Special Operations.Com
United
Kingdom
London
Metropolitan Police
Firearms
Unit
History
The Firearms Unit was formed
in December 1966, following the murder of three unarmed
police officers who challenged a gang of armed robbers.
The Met turned to the FBI Academy and several other
police agencies for advice on dealing with serious
armed crime and as a result, the Firearms Unit was
formed. At first the unit was solely responsible for
training officers to use firearms but more recently
it has grown to the extent that the majority of officers
are now operational.
Responsibilities
The Firearms Unit has two distinct
functions:
Operational
To provide the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) with
the ability to respond to armed crime, providing a
centre of expertise in all aspects of armed deployment
and operations.
Armed Response Vehicles (ARVs)
were introduced into the MPS in 1991 to provide a
rapid and effective response to armed incidents and
to support unarmed officers. ARVs are crewed by specially
selected uniformed officers who are trained to stabilise
and control armed incidents, stop and search suspicious
vehicles and search premises. They are often the first
to arrive at the scene of an armed incident and work
alongside unarmed officers in addition to specialist
firearms officers (SFOs). Each vehicle contains three
officers and they patrol all of London, 24 hours a
day, 365 days a year. SFOs are used to deal with pre-planned
firearms operations and specifically deal with rapid
internal deployments and hostage rescues. The officers
who are used for this work are ARV officers who undergo
additional specialist training.
Training
To instruct officers to a highly specialist level
enabling them to deal with most armed incidents likely
to occur in London.
The unit provides refresher
training for all firearms officers who must reclassify
on a regular basis. More than 2,000 officers attend
training courses every eight weeks. The Training Department
is currently one of six national training centres
and in addition there are six firearms ranges located
at police buildings across London. Courses covered
include basic training, firearms instructions, bodyguard
training, specialist firearms training and ARV training.
On-scene management and rifle courses are also covered.
