Specialist Firearms Officer

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Authorised Firearms Officers wearing body armour, both armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 Carbines and Glock 17 Pistols.
Authorised Firearms Officers wearing body armour, both armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 Carbines and Glock 17 Pistols.

A Specialist Firearms Officer (SFO) is a police officer who has qualified as an Authorised Firearms Officer, thus being authorised to carry and when necessary use a firearm, and has since undergone further selected tactical training in order to provide a wider range of options to Firearms Incident Commanders (FICs).[1]. The role requires around two years of training[2] while still serving as an Authorised Firearms Officer. Specialist Firearms Officers are heavily used by the Metropolitan Police Service, where they form part of the Specialist Firearms Command (CO19)[3]; other geographic forces (with a few exceptions such as the Greater Manchester Police) generally have far less firearms-related crime and therefore have much smaller firearms units, generally referred to as the Force Firearms Unit, within which SFOs usually have their own units or teams.

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[edit] Firearms and the British police

With only a few exceptions, police forces in England, Scotland and Wales are not routinely armed, and instead rely on AFO-crewed Armed Response Vehicles to attend incidents where the involvement of firearms or other weapons is likely. Due to United Kingdom firearm laws, and a general anti-gun culture, criminal carriage of firearms is rare and the presence of an armed officer usually leads to the surrender of the criminal. There are only a handful of occasions in a year when a British firearms officer shoots someone, and these incidents usually make the headlines of the national newspapers. One particular British police force has only had to use a firearm against a suspect once in its entire history.[4]

[edit] Training

An officer with the SFO designation is trained to a higher standard than an Authorised Firearms Officer, as they are required to learn a specialisation and undergo more extensive firearm usage training. In a hostage situation, should the decision be made not to call on UKSF resources[5], they are normally the personnel called in to execute a rescue. They are commonly trained in skills such as Methods of Entry (MOE) and abseiling, as well as weapons handling beyond that gained at the AFO level, to a higher standard with the existing weapons, and in additional weapons such as the Remington 870 Shotgun, a weapon commonly used for door breaching. Individual SFOs are often trained in a particular speciality, such as a medic or sniper role.

[edit] Use of firearms

Firearms officers may only discharge their weapons "to stop an imminent threat to life" [6]. It is standard practice to make known the fact that the officer is armed by shouting a warning before firing, but this is not always possible as the shouting of a warning could provide the subject with time to fire a weapon or detonate explosives, demonstrated by the shootings of several officers while shouting warnings[7]. In England and Wales, warning shots are not permitted except in very exceptional circumstances (and they are totally forbidden in Scotland)[8] , and United Kingdom police do not 'shoot to wound'.

Police in England and Wales have been making increasing use of less-lethal weaponry such as the Taser and the Baton Gun. These weapons may only be used "with the intention to stop an imminent threat to life or of serious injury".[9]

Police Firearms Officers (both AFO and SFOs) are trained to aim for the centre of mass as this maximises the likelihood of the shot achieving total and immediate incapacitation [10]. This is slightly different in an Operation Kratos situation, whereby officers must aim for the head due to the risk of explosives being located around the torso[11]. Whether one aims for the head or the torso, the likely result is death; this has led to the belief that officers 'shoot to kill', but the primary intention is to totally and immediately incapacitate their target.

[edit] Common SFO specialisations

[edit] Weapons used

[edit] Standard weapons (AFO)

Firearms in service vary between forces in the UK as individual Chief Constables and Police Authorities retain considerable independence. Kent Constabulary, for instance, require potential SFOs to have been trained in:

or equivalent weapons.[13]

Some forces issue the Sig Sauer P226 (Pistol) instead of the Glock 17 [12].

[edit] Specialist weapons (SFO)

Permission to deploy fully automatic weapons can be granted for special use in hostage rescue situations. [12]

The following can be issued to SFOs in the appropriate situation.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Merseyside Police Specialist Firearms Officers (SFOs). Retrieved on 2008-02-19. “The Matrix Firearms Department has a group Specialist Firearms Officers, (SFOs) who work within Matrix Firearms. They are experienced AFOs who undergo further selected tactical training in order to provide a wider range of tactical options to Firearms Incident Commanders (FICs). The Unit is regularly utilised in pre planned intelligence led operations and demand for their services has dramatically increased since the introduction of Matrix.”
  2. ^ Sussex Police Tactical Firearms Unit. Retrieved on 2008-02-19. “Having done their two years probation, any police officer can take an initial weapons and tactics course at Gatwick Airport and then progress onto ARV skills courses. The progression to SFO usually takes around two years. Training in firearms continues alongside normal police training and an AFO will undertake about 18 days firearms skills training a year.”
  3. ^ Central Operations Specialist Firearms Command (CO19). Retrieved on 2008-02-19. “CO19 is the branch name given to the Specialist Firearm Command branch of the Metropolitan Police Service that provides firearms-related support to our unarmed colleagues. ... ...For example the crews for Armed Response Vehicles, teams of Specialist Firearms Officers who deal with pre-planned firearms operations and the Rifle Section, which provides a counter-sniper capability.”
  4. ^ Underzone - Police specialists - Firearms officers. Retrieved on 2008-02-20.
  5. ^ SAS Moves to London in Terrorism Fight - The Times (London) - January 2007
  6. ^ ACPO (2003), Manual of Guidance on Police Use of Firearms, 5.6.1
  7. ^ Waddington, P.A.J. (1991), ‘The Strong Arm of the Law: Armed and Public Order Policing’, Oxford University Press, New York]
  8. ^ ACPO (2003), Manual of Guidance on Police Use of Firearms, 5.2.2
  9. ^ ACPO (2003), Manual of Guidance on Police Use of Firearms, 5.6.3
  10. ^ ACPO (2003), Manual of Guidance on Police Use of Firearms, 5.6.1
  11. ^ IPCC (2006), ‘Stockwell One: Investigation into the Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell Underground Station on 22nd July 2005’, from www.ipcc.gov.uk
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Waldren, Michael J. (2007). Armed Police, The Police Use of Firearms since 1945. England: Sutton, 224. ISBN 0750946377. 
  13. ^ Kent Police Training and Tactical Firearms Unit. “Candidates must be currently authorised firearms officers (AFO) within their own force and have completed training compliant with the National Police Training Curriculum to qualify them in the use of: H&K G36 and MP5 Carbines, Glock 17 or 19 Self Loading Pistol, H&K Baton Gun, X26 Taser, Remington 870 Shotgun, or equivalent weapons.”
  14. ^ a b Collins, Steve (1998). The Good Guys Wear Black. England: Arrow Books Ltd; New Ed edition, 256 pages. ISBN 978-0099186823.