Stephen Tibble
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Police Constable Stephen Andrew Tibble QPM (1953 – February 26, 1975) was a police constable in the London Metropolitan Police who was killed by an Provisional Irish Republican Army gunman whom Tibble was chasing through Barons Court, London.
PC Tibble, who was married and had been a serving officer for only six months, was off duty when he saw a man escaping from colleagues. He decided to help give chase on his motorbike. He overtook the suspect and stood in front of him, holding out his arms. He was shot three times in the chest.
The gunman was escaping from a flat that detectives later discovered was a bomb factory in the Hammersmith area of London.
The discovery of the factory led police to identify four other suspects, who later became known as the Balcombe Street Gang after they held a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, Marylebone, London. They also killed Guinness Book of Records co-founder Ross McWhirter after he offered a reward for their capture.
PC Tibble's killer, William Quinn, a U.S. citizen of Irish and Mexican descent, escaped home to San Francisco, California, where he began a 13-year battle against extradition. He was sent back to England in 1988 and jailed for life. He served 11 years before he was released, along with the rest of the Balcombe Street Gang, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA).
A sympathetic public donated money to PC Tibble's widow. He was posthumously awarded the Queen's Police Medal for Gallantry and a memorial was erected at the spot where he was killed on Charleville Road in Barons Court.
