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| NEWS > 13 May 2007 |
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The force of humanity
They're reviled, but relied upon to keep the peace. Now one city is using culture to help hardened officers and head off corruption.
CIUDAD NEZAHUALCOYOTL, MEXICO — On a recent afternoon, two dozen municipal police officers glided around a classroom in their socks, 9 mm submachine guns and pistols slung at their hips.
"Don't be shy," said their instructor, encouraging them to slide their feet across a pile of brightly colored books strewn on the floor. "Let your toes do the exploring."
So what it this? A strange new fetish? Some eccentric fad?
... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Malta Today - San Gwann,Malta
13 May 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Shots in the dark
Last week’s fatal shooting in Qormi has exposed a number of holes in the official procedure governing the use of firearms by the police. Raphael Vassallo looks into the issue
As Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani Grima opened an inquiry into last week’s fatal Qormi incident – in which 52-year-old Bastjan Borg was shot five times by the police: once in the shoulder, three times in the chest and once in the head – the results of an inquiry into another police shooting incident, this time in London, finally came to a close.
Two years after Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was mistaken for a suicide bomber and killed by the police in London’s Stockwell Tube Station, the Independent Police Complaints Commission this week cleared all 11 officers of any misconduct in an inquiry which had been hampered by legal action and political pressure.
Admittedly, the two cases are more than just 3,000 miles apart. At the time of the de Menezes incident, London was on high alert following the July 7 bombings, in which 52 commuters were killed and 700 injured in three separate explosions. De Menezes himself was shot the day after the police foiled a second terrorist attack.
The Qormi shooting, on the other hand, was an isolated case, despite having been foreshadowed by a similar run-in with the police some 20 years ago. Nonetheless, there is one aspect of the London shooting which bears some relevance to the ongoing magisterial inquiry into the death of Bastjan Borg in Qormi on Monday 7 May.
When it came to assessing the conduct of the police officers concerned, the UK’s Metropolitan Police had at its disposal a clear set of guidelines to determine the proper or improper use of firearms by police officers. At a glance, it is doubtful whether the local inquiring magistrate can make the same claim.
Both the official inquiry and the police internal investigation into Borg’s death purport to address two main questions. The first is whether the use of firearms was justified to begin with; the second, whether the force used was proportionate… the victim having been shot five times in all; once in the shoulder, three times in the chest and once in the forehead.
But they also serve another, more subliminal purpose: that of reassuring the general public that the institution tasked with its protection can be trusted to handle guns in delicate situations.
All three questions may prove difficult to answer, as it transpires that unlike other countries such as the UK, local measures to establish the correct or proportionate use of firearms by the police appear to be at best subjective.
Police Commissioner John Rizzo told this newspaper that, contrary to popular belief, all police officers are issued with a pocket-book edition of the Code of Ethics, which he himself had a hand in writing in April 2005. The code itself is an elaboration of an earlier official police circular, issued in the wake of another fatal shooting in Qui-Si-Sana in 1995. Apart from the standard issue guidebook, police officers are also subject to regular training sessions, which according to Commissioner Rizzo was upped from “once every two years” to “once every two months”.
On paper, this sounds comprehensive enough. But on closer scrutiny, the Code of Ethics appears to be rather vague on two crucial aspects regarding firearms: procedure, and responsibility.
There are only two provisions justifying the firing of guns during police operations: one, as a means of self-defence; and two, to prevent “serious crimes involving grave threats to human life”. More specifically, there seems to be no objective means of ascertaining responsibility in the event of injury or death, other than refer the reader to the 1979 UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcers.
Both these shortcomings have hampered past inquiries into similar shooting incidents. Retired police superintendent Charles Demicoli recalls his own personal experience as a police officer under investigation for firing a gun in the 1980s… although on that occasion, no one was hurt, still less killed.
“There were no written instructions guiding police on whether, when or how to shoot guns,” he says, adding that this situation created problems not only for individual police officers caught up in dangerous situations, but also for subsequent investigations such as the ongoing magisterial inquiry. “In cases such as these, there are little in the way of official policy to fall back on. Neither are there any specific guidelines on when to take or not to take a gun on site when dealing with a report.”
In Demicoli’s case, the inquiring magistrate eventually ruled that he had “shot responsibly”; but as the exculpated former superintendent himself admits, the basis upon which this decision was reached was largely subjective, and as such could have gone either way.
By way of contrast, investigators into the de Menezes shooting had the luxury of a highly detailed publication called the ACPO Manual of Guidance on Police Use of Firearms. Also accessible online, this document establishes policy and conduct guidelines covering all aspects of firearm use, including tactics, training and – of particular relevance to this case – “individual officers’ responsibilities according to the law.”
The ACPO manual provides different codes of conduct for indoor and outdoor scenarios, rural or urban settings, the use of firearms in operations involving vehicles, and even the firing of guns with the support of police dogs. There are specific sections dealing with hostage scenarios, as well as detailed instructions on how to deal with bystanders in circumstances where shots may be fired. It also specifies the direct chain of command when orders to open fire are given out. For instance, only AFOs (Authorised Firearms Officers) are trained in the use of guns in police operations; and even then, there is a rigid hierarchy determining which commanding officer can authorise when, and under what circumstances, to open fire.
Elsewhere, the ACPO manual also dispels a number of widespread myths about standard police procedure: among them, that best practice is to deter would-be criminals by firing warning shots: “There are serious risks associated with the firing of such shots, which have the potential to cause unintentional death or injury. They may also lead a subject or other officer to believe that they are under fire,” the manual observes.
Warning shots are in fact illegal in Scotland, and in the rest of the UK are permitted only in exceptional cases.
Back in Malta, it appears that a police officer’s decision to carry a weapon is as arbitrary as the decision to use it. For one thing, Demicoli dispels the myth, which gained currency after last week’s fatal shooting, that Maltese police are licensed to carry their own personal guns. “No police are assigned their own firearm in this country,” Demicoli says emphatically. “That is a system used in other countries, but not here. Guns are kept at police stations, usually under lock and key. When the police receive a report, they will determine whether or not to take a gun with them to the site depending on the nature of the report. In this case, where there was a history of violence associated with the same person, they would have decided to go armed. I personally think they were right to take this precaution.”
However, like other commentators, Demicoli also questions the intensity of the force used by the police on Monday, May 7.
“Without having been there, I would not want to pass judgment on the actions of the police officers concerned, one way or the other,” he says, adding that “other people” have not followed this particular principle while making public statements on the case.
But in Demicoli’s view, based on his own experience, “best practice” in such cases is generally to aim for the target’s legs… although it must be said that this opinion is not shared by the authors of the ACPO manual, who advise police officers to aim for “the largest visible part of the target” – i.e., the body.
“Of course, without having been present it’s impossible to say whether the police officers concerned had the opportunity to shoot him in the legs. That’s why the inquests are necessary, and that is also why it would be better not to pass judgment before they are concluded.”
In this case, Demicoli is confident that the inquiry will be a fairly quick affair. “There were many witnesses, as the shooting occurred in a very public place. This will help to bring all the facts to light.”
The same cannot be said for other magisterial inquiries, many of which have taken years to conclude… and some, according to Demicoli, were never concluded at all.
Considering the procedural lacuna in which magistrates are expected to conduct these inquiries, this is not particularly surprising.
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