NI Police board + Plastic bullets + Implications?

pedantus

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4381205.stm

It would seem that while all parties in Northern Ireland are being asked to seek peaceful positions on the situation there that the police and policing overseers have decided to continue with their procurement of plastic bullets. Or should that be they have at least decided to adopt a new one. There is no suggestion yet that they have made any purchases.

Why?

In a time when the trouble for the most part are over and that communities in general are shifting towards peace?

Why keep investigating such oppressive tools such as plastic bullets? Do they know some thing we don’t? Is there a big upsurge in violence expected?

Why when all parties and governments are suggesting that arms play no part in a democratic think let alone acting society do they insist on the procurement of arms that would be seen as anti democratic.

Surely these are all the wrong signals that they are sending out? Won’t the water cannons they used at previous civil disturbances be good enough? Won’t the firing of plastic bullets and lord help us, one civilian death set the peace process back even further? The SDLP don’t want them. SF doesn’t want them. The coalition parties don’t want them.

Why keep procuring?

Is it not just a bit silly to be doing this all being considered?

Full text below.

The Northern Ireland Policing Board has backed the adoption of a new plastic baton round by police.
In a statement the board said the decision to replace the baton round with an 'attenuated energy projectile' was subject to conditions.

These include Chief Constable Hugh Orde consulting with the Children's Commissioner and other bodies.

Board Chairman Professor Sir Desmond Rea said the AEP presented "less risk of causing serious or fatal harm".

"The use of plastic baton rounds is of real importance to many people across Northern Ireland, not least those who have in the past suffered loss or harm to their family members and friends, and the board acknowledges this," he said.

Mr Rea added no baton rounds had been fired since September 2002 and that their use was recorded and investigated by the police ombudsman.


A plastic baton round

He said the rounds are not to be used as "an indiscriminate means of crowd control" but "against specific individuals" to protect the public and police officers.

SDLP board member Alex Attwood said that his party had opposed the decision.

He said there had been "inadequate medical assessments on the impact of this weapon on children".

"It is important to note that it was the board which decided this issue which confirms the central and pivotal authority of the board when it comes to policing decisions," he said.

The chief constable will have to demonstrate that he has consulted with relevant bodies at a board meeting on 7 April.

uberwolf

hope for the best, plan for the worst?

Presumably if there were a situation where a plastic baton was needed better it be an improved version? Reducing the risk of fatality or serious harm is reasonable enough.

kasintahan

uberwolf wrote:

Presumably if there were a situation where a plastic baton was needed better it be an improved version? Reducing the risk of fatality or serious harm is reasonable enough.

I honestly don't know whether they are necessary or not (riots seem ingrained in the northern psyche) but according to Wikipedia the NEW rounds are acrylic and MORE LETHAL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet
A further development of the round was introduced in Britain in 2001, the L21A1. Designed to be more accurate, the new acrylic round is also more capable of inflicting lethal injuries if it strikes a vital area.

uberwolf

kasintahan wrote:

I honestly don't know whether they are necessary or not (riots seem ingrained in the north) but according to Wikipedia the NEW rounds are acrylic and MORE LETHAL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet
A further development of the round was introduced in Britain in 2001, the L21A1. Designed to be more accurate, the new acrylic round is also more capable of inflicting lethal injuries if it strikes a vital area.

I'm not qualfied to discuss the merits of the individual rounds.

It occurs to me that any projectile is potentially lethal. Depending on where it strikes the person. A more accurate round (according to your link) should therefore result in fewer strikes on vunerable parts of the body?

A Dub in Glasgo

There have been some pretty serious and horrendous riot situations on the 'mainland'. You don't see the police there firing these bullets at all never mind firing them in a reckless and random fashion which is often the way in NI.

A Dub in Glasgo

uberwolf wrote:

I'm not qualfied to discuss the merits of the individual rounds.

It occurs to me that any projectile is potentially lethal. Depending on where it strikes the person. A more accurate round (according to your link) should therefore result in fewer strikes on vunerable parts of the body?

That assumes that the policeman/soldier firing the bullet is not aiming for the more vunerable part of the body. That is a huge assumption to make with respect to NI.

pedantus

kasintahan wrote:

I honestly don't know whether they are necessary or not (riots seem ingrained in the northern psyche) but according to Wikipedia the NEW rounds are acrylic and MORE LETHAL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet
A further development of the round was introduced in Britain in 2001, the L21A1. Designed to be more accurate, the new acrylic round is also more capable of inflicting lethal injuries if it strikes a vital area.

I wont say for the record here due to not being able to track down the link I read but I think that plastic bullets have changed from being non lethal to less lethal as a weapons/munitions categorisation.

cdebru

on a slightly different note if SF had been on the policing board and voted against these with the SDLP could it have been blocked

sceptre

pedantus wrote:

I wont say for the record here due to not being able to track down the link I read but I think that plastic bullets have changed from being non lethal to less lethal as a weapons/munitions categorisation.

Though they've never been non-lethal. Fire it directly at a target above the waist (and more expecialy above the neck) at reasonably close range and they'll do serious damage or kill the target regardless. The original plastic bullet was designed to replace the rubber bullet which had to be shot at the ground in order to bounce up at the target (oddly enough having to bounce a rubber bullet at someone wasn't all that accurate) and the previous wooden bullet. Given that people indeed died from the extensive use of these projectiles the terminology (as you say) has changed gradually from "non-lethal" to "less-lethal" in the past few years as they are indeed less lethal than a regular bullet (though of course if as a consequence you're going to use a lot more of them...). This reclassification obviously doesn't make the bullet less lethal or more lethal, it's just a different category box for the same projectile.

I'm not really a fan of their use, given that they do tend to be overused, though I'd probably be a fan of the science behind them if I was half-interested, given that if projectiles are going to be used anyway they are in fact less lethal. Must have been a difficult decision to adopt the L21A1 though ("Right, these are more accurate so you've less chance of hitting someone in the head. But if you do hit someone in the head they'll do more damage") (I presume they travel faster). I'm probably not all that much a fan of watercannons either but I'd rather they bought a few of these. Save the bullets of any sort for the situations when they're really necessary - and then they can just use regular metal slugs which are more accurate than any of the above as long as they're used by guys who can aim.

kasintahan

sceptre wrote:

(I presume they travel faster). .

I do know acrylic is a much harder material than PVC (which was used before).

Perhaps it's because they do not enter the body (like ordinary lead/FMJ bullets) the new acrylic rounds impart a lot more energy into a smaller area due than did the old PVC ones which being "softer" would distort more on impact?

A Dub in Glasgo

Taken from this thread as I would probably be the one that got dealt with after uberwolfs warning

Lemming wrote:

Apologies for the off-topicness uberwolf, but just want to comment on this and then hopefully drag it back into context of the SF/IRA record on drug dealers.

What you've just said Dub is extrordinarily racist.

Well the way Plastic Bullets have been used in NI and the way they have not been used in Britain is there for all to see.

The fact of the matter is that there have been few riots in the UK, and even then few with enough overall threat to warrant the discharge of firearms.

I quite agree as I do not think plastic bullets should be used at all. You are suggesting that they are fired in NI because of the overall threat warrants their discharge? I am afraid that is nonsense. If you look at a lot of the situations that apparantly 'warranted' plastic bullet use in NI, they are not too dissimilar to some of the high profile rioting situations in Britain.

A Dub in Glasgo

Again frim that thread

BuffyBot wrote:

Of course the fact that the police in the mainland UK haven't quite had to deal with the same situations as the NI forces of the past and present on an ongoing basis, have they?

The police in NI have used thousands of plastic bullets where they have faced less danger than the police in Britain in similar situations

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I like plastic bullets, or approve of their use in NI, but trying to compare the situation there to the situation in the UK over the last X amount of years isn't a fair comparison.

I would compare the situations where the police in NI have faced less danger in similar situations as the police in Britain and they have still managed to legally fire thousands of plastic bullets

It is politically unacceptable for the police in Britain to use plastic bullets against people. It is not in NI.

Lemming

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Well the way Plastic Bullets have been used in NI and the way they have not been used in Britain is there for all to see.

...

I quite agree as I do not think plastic bullets should be used at all. You are suggesting that they are fired in NI because of the overall threat warrants their discharge? I am afraid that is nonsense. If you look at a lot of the situations that apparantly 'warranted' plastic bullet use in NI, they are not too dissimilar to some of the high profile rioting situations in Britain.

I would not agree that they should not be used at all. I do however think that they should be used a lot less lightly than they have been. Indeed if you look at other deployments of these rounds, those deployments have been few and far between with fewer fatalities due to the circumstances in which they are handled.

I also did not say their discharge warranted their use. I wasn't there. Neither were you. Men on the ground made that decision. My problem with their deployment during the troubles was the mentality associated with them. "Ah sure they're non-lethal right? Shoot away willy-nilly". We're seeing parallels in the US with regards police use of tazers. They're being used more and more in less and less discplined circumstances and have already resulted in deaths. So plastic bullets aren't any more or less dangerous than some of their counterpart options.

As for my comment on overall threat levels being higher in NI than in the mainland UK, it stands. As I've said elsewhere Dub, since you're so fond of quoting from other threads, is that mainland UK law enforcement has rarely been (if at all?) in a situation where it looked like it was in danger of losing control of a situation. You are also forgetting that the rioting in the North would appear to be a few levels higher in the viciousness stakes too with the likes of petrol bombs, nail bombs, etc being thrown at police as opposed to rocks in the UK.

Now, lets take a look at those "high profile" cases in the UK shall we? The biggie is the MayDay riots in London a few years back. All caught live on television, etc. Tell me, how many police were there? About half the country's force by the looks of it. How good was crowd control? Impressive given they effectively controlled flow on a whim. Were the police ever in danger of losing control of the situation? No. Were they having anything much more serious & life-threatening than rocks thrown at them? Not that I can recall. The most serious police injury was a guy getting a rock in the head whislt helping someone.

[ Daithí ]

pedantus wrote:

..."inadequate medical assessments on the impact of this weapon on children".

That is, by far, the most frightening part of the text.

I don't know how many children have been shot with plastic/normal bullets, if any, but just thinking about it makes me cringe.

Johnny_the_fox

[ Daith&#237 wrote: »

That is, by far, the most frightening part of the text.

I don't know how many children have been shot with plastic/normal bullets, if any, but just thinking about it makes me cringe.

8 - under the age of 16 have been killed by plastic/rubber bullets. URL=http://www.serve.com/pfc/policing/plastic/plastic23072001b.html]source[/URL

ressem

The baton rounds are meant to be used, under the new rules to incapacitate ringleaders or those threatening others but they don't appear to be effective at this job anyways.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1537506,00.html

Though the dead mans family probably would have preferred that they tried to restrain him when knocked over rather than breaking out the live rounds when he got up.

Sleepy

One point and Two questions on this:

Pedantus - I'd assume that the PSNI expect an upsurge of violence in the north given that the marching season is coming upon us.

How can Sinn Fein / IRA call for the PSNI to stop using plastic bullets when the "community policing" they seem to see as a fit alternative use "real" ones?

And finally: who in their right mind allows someone under the age of 16 into an area where a riot is taking place, is planned or is likely?

Blub2k4

Sleepy wrote:

How can Sinn Fein / IRA call for the PSNI to stop using plastic bullets when the "community policing" they seem to see as a fit alternative use "real" ones?

So tell us exactly who should pack up their weapons and go home?