Tactical Firearms Unit
For the majority of people, the idea of firearms being present within our society is naturally not a comfortable one. For over a hundred years, there have been many debates on the arming of police in response to increasing armed crime around the country, some of these involving several high-profile incidents.
The Surrey Police Tactical Firearms Unit is a highly trained unit that is there to protect the public. About 46 Surrey officers are trained in the use of firearms. Some carry out protection and containment duties. The vast majority of members of the Tactical Firearms Unit are routinely armed and carry out routine patrol duties. The latter have received more specialised training and are used in serious and lengthy incidents.
The Force can respond to incidents involving firearms 24 hours a day by having trained officers on-call for Armed Response Vehicle (ARV) duties.
Surrey is still one of the safest counties when it comes to firearms incidents. Crews might be deployed for a number of reasons - protection of VIPs, armed robbery, kidnapping, hostage rescue, to name but a few - and on average are called out on duty about 200 times a year. Fortunately, officers have had to use their weapons on duty on only two separate incidents throughout the Unit's history.
Initial Armed Response Officers
Basic Firearms Course
The initial course will provide all the necessary skills and theory to allow an officer to become an Authorised Firearms Officer. Once successful that officer will join the Firearms Team as an Authorised Firearms Officer.
The course trains officers with the pistol, together with various drills, the Law, Basic Firearms Tactics, Target Identification, and Containments. Some time will be spent in the Simulation Gallery where students react to incidents and apply the Law to those incidents, in as near to real life as we can achieve.
A lot of time is spent on the ranges learning shooting skills and weapon handling. The course is structured so that an officer, with no experience of firearms, will by the end of the course be able to complete a shooting test and be competent in the tactical use of Police firearms.
ARV Training
The ARV course covers such aspects as team building, vehicle deployments, building containments and firearm make-safes to an advanced level. The course introduces students to the subject of searching buildings for armed suspects, building searches using specially trained dogs and Legion Patrols (anti-terrorist patrols).
Safety and Imitation Weapons
All too often, imitation guns are a life and death issue, and their presence on the streets can have tragic consequences.
People might decide to own an imitation firearm for a number of reasons:
- To specifically threaten victims of a burglary/robbery into submission
- Youths sometimes carry them as a status symbol, and as a threat
- Fearing the prospect of becoming a victim of attack themselves, some people carry these to act as a deterrent
- The imitation might be nothing more than a child's toy, or an adult gimmick (such as a cigarette lighter)
- Replica firearms can be the subject of someone's personal collection
These 'weapons' might be unable to physically harm someone, but anyone who has a firearm or imitation firearm while committing a burglary is guilty of aggravated burglary. And because it is impossible - even for experts - to tell imitations apart from the real things, unless close up, they will be considered a direct threat. The reaction from the police will naturally be to protect the innocent.
In short, if you use an imitation, you cannot expect the police to know what you know. If used maliciously or aggressively, the police will treat the threat as real.
If it's used as a joke, it could be the worst 'joke' ever pulled.