Met disputes watchdog's claims over shootings

Scotland Yard attempted to dismiss a report by the police watchdog yesterday that accuses its officers of being too quick to start shooting during firearm incidents.

The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) was asked by the Home Office to examine a rise in police shootings and found that the London force was twice as likely as others to open fire on a suspect.

The report was sent to Scotland Yard late last year, before a 15-day armed siege in Hackney, east London, that cost a total of £1m. The Met's firearms unit, SO19, chose not to storm the flat where a gunman, Eli Hall, was holding them at bay, despite criticisms from the public when roads were cordoned off and people were trapped in their homes.

After the report was published yesterday, Deputy Commissioner Ian Blair described the PCA's findings as "inappropriate and ill advised".

He said: "One of the recommendations contains the proposition that the number of shots fired by Metropolitan Police officers during the period under scrutiny is both disproportionate to other forces and may be evidence of a predisposition, or even a policy, for weapon intervention.

"While recognising that every case where police fire weapons contains the seeds of tragedy, the Met believes the conclusions drawn ... are partial and statistically dubious."

Citing the Hackney siege incident as an example of restraint, Mr Blair said: "There is no Met policy of inappropriate rapid intervention. The length of the Hackney siege speaks for itself."

The PCA looked at 24 police shootings, including 11 fatalities, between 1998 and 2001 and concluded that many of those shot were mentally ill or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The report noted that 55 shots had been fired by police but no suspects fired back. It said only seven targeted individuals had been armed with real guns. Another seven held replica firearms and four had sharp instruments.

The authority called on forces to examine non-lethal ways of resolving firearms incidents – such as using dogs, water cannon or electronic tasers – and to be wary of "rapid resolution tactics" often deployed by the Met Police.

It also said elite firearms units were vulnerable to a macho culture that allows drinking sessions the night before operations and in which marksmen adopt tasteless nicknames.

One officer went out drinking in spite of having attended a briefing on an operation due to take place early the next morning. The names, which came to public attention because they were used in official statements and in transcripts of radio discussions, were often obscene.

Sir Alastair Graham, chairman of the PCA, acknowledged that gun crime was of "great concern" and such incidents were often "difficult to resolve". But he added: "The incidents involving replicas and unloaded weapons often involved vulnerable populations, including those intent on being shot by the police, a phenomenon known as 'suicide by cop'.

"The risk posed by such individuals to other members of the public may be minimal and one of the main challenges for armed policing is developing methods to identify and disarm individuals without injury or loss of life."

David Best, the PCA's head of research, said 63 per cent of police shots hit their target, compared with 30 per cent in a study of Florida police. He found that police in England and Wales fired in only one in 1,870 firearms incidents – but one in 913 for the Met.

Despite a sharp rise in gun-related crimes, police use of firearms remained constant at about 11,000 operations a year between 1998 and 2001.

Meanwhile, the Home Office minister John Denham announced pilot schemes yesterday to use tasers.