Radio 2 in the Park 2024

[kyle_y]

A Metropolitan police firearms officer who may have fired the shot that killed barrister Mark Saunders has been removed from firearms duty after allegedly inserting song titles into his oral evidence at the dead man's inquest.

An examination of the transcript shows that evidence given by AZ8 contained a number of phrases which are also the titles of songs, including Enough is Enough by Donna Summer, Point of No Return by Buzzcocks, Line of Fire by Journey, Quiet Moments by Chris de Burgh, Kicking Myself by As Tall As Lions and Fuck My Old Boots by the Membranes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/02/mark-saunders-song-titles

Personally I find this quite funny. The man has a sense of humour, but I guess it just shows lack of judgement on his part considering the environment and seriousness of the situation. Suspending him in my opinion though is a bit harsh. He just needs to be taken aside and spoken to. Unlikely but it could all be a coincidence, any one could use those choice of words. But I'd imagine it was just a bet between him and his mates.

[cxx666]

Its quite clever, and also rather amusing, but those titles alone might not have been spotted by anyone in a statement, he must have told someone what he had done in order for this to come to light. Telling someone while its going on is a fairly stupid thing to do :S

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

I daren't think how he got that last one in... but I don't see how this is a 'crime' worthy of any significant punishment. Some people are too jumpy, stuffy and jobsworthy, this saddens me in the same way it saddens me that Twitter Joke Trial went to court to waste time and taxpayer money instead of just giving him a warning and maybe some fine. :x

Seriously though, punishment fitting the scale of the crime is one thing this country f***ing fails at every time, petty crimes get overpunished while murderers and rapists etc get so many things that people who've done nothing wrong can't have and are treated relatively softly considering what scum they are and the visible, measurable harm they've caused, it's ridiculous.

Seriously, tell me what actual harm injecting a little bit of humour into something like this does. No-one noticed at the time so it didn't take away from the seriousness of the proceedings etc.

Even within the MET there are more serious offences going on, like their harrassment of photographers who are doing NOTHING wrong and are taking pictures in a public place, why don't the idiots doing THAT get suspended?

[Hammer]

Well clearly his statement wouldn't have been as truthful as it should have been if he was shoe-horning lyrics into it. And he's meant to be an officer of the law. Clearly a punishable offence.

[E*F*4L]

all of them should have been locked up for murder, he was shot at least seven times by a number of different officers, not just the one he was supposed to be pointing a gun at, they didn't let his wife try to talk to him either, as for this pissing about in the court, they should be charged with perverting the course of justice & perjury.

how anyone can find this funny is beyond me.

the police are supposed to serve the public, more & more the UK police are acting like the Nazi American police.

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

Well clearly his statement wouldn't have been as truthful as it should have been if he was shoe-horning lyrics into it. And he's meant to be an officer of the law. Clearly a punishable offence.

No-one's questioned the integrity and truthfullness of the actual answers, it's very possible, and most likely that he didn't actually lie?

Yes yes, why not execute him for having a sense of humour then? I'd still rather see the corrupt officers that ACTUALLY lie about little things like their own application of incorrect-for-the-situation or even made up laws (Look into their harrassment/mistreatment of Jules Mattson and other innocent photographers for a start) investigated than something with no consequences like this really...

Punish him if he did kill this guy by all means, punishment for this just seems stupid to me, if he's guilty of murder, then punish THAT.

Crap like this just confirms to me why I have ZERO Confidence in the Police System in this country. Seriously, some of the things these idiots do at times make the characters in Police Squad/The Naked Gun look intelligent, competent and sane!

[E*F*4L]

No-one's questioned the integrity and truthfullness of the actual answers, it's very possible, and most likely that he didn't actually lie?

Yes yes, why not execute him then?

Crap like this just confirms to me why I have ZERO Confidence in the Police System in this country. Seriously, some of the things these idiots do at times make the characters in Police Squad/The Naked Gun look intelligent, competent and sane!

a police officer that doesn't lie :hahaha:

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

a police officer that doesn't lie :hahaha:

and I am an Albatross that came to the US in 1793, got a job as a patent clerk and made millions when I changed my name to Bill Gates...

[Hammer]

There's a time and a place for a sense of humour. A murder inquest isn't an example.

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

Yes, but once again the punishment doesn't fit the overblown charge... this is a microcosm of our entire Police System in my experience, why don't they punish him for his REAL crime, not this petty-minded BS (that probably no-one noticed at the time anyway)?

[kyle_y]

all of them should have been locked up for murder, he was shot at least seven times by a number of different officers, not just the one he was supposed to be pointing a gun at, they didn't let his wife try to talk to him either, as for this pissing about in the court, they should be charged with perverting the course of justice & perjury.

how anyone can find this funny is beyond me.

the police are supposed to serve the public, more & more the UK police are acting like the Nazi American police.

So you're a firearms officer, you and all of the many other firearms officers that are with you are armed and dealing with a drunken and depressed man who's pointing a gun at your friend and colleague. You're trained to deal with these situations. You don't know if his gun is loaded. You don't know what's going on in his head. You don't know what he wants to do, or is planning to do. All you know is what you see infront of you. A crazed man pointing a gun at your friend and colleague. Do you just stand there doing f-all in hope that the person with the gun aimed at them as able to deal with the situation themselves? Or do you handle the situation in the spare and rush of the moment in the way that you've been extensively trained to?

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

So you're a firearms officer, you and all of the many other firearms officers that are with you are armed and dealing with a drunken and depressed man who's pointing a gun at your friend and colleague. You're trained to deal with these situations. You don't know if his gun is loaded. You don't know what's going on in his head. You don't know what he wants to do, or is planning to do. All you know is what you see infront of you. A crazed man pointing a gun at your friend and colleague. Do you just stand there doing f-all in hope that the person with the gun aimed at them as able to deal with the situation themselves? Or do you handle the situation in the spare and rush of the moment in the way that you've been extensively trained to?

Exactly. These are specialists but hindsight is giving all the answers they just didn't have at the time.

[E*F*4L]

So you're a firearms officer, you and all of the many other firearms officers that are with you are armed and dealing with a drunken and depressed man who's pointing a gun at your friend and colleague. You're trained to deal with these situations. You don't know if his gun is loaded. You don't know what's going on in his head. You don't know what he wants to do, or is planning to do. All you know is what you see infront of you. A crazed man pointing a gun at your friend and colleague. Do you just stand there doing f-all in hope that the person with the gun aimed at them as able to deal with the situation themselves? Or do you handle the situation in the spare and rush of the moment in the way that you've been extensively trained to?

they were not standing there in plain view of him for a start, furthermore he was shot at least seven times from apparently four different positions, they all fired at the same-time when he could have only been pointing his shotgun at one of them, in which case the round or rounds from a shotgun wouldn't have hit any of the officers as they were to far away or hidden so he couldn't see where they were, also Specialist Firearms Officers use guns like sniper rifles these have scopes so looking through one you wouldn't know exactly where he was pointing the gun, of course you would see if he was pointing at you, but not the other officers you would maybe know roughly their position but not exact, enough in any-case to know if he was aiming at them.

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maybe if they had allowed his wife to talk to him like she wanted to do via the phone the police were using, this wouldn't have happened, the only person he was a threat to was himself.

[kyle_y]

they were not standing there in plain view of him for a start, furthermore he was shot at least seven times from apparently four different positions, they all fired at the same-time when he could have only been pointing his shotgun at one of them, in which case the round or rounds from a shotgun wouldn't have hit any of the officers as they were to far away or hidden so he couldn't see where they were, also Specialist Firearms Officers use guns like sniper rifles these have scopes so looking through one you wouldn't know exactly where he was pointing the gun, of course you would see if he was pointing at you, but not the other officers you would maybe know roughly their position but not exact, enough in any-case to know if he was aiming at them.

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maybe if they had allowed his wife to talk to him like she wanted to do via the phone the police were using, this wouldn't have happened, the only person he was a threat to was himself.

I do agree about the wife bit, I remember hearing about that not too long after.

And about being shot from 4 different positions at the same time - they all reacted quickly to the situation unfolding infront of them, and they all happened to be very swift and instinctive in their reaction meaning the guns were all fired at the same time. It happens, just like in a game of Snap. It's not a Charles de Menezes-esque scenario when they all just stood over him shooting continually after failing to declare themselves as police when chasing him with guns.

[TheEpicPlum]

There's no harm, may.

[E*F*4L]

There's no harm, may.

erm, he killed some bloke & is taking the piss in a court case to find out what happened.