BBC: Armed police patrols in London targeted gun crime

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8438303.stm

Armed police patrols in London targeted gun crime

Further details have emerged about armed patrols carried out by Metropolitan Police in gun-crime hotspots in north and south London.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed that CO19 armed officers undertook eight operations in estates in Brent, Lambeth, Wandsworth (including Moorlands estate in Brixton), Waltham Forest, and in Haringey (in Broadwater Farm estate) last year.

Entries made by officers in community impact assessment documents reveal that they were worried about the "adverse" impact on community relations as suspects were "predominantly black".

When news of the operations emerged it raised concerns about the patrols becoming "routine", forcing Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson to say that these were "pre-planned operations, with specific objectives"....

[slackmaster]

1. I thought the UK pretty much banned private handgun ownership

Did the criminals not get the memo?

[dipsydoodle]

3. It has

but criminals, by their nature, tend to break the law.

[taurus145]

4. You're kidding!

Gun bans work everywhere and every time they've been tried.

Just ask some of our posters on this board.

[TheWraith]

2. And yet, they still scold people for defending themselves against intruders inside their own homes.

Fucking nuts.

[TPaine7]

5. What gun crime?!!!

I thought the BBC was a nonfiction publication.