun. “I am in favour of generally arming frontline police because I believe that first response units need all the tools available to them to be able to adequately deal with all incidents they attend. Also, the need to have to protect oneself, or another is never, nor will it ever be able to be accurately predicted,” he said.

Even Mr Prendergast has his reservations about the maturity needed to handle a firearm and whether some members of Police would have the physical ability to protect, guard and secure their firearm.

“But I believe the New Zealand policing environment has reached the point where,unfortunately, we need to be armed. It's a big subject…there are fish hooks attached of course but on the balance I think it is time.”

Drastic changes in violence levels
 

All of the officers spoken to, from frontline constables to inspectors, readily admitted that policing has changed drastically in the last two decades – certainly in terms of the levels of violence encountered from criminals. One officer, who favoured general arming, said he felt that those making the decisions were “out of touch” with the frontline. “People are used to seeing armed officers at airports and overseas, and I think the public would soon get used to the idea of
police being armed. You could be forgiven for thinking that sometimes, there are people within the higher echelons of Police who would sooner go to a police funeral than have to explain a police shooting to the public and politicians,” he said pointedly.

A detective inspector said he was against arming: “I think routine arming is too drastic and would be a step too far but I think that there should be easier access to firearms. The idea of a lockbox in the front console certainly has merit,” he said.

“Australian police are aghast that our officers are going to potentiallylifethreatening incidents, sometimes alone and unarmed,” Association President Greg O’Connor added.

Australia, the United States and most European states have a routinely armed police force. The United Kingdom remains with an unarmed police force but has specialist groups similar to our Armed Offenders Squad and Anti-Terrorist Squads. As terrorist threats have become more of a concern, more police officers are seen on the streets of the UK carrying weapons.

Public reluctance? 

While Mr O’Connor acknowledged that New Zealanders may be reluctant to see a general arming of police, he said it was interesting to note an increase in public support for Tasers in the aftermath of the Napier shootings.

“There may come a time when that opinion changes again in the aftermath of another Aramoana or Napier siege,” he added. Police firearms protocols emphasise the principle of “minimum personal carriage … at all times". Police sometimes carry firearms in secure cabinets in the back of patrol cars but it differs between areas.

Guidelines allow for any sworn member of police to take a gun on a job if there is evidence of substantive risk, which is usually defined as a risk of death or serious bodily harm..

 Authorised officer 

An authorised (non-commissioned) officer is supposed to authorise the issue of a firearm but where this is not practicable – perhaps in an emergency in a rural situation – the officer may use his or her own discretion to carry a firearm.

In armed incidents, police are told to withdraw, cordon and contain.

The incidence of threats to police is starkly evident in the Police’s own figures on use of force. ‘Use of force’ is a term used to describe when police have drawn firearms in incidents where they believed arms were present. The figures show that in the last year police responded to 532 incidents and on 153 occasions (or 29% of the time) deemed the risk sufficient to carry weapons. Firearms were recovered on 72 of those occasions.

Complex issue

The arming debate is a complex one. No one is pretending otherwise.

Feeding into it are issues of very limited firearms training, a reduction in defensive tactics training and the reduced human capabilities that arise from that, the move towards more of a Critical Response Vehicle model, the recruitment of younger police officers, the general availability of weapons, public confidence in their police, officer safety, increased violence against officers and a whole range of other issues. 

Once again, the Association is not advocating for general arming of police officers but it has taken note of a change in both public opinion and police staff on the issue and feels, in light of the shootings of six police officers in the last year, that perhaps it is a debate whose time has come. 

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