Inquest Hears that Shooting Was “Instinctive”
In an investigation in the shooting incident of a police officer by his colleague in June 2008, it has been found that the officer had reacted instinctively to a gun threat, even though it had been stated earlier that it was a role-play training exercise.
This incident is very similar to another recently reported shooting of Keith Tilbury, where a police civilian was shot during a safety demonstration by another police officer. In the current case, PC Ian Terry, a firearms specialist, died after being hit by a shot of Round Irritant Personnel ammunition. The police training going on in an abandoned factory site involved the use of real ammunition, which caused the accident.
Terry was portraying a criminal trying to get away in a car. The objective was to stop him from getting away by deflating the vehicle’s tyres, and then pulling out the fake armed robber from the car. Allegedly, strict instructions had been issued to the officers to keep their shotguns aimed downwards throughout the training.
Nigel Meadows, the Manchester Coroner who began the investigation mentioned that the officer responsible for the shooting had claimed that he did not know that it was a shoot scenario. Citing legal reasons, the officer was not named.
The officer responsible for the shooting further said that the act had been purely instinctive because of a gun threat from PC Terry, despite the fact that it had been intimated earlier that it was a training exercise. During an investigation in the matter, the officer also told the Independent Police Complaints Commission that he had no intention to shoot his colleague.
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