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LONDON'S ARMED POLICE; 1829 TO THE PRESENT

01 January 1991

LONDON'S ARMED POLICE; 1829 TO THE PRESENT
refdoc August=1991

BOOKS/PAMPHLETS , User Ref = 351.74 , Acc Date = 01-Nov-86
R W Gould , M J Waldren
Arms and Armour Press, 1986 222pp, ill RB44358

Traces the weapons - pistols, longarms, cutlasses and truncheons
- with which the Metropolitan Police Force has been armed, from
the early days of the nineteenth century to the appearance in the
1980s of D11 officers carrying submachine guns at London's
Heathrow Airport. Looks at the first verifiable case of a
policemen using a revolver while on duty in 1887 and reports that
then, as now, there was considerable argument about what weapons
were suitable, the police often feeling outgunned and ill-
equipped to deal with armed criminals. The historical perspective
provides a background for more recent events, including the Craig
and Bentley case, the attempted abduction of HRH Princess Anne
in 1974, the sieges of Spaghetti House, Balcombe Street and the
Iranian Embassy, and the more contentious `incidents' that have
taken place in the last few years.

United Kingdom, Sydney Street, crime, violence, bodyguard, bomb,
robbery, history, burglary, gas, training, Army

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