An armed Police vehicle stop results in a man being accidentally shot in the hand; although the Police deny negligence, significant damages have now been recovered.
Armed Police Stop
One evening in the summer of 2022, my client Luke was a front seat passenger in a Vauxhall Astra motor vehicle driven by his friend Ray. Two other men were also passengers in the car.
Suddenly and without warning, the vehicle was subject to a forced stop by armed Metropolitan Police Officers, with Police vehicles blocking the road before and behind Ray’s car.
The officers were investigating a serious crime, and the vehicle my client was travelling in was linked to that offence – but what happened next was completely unjustified.
One of the firearms officers surrounding the vehicle told all of the occupants, including Luke, to put their hands out in front of them. Luke and his companions complied – but then as another firearms officer approached, he accidentally discharged his SIG MCX Carbine into the car, in a sudden flash of light.
The bullet from the officer’s gun went through the rear driver’s side door of the car and then hit the middle finger of Luke’s right (dominant) hand, fracturing the bone and causing him immediate severe pain, shock and bleeding.
As Luke was forcibly extracted from the vehicle and was handcuffed to the rear, he was aware that he had been shot but struggled to comprehend what had happened.
Under Arrest – in the Emergency Department
Luke was then placed under arrest – but taken straight to hospital, rather than custody. When the doctors attended upon him, he was advised that he might actually have to have his middle finger amputated, which caused him great distress, though thankfully that did not transpire.
Whilst Luke was being treated by the Plastic Surgery Department, the Police made a (mandatory) referral of the incident to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC), as this was a DSI – Death or Serious Injury – incident.
IOPC Investigation
The Officer who had fired the gun subsequently confirmed that he had actually been intending to “stow” his weapon behind him, prior to extracting the driver from the car, when it had gone off:
“I have moved my left hand from the pistol grip, at the same time moving my trigger finger back to the selector lever to place the selector lever to safe at which point a single gunshot has been fired.”
The Officer went on the state that at first, startled by the unexpected noise of the shot, he did not realise it was his own gun that had been fired. Thankfully, matters did not escalate from there, as could have been the case if other Officers had thought that the shot had come from inside the vehicle.
The IOPC investigation exonerated the firearms Officer of any professional misconduct but went on to conclude that the following areas of “learning” should be considered (noting that the Officer in this incident was left-handed):
- To ensure that left- handed users of the SIG MCX Carbine were made aware of the possibility of their magazine releasing unintentionally when their carbines are stowed behind them, due to the magazine release catch being on the side of the weapon that touches their back.
- Consider identifying alternative models of the SIG MCX for left- handed users.
- Ensure an effective maintenance programme is in place to confirm that all weapons used by Police Officers are in a serviceable condition.
The Civil Claim: An Act of God – or PC Plod?
Despite the fact that the word “accident” should give no-one room to hide behind when it comes to shooting someone with a gun, the Met Police nevertheless sought to do so – denying liability, despite admitting that the officer had not intended to shoot, and that therefore could have no possible justification, even subjectively, for what he did.
I was forced to bring civil court proceedings against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and the Defence which the Met’s legal team advanced was as follows – Despite admitting the “unintentional discharge” of the weapon, and that this was an “accident”, they sought to assert that this was a “non- negligent act.”
In all my decades of litigation experience, I have never come across such a bizarre argument. It was almost as if the Police were trying to argue that the firing of the gun was a spontaneous event – an act of nature or of God; whereas in fact it was an act of human clumsiness, which could have so easily had catastrophic consequences, and which clearly met the definition of “negligence.”
As it was, although Luke had not lost his finger, he was left with a deformed middle finger-tip and pain on gripping/ pinching with that finger – likely to prevent him from working in heavier manual jobs, and for which a joint fusion operation is now required – as well as the mental scars of this event.
I am pleased to confirm that notwithstanding their denial of liability, reason has prevailed, and the Met have recently agreed to settle Luke’s claim for £22,500 damages, plus legal costs.
The bullet could have gone anywhere; it could have even more seriously injured Luke, or even killed him; it could have hit another officer or an innocent member of the public. Sadly, as regular readers of this blog will be aware, this ham-fisted accidental discharge of a lethal firearm at a compliant suspect is not a unique event.
Spotlights must, I believe, be shone upon events like this because there can be no room for error when lives are at stake and the concessions we have made to dispensing with the traditional UK model of unarmed policing (as opposed to an American model) must be themselves rigorously policed to ensure that only the elite carry lethal weapons, and that they are held to account when ‘mistakes’ occur; not least because another lesson of this blog is that the Police do not always target the right vehicle in forced- stop scenarios.
On this occasion, it was a finger; next time, it could be a head.
Names have been changed.
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