The Thin Blue Line just got thinner

Thug

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Reports coming through of a police officer being shot inside a police station.
It looks like it was a custody Sgt who was booking in a prisoner for possession of ammunition.
 
Reports coming through of a police officer being shot inside a police station.
It looks like it was a custody Sgt who was booking in a prisoner for possession of ammunition.
Yes, heard about this on R5 Live, apparently somewhere in the Met.

EDIT Croydon and fatally shot
 
Croydon. Sorry but I wouldn't live in Croydon for all the tea in China and I live 2 miles from Tottenham. RIP.
 
Don‘t they have hand cuffs on anymore, crazy! :(

The guy was arrested as he had live ammunition on him. He must have been properly searched but still had a gun on him somewhere. They don't always cuff a suspect going by what I've seen on TV but in this instance if he was cuffed this officer would be alive this morning.
 
Croydon. Sorry but I wouldn't live in Croydon for all the tea in China and I live 2 miles from Tottenham. RIP.
Very sad and unfortunately not that shocking anymore :(

I live in Croydon and agree that despite having some very nice parts it is now mostly a s**t hole, I am also regularly in most other parts of London and its surrounding areas and can honestly say it is the same in most if not all of them. The closure of police stations and the reduction of police officers is now a major problem in my opinion.
 
The guy was arrested as he had live ammunition on him. He must have been properly searched but still had a gun on him somewhere. They don't always cuff a suspect going by what I've seen on TV but in this instance if he was cuffed this officer would be alive this morning.

This is what I mean, I'm no expert but a guy with live ammunition on him should be cuffed and he clearly wasn't searched properly either. Very sad.
 
Sad news indeed, RIP.
Some serious risk assessment failure there. I'm lost for words.
 
The guy was arrested as he had live ammunition on him. He must have been properly searched but still had a gun on him somewhere. They don't always cuff a suspect going by what I've seen on TV but in this instance if he was cuffed this officer would be alive this morning.
This is what I mean, I'm no expert but a guy with live ammunition on him should be cuffed and he clearly wasn't searched properly either. Very sad.

Can we hold off on the expert opinions for now ? No-one knows the full facts yet...
 
Can we hold off on the expert opinions for now ? No-one knows the full facts yet...

For sure I agree, but he had a gun on him didn't he. In any case the guy should of been cuffed, and that would have prevented this tragedy.
 
Very sad and unfortunately not that shocking anymore :(

I live in Croydon and agree that despite having some very nice parts it is now mostly a s**t hole, I am also regularly in most other parts of London and its surrounding areas and can honestly say it is the same in most if not all of them. The closure of police stations and the reduction of police officers is now a major problem in my opinion.
I used to stay over in Croydon at Jury’s Inn and never felt safe tbh
 
I used to stay over in Croydon at Jury’s Inn and never felt safe tbh
Not a nice part of Croydon that is not far from Lunar house that brings its own set of problems, and only a stone's throw away from the police station, the courts, the town hall and yet still not very safe at all. Just a few roads away are multi million pound homes backing onto golf courses where you could very easily forget that Croydon has massive problems.
 
Don‘t they have hand cuffs on anymore, crazy! :(

You would think for being in possession of ammunition you would be. But when you in custody your normally have to sign to say you understand your rights and why your detained etc...So they may have uncuffed him.
 
Exactly. They don't chuck you in a cell with cuffs on unless you're being particularly unruly and even then I'm sure they swap them for something else.

Once you get to the custody suite, if you've behaved yourself, you'd be uncuffed with the custody officer behind the desk in front of you and at least one of the two arresting officers at your side.

There's so much we don't know at the moment. Even with cuffs on, you can fire a handgun.
 
You would think for being in possession of ammunition you would be. But when you in custody your normally have to sign to say you understand your rights and why your detained etc...So they may have uncuffed him.

That makes sense. I was thinking why did the perp wait till he was in the station as he could have pulled the gun whilst on the street and made his escape but if he was cuffed as soon as the officers found the 2 rounds then that could be the answer. Not making excuses but the guy could have had mental issues as he turned the weapon on himself after shooting the desk sergeant?
 
Very sad. No one should go to work and never come home through the violent act of another person. We need the police and all other emergency workers. Many it seems see the uniform and hate it with little feeling for the person who wears or the consequence of their actions against it.

My feeling go out to the officer's family and colleagues.
 
When it comes to cuffs, there are only 3 reasons that police can use cuffs.
1. To prevent escape.
2. To protect from injury (to any person including the arrested person themselves).
3. To secure evidence.
Just finding ammunition on someone may not necessarily mean that they have to cuff them and keep them cuffed.

The issue now is that if handcuffs are used then the officer has to fill in a use of force form, which is an extra piece of paperwork on top of the already stupid amount they already have to fill in. So most will only handcuff as a last resort. This extra work is putting officers lives at risk.
In any case they have to be removed as soon as they can, and if taken into custody sometimes its the custody Sgt themselves that will ask for the cuffs to be removed.

When searching a prisoner there are only 3 items of clothing that can removed whilst in public. They are:
1. Jacket
2. Outer clothing
3. Gloves/hats
They can pat a suspect down, but its still easy to hide something in the groin area as i bet no-one likes searching there.

Of course no one here has any idea what happened on this occasion, we will have to wait as news is passed on to the media.

One thing though, airport style metal detectors when entering custody may have helped.
 
It is a judgement call, whether to cuff or not. But as @Thug said, we will have to wait and see what happened. At that time of night and the circumstances, had it been me, the cuffs would of remained on even in custody, until the suspect was properly searched. I made some mistakes like that early on in my career, likely I and no one else was harmed.

Perhaps the subject was not searched after initial arrest (should be anyway, unless there are exceptional circumstances), and this wasn't relayed to the officer who lost his life.

Very sad. RIP.
 
Read the following on another site.

Regarding the Custody Officer from Croyden this is from one of his mates on the Met site.
'I’m told the Suspect had been arrested by specials but not searched or cuffed !
In back yard skipper has to do Covid test, suspect pulled gun and shot him in the chest then shot himself in the head !
Apparently isis documents on him!
all will be revealed no doubt
RIP brother'

No reason to doubt its authenticity at this stage but as the Officer says 'All will be revealed'
RIP
 
Don’t want to speculate, will be a lot of context we don’t know. We don’t know what decisions were made and why. I dread to think how the arresting officer feels regardless of the circumstances. But I have noticed it’s been said that the suspect was in a ‘holding cell’. Now unless the met use different terminology/process, a holding cell is where they sometimes place prisoners before they are properly booked in when the booking in desk/sgt is busy. A temporary cell before they get detained in a normal cell. A full search is usually done during the booking in process at the custody desk.
 
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Don’t want to speculate, will be a lot of context we don’t know. I dread to think how the arresting officer feels regardless of the circumstances. But I have noticed it’s been said that the suspect was in a ‘holding cell’. Now unless the met use different terminology/process, a holding cell is where they sometimes place prisoners before they are properly booked in when the booking in desk/sgt is busy. A full search is usually done during the booking in process at the custody desk.
I guess it depends where you read it.
The press are notorious for filling in the blanks with what they think happened.
Also they may call a van cage a holding cell I guess.
In this time of covid they generally only allow one prisoner in the holding room at a time and the others waiting do so in their vans until clear to go in.
 
Oh why on earth were each main police divisions custody offices eliminated? I
Prisoners have to be processed outside the division they were arrested.....driving time, a back up of vans with prisoners outside custody office etc.
This is what has happened!

Edit: my Police Inspector...Ray Codling was shot & killed on our shift. So, apologies if my post felt over emotive.
 
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That makes sense. I was thinking why did the perp wait till he was in the station as he could have pulled the gun whilst on the street and made his escape but if he was cuffed as soon as the officers found the 2 rounds then that could be the answer. Not making excuses but the guy could have had mental issues as he turned the weapon on himself after shooting the desk sergeant?

For all we the arresting officer could have been a fire arms unit and his gun was taken off him etc.. best wait till the facts are known first before jumping the gun.
 
For all we the arresting officer could have been a fire arms unit and his gun was taken off him etc.. best wait till the facts are known first before jumping the gun.
It was Specials that arrested for having ammunition. ...But I suppose media could misunderstand 'Specials'.
 

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