From: simonparkerulm@gmail.com
On 04/09/2025 12:06, Clive Page wrote:
> On 04/09/2025 11:45, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>> On 2025-09-04, Clive Page wrote:
>>> One can see that if you are police officer it's a much more exciting way
>>> to spend your day dashing onto the runway at Heathrow in a car with blue
>>> lights flashing along with four colleagues all brandishing guns than
>>> trying to investigating a real crime, which might, for example, involve
>>> watching a lot of boring CCTV footage.€€ So one can see their point of
>>> view, it's just not something that most of the public would support.
>>
>> Did any of that actually happen, or did you make it up?
>>
> News reports said he was arrested by five armed police.€€ Perhaps that's
> explainable if all police at Heathrow are armed, but even so to waste
> the time of five of them seems to me a bit over the top.
I cannot speak for Heathrow but a close personal friend is a police
officer at Manchester Airport.
At Manchester, all police that operate airside, (i.e. those that are in
a position to intercept a passenger disembarking an aircraft), are armed
as a matter of routine. I expect Heathrow to be similar.
As such, should one wish to be pedantic one could use the phrase "police
that are armed" (i.e. routinely armed as part of their role), rather
than "armed police" (i.e. police that were specifically armed / deployed
with firearms to deal with this specific incident).
Similarly, I am not familiar with the deployment protocols for Heathrow
but it is possible that these protocols require five officers to be
deployed when arresting an arriving passenger to enable them to subdue
the passenger should they fail to co-operate / resist arrest.
"Procedurally mandated number of police that carry firearms as a matter
of course..." is a far less noteworthy sound-bite than "Five armed
police officers..."
Regards
S.P.
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