General Chat

If the press are going to start accusing the police of inaction, they need to realise that they had no more opportunity to stop him than did a member of the public, and no one could possibly criticise a bystander for not tackling him.

It's human nature to try to attribute blame when things like this happen. It's a hindsight game, though. People see a helicopter as an instant cure all and it isn't. Too many police camera action programmes give the totally wrong impression of what a helicopter is capable of. You never see the failures. You certainly can't shoot from a helicopter and you can't get too close, either, or else you risk taking a shot and adding to the body count. Police helicopters aren't armoured. Ariel surveillance is only effective if the target can be located. Even then, there are laid down protocols, tried and tested, for dealing with an armed incident.All you get by rushing in is more bodies.

Do we want a fully armed police force? Perhaps it's a different question, but the point will arise sooner or later. I personally say no to that one.

Dizzi, we know they can use thermal imaging and all that. But even that wouldn't actually LOCATE him would it. The helicopter would have been drafted in from somewhere, it's not stationed in Whitehaven. The helicopter would have had to find him first, just the same as the armed police.

You cannot track something without finding it first. What were they supposed to do? Stick a pin in a map and go there and hope the first person they see on the thermal image camera is Derrick Bird?

I stress again, they did not know where he was, they only knew where he had been, once the unarmed officers lost him in traffic.

LYNDA
I ANSWER FOR ME

ONLY ME


OKAY

EDIT


NOTICE MY EDITONLAST POSTING

SORRY MUST TYPE FASTER IN FUTURE

I AGREE

BUT HERML IMAGING CANN BE USED DAY AND NIGHT AND SEEN THROUGH SOME UNDERGROWTH

I FLEW TO SCOTLAND THE DAY OF THE DUNBLAINE TRAGIDY
I SAT NEXT TO THE FAMILIES
I CRYED TOO

EDIT I THINK OUR POLICE ARE BRAVE ANYWAY

Yes Dizzi, the helicopter can follow, but only if they find him in the first place. They have to know where someone is before they start following.

As it is, he was on the move in a very large rural area. What kind of tracking could they use before they located him. They only knew where he had been, not where he was at that time.

42 armed officers were eventually deployed in the area, whatever that may mean, and these were not all Cumbrian police. As they realised just how big a situation they had on their hands, police were also called in from Lancashire and other surrounding counties. IMO they did what they could in the time they had.

LYNDA
GILL'S COMMENT IS HER OPINION
YOUR ALLOWED YOURS

INFACT HERE THE POLICE HELICOPTER CAN FOLLOW AT HEIGHT
SO EASIER TO TRACK SOMEONE,
ALSO BOBBIES WERE AS I TAKE IT UNARMED,,

BTW IN A SITUATION LIKE THAT POLICE OR NOT,HE WAS DETERMINED
TO DO SOMETHING
COULD YOU HAVE STOPPED HIM !!!!!!!!!!!

always the same with the press TW.i think eldrick said the perfect word.....IF....we can only imagine how bad it was.we wer,nt there.i,d have been useless.i dont cope in panic situations .

i agree rose.its hard to imagine that day .pure chaos .but i think under the circumstances they did good.

It's so easy to criticise without being there!

Obviously the problem of stopping him arose because he wasn't static. The distance he covered was incredible, how would anyone be able to guess his next destination or target?

Sue

And the helicopter could have done what?


Absolutely Joy, those coppers deserve medals, not being hung drawn and quartered by the press or the public.

The fact remains that once the unarmed officers had lost sight, giving precious intelligence to those in operation and on their way in, that was it, they could only follow the trail he left behind. Then what?

In spite of what some people think, police are only human and even the latest state-of-the-art technology is not going to home in instantly on a particular person at the press of a button.

They couldn't stop him if they hadn't found him. IMHO.

As I heard it the other night, Cumbria being largely rural and with a relatively small police force had to call in assistance from other areas before trying to apprehend him...which seems entirely reasonable to me, a little seaside town and its country surroundings would hardly have an armed unit.

lol

Some people just automatically blame the police for everything, but that's fine. The people doing the accusing do so from a position of total and utter ignorance of any of the facts, let alone a knowledge of what it is like to be under fire or threatened.

But strangely enough, I partly agree in a way - not with the action or lack of it on the day, as I don't know sufficient to make any comment, But the possession of a firearms certificate by Bird does seem rather strange if - and I stress the word IF - the reports of his background in the press turn out to be correct.

bare in mind it must have been mayhem there.one after the other,the police did all they could.and the public helped where they could.hats off to them all.

So where was the helicopter our taxes paid a huge amount for....of course the police are at fault ... even saving 1 of those people would had been a credit to them but no they let the public down once again. IMHO

Gill

I think they weren't on him sooner because they didn't know where he was, they only knew where he had been, not where he was going.

Needle and haystack come to mind.

I am certain it wouldn't have taken so long had it been a city location, but it was a rural place, covering miles and miles of countryside, he could have been anywhere by the time they were able to get to the location of the last reported sighting.

i duno about pushing an enquirie, that will cost us thousands to be told what we already know, and i can understand the beat bobbies couldnt really do anything not being armed, but i feel that 3 hours is still a long time,


id like to know what "in the area" actually means, and why they wernt on him sooner, xxx

OMG Sue, people have some wierd ideas about what the police can and can't do don't they?


Like I siad earlier, the unarmed officers could only follow him, they were as vulnerable as anyone else, equally at risk of being shot and killed, they even had the gun pointed at them causing them to take cover. They couldn't do anything. It was damn brave of them to follow him in the first instance.

Once they had lost sight of him, the armed units had to then find him again.

Thing is, they were there, but like I said, these were local bobbies, not the armed police. They couldn't stop him, all they could do was follow him, relaying the information back to headquarters or wherever, just watch and monitor. What more could they do? They were as vulnerable as everyone else.

The armed response unit were apparently 'in the area' within 15 mins of being called upon. There are questions as to what time they were called, and what exactly is 'in the area'. But apart from that, once the unarmed officers lost sight of him, there were no opportunities to have stopped him sooner, if they hadn't found him. Its a big area, he could have gone anywhere really.

I find it really hard to understand pushing a complaint agaisnt the police at this point.

Another interview with sky with the policeman giving the press conference, asked if he thought it would be a good thing to go through the independent police complaints commission, he said he had already spoken to them about it, and if that is how they learn any lessons from this for future use then so be it, but there is no complaint to be made so far.

Heard a classic on Sunday. A chat was saying that if gun ownership laws were relaxed someone could have shot Derrick Bird and saved many lives as the police were unable to. I actually felt a bit sick when I heard that on BBC TV.

Sue

i do kinda think 3 hours to detain a man with a gun is pretty bad, BUT having said that, it wasnt the polices fault that derrick decided to go out with a gun an shoot people, altho,

its a hard one altho it wasnt there fault he did it, are they responsible for not catching him sooner, if they had then less people would be dead,

its ahrd one x