When the going gets tough....

Rasczak

At least some of the criticism is suggesting he should have taken on the ground control. But the quote was mainly to show it was two civilian colleagues in the car...not Police Officers.

springtide

88 secs from the initial car ram to him being shot.

justincase

Correct...so it was 88 seconds before he went to get out the car ,gave any thought to having no equipment or had civilians in with him..
I don't see how 88 seconds is relevant  when all he appears to have done during that time was lock the car door..

springtide

Refer to post #60

88 secs from when the terrorists car crashed to the terrorist being shot.
In that time as mentioned, a decision was made by operations for him to stay in the car with the civilians.

This obviously could have been part of larger attack on London and they may have protocols for senior officers to be rapidly moved to operations centres, who knows.

justincase

He made the decision to stay in the car,,he had no radio,so how did operations tell him of the decision that he should stay in the car...he was told to stay in the car by another officer when he went to open the door after the shots..

It may have been part of a larger attack and all he had to stay was he was following a protocol,, so why try to get out of the car after the gunfire...

springtide

I guess it boils down to whether he followed probably well documented terrorist response plans or not.

maddy

Surprise! He's retiring in a month or so.

justincase

Quite possibly....That would be the plan where all senior officers get as far away from trouble as possible while their subordinates are expected to run towards it...

springtide

Its called operational effectiveness I would guess; everyone understanding their role and responsibility.

The fact the terrorist was shot dead within 88 secs of it starting probably means protocol worked pretty effectively.  e.g. rather than sending in unarmed and unprotected officers, they quickly deployed an armed officer to take him down. I guess they also avoided any chance of armed officers not getting a clear shot or any hostage situation. Not that it will be any relief to the families of the lost ones.

BUT, the whole point of this review, is to look at what happened, check if protocol was properly followed, and try and figure out if things had been done differently IF there would or might have been a better outcome (or NOT)

justincase

Protocol,,deployed ... Just a fancy way of saying plan and sent..
Or an armed officer( who maybe should have been at the gate) heard what was happening, moved toward the incident and shot him,,did anyone deploy anybody during those 88 seconds or would it be safe to think that an armed officer working at Parliament might understand he has a gun for a purpose..
Interesting that the family of PC Palmer believe the MET are closing ranks