With the deaths of the three French officers during three days of terror in the Paris region and the suggestion of a plot in Belgium to kill police, European law enforcement agencies are rethinking how — and how many — police should be armed.
Scotland Yard said Sunday it was increasing the deployment of officers allowed to carry firearms in Britain, where many cling to the image of the unarmed “bobby.” In Belgium, officers are again permitted to take their service weapons home.
On Monday, French law enforcement officials demanding heavier weapons, protective gear and a bolstered intelligence apparatus met with top officials from the Interior Ministry. An official with the ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing talks, said automatic weapons and heavier bulletproof vests were on the table.
Among the most horrific images from the Paris attacks was the death of police officer Ahmed Merabet, who was seen on eyewitness video lying wounded on the pavement as a gunman approached and fired a final bullet into his head. Merabet had a service gun and a bullet proof vest, said Michel Thooris, of the France Police labor union.
“But he did not come with the backup he needed, and the psychology to face a paramilitary assault,” Thooris said. “We were not prepared in terms of equipment or mind-set for this kind of operation.”
One of the attackers, Amedy Coulibaly, said in a posthumous video that his plan all along was to attack police.
“We need weapons that can respond,” said Philippe Capon of French police union UNSA.
Among those weapons, he added, are modernized criminal databases, because the current databases are out of date, and there are firewalls between thsoe of different law enforcement branches. “The databases are not interactive. They are not accessible to all. They are not up to date,” he said.
Unlike their British counterparts, French national police are armed although their municipal counterparts tend to be weaponless. But Thooris said the national police are not permitted to have their service weapons while off duty, raising the possibility that they could be targeted when vulnerable or unable to help if they stumble across crime afterhours.
Because of increasing unease and last week’s anti-terror raids, police in Belgium are again allowed to carry weapons home rather than put their handguns and munition in specialized lockers.
“The conditions we have now are clearly exceptional,” said Fons Bastiaenssens, a police spokesman in Antwerp, where there are many potential targets, especially in the Jewish quarter.
Law enforcement firearms have suddenly became far more visible, with some police carrying heavier weaponry as they guard sensitive buildings and police offices, and paratroopers in the streets of the major cities.
In Britain, the threat to police officers is judged to be very high after the Paris attacks as well as the recent disruption of a reported Islamist extremist plot to attack individual police officers in west London.
In response, the Metropolitan Police said Sunday it is bolstering the deployment of specialist firearms officers who are authorized to carry weapons.
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