Line of Duty

OK. Thank you.

Operation Damson is an ongoing initiative

aimed at detection/prevention of gangland murders.

Surveillance of a suspect under Operation Damson has been

in place at an address for less than 24 hours,

with intelligence sources indicating a significant belief

the suspect is preparing to commit a gangland execution.

The suspect is a known criminal with a history of violence,

is expected to be armed

and is designated extremely dangerous.

Senior AFO is Inspector McAndrew.

Sir.

You'll operate out of four vehicles,

each crew to be positioned on the suspect's possible

routes of travel, awaiting Gold Commander's orders to intercept.

Crew assignments are as follows.

Victor Charlie Four Zero: McAndrew.

- Sir. - Lambert. - Sir. - Chappell. - Sir.

- Miller. - Sir.

- Victor Charlie Five Zero: Waldron. - Sir.

You will each sign that you understand the law regarding

the legal use of force as outlined by the SFC.

You will each sign out your weapon.

You will each sign out the type of ammunition and the number of rounds.

Come on! Go, go, go, go!

Go, go, go, go! Come on!

Go!

- 'Four Zero. Radio check. - Five Zero. Radio check.

- 'Six Zero. Radio check. - Seven Zero. Radio check.

'All vehicles disperse to routes. Disperse to routes.

'Victor Charlie Four Zero. Transmit when in position. Over.'

Five Zero, Bravo Route, received.

'Six Zero, received.

'Seven Zero, received.'

Victor Charlie Five Zero in position on Bravo Route.

'Received.'

Victor Charlie Five Zero in position, Bravo Route.

The suspect is travelling west on Hill Street.

He's taking Bravo Route, repeat Bravo Route.

Victor Charlie Five Zero, received.

'Blue Toyota Celica, registration

'Lima delta zero four whisky echo whisky.'

Go. Go!

- 'Five Zero, report.' - Visual with target, maintaining obs.

'Victor Charlie Five Zero, we're en route to join.

Four Zero, what's our order, Five Zero?

- 'Order is Fahrenheit. Repeat, order is Fahrenheit.' - Go.

Left, left.

'Four Zero, our ETA is two minutes, repeat two minutes, Five Zero.'

Five Zero, received.

- Hard stop. - Come off it, skipper! - Danny!

- Hard stop. - Danny!

Shit.

Go, go!

Armed Police!

Skipper, slow down!

- Armed Police! - Slow down, Skipper! - Police!

Armed Police!

OK.

Come on, come on!

- Skipper! - Shots fired!

Where is he? Danny?

Danny!

- Armed Police! - Oh, shit.

Hari. Hari, mate, he's down.

He refused to surrender his firearm.

- Jesus Christ, look where the gun is! - How'd it get all the way over there, Danny?

Brain injury, muscle spasm -- he chucked it.

- Look at what it looks like, though, Danny. - Good point.

- Hey, hey, Danny, Danny. - It was self-defence.

But we all know the shit I'll get for it.

- Skipper, wait. - For Christ's sake! - You're making it worse.

I'm the last person who wants to see you lot in the shit.

- Us? - We didn't do nothing. - That's the problem.

So I'll cover for you and say we got here together,

shouted "Armed police" but the mad bastard pulled a gun.

- What are you talking about? - He would have surrendered if you'd have got here in time.

That's my report unless the lot of you man up right now.

- Discharge your weapons. - No way.

Shoot over the suspect's body, in the direction you'd have fired

if you'd have actually managed to get here in time.

No.

Shoot, now!

Shoot.

Shoot!

You choked. Plausible.

Jesus!

'Five Zero, status report. Status report.'

We're all in this together.

Best way.

Is anyone hurt?

- We're fine, thanks, guv. - Suspect down, repeat, suspect down.

Stow your weapons.

Victor Charlie Four One, requesting forensic deployment for the scene.

All AFOs and weapons require transporting to base

for forensic recovery of evidence and debrief.

You sure you're OK?

Fine.

Everyone did their job.

Carry on. - Sir. - Carry on.

Sir.

Steve.

What do you reckon, son -- one for us?

Yeah. One for us.

Sir.

As you were.

Forensics will take your firearms, gunshot residue samples,

clothing, nail scrapings.

You are to remain at the station until they advise

- they don't need any further samples. - Sir.

You're all entitled to 48 hours' recovery time.

You'll all be offered post-traumatic counselling.

My advice is to use these 48 hours wisely.

Sir.

For the tape, please confirm you are the officer using

the call-sign Victor Charlie Five One.

I am.

Document two in your folders.

This FA-1 was issued to AFOs at South Ferry Police Station

on the day of 13th of May of this year.

- You recognise that form? - I do, sir. - Is that your signature? - It is, sir.

- Mm-hmm. - According to the FA-1,

you were issued with a Glock 17 service pistol serial number

Mike November 8746546,

and nine by 19mm parabellum rounds.

I was.

Now, can you inform us as to how you personally became

involved in Operation Damson?

It was a real-time deployment authorised by the SFC.

'I travelled in the second vehicle designated Victor Charlie Five Zero,

'crewed by myself and the rest of my team.'

The rest of your team are AFO Victor Charlie Five Two,

AFO Victor Charlie Five Three

and AFO Victor Charlie Five Four.

We deployed to a holding position

on one of four exit routes for the suspect

and maintained radio contact with the operational senior AFO.

For the tape, please confirm this was an inspector using

the call sign Victor Charlie Four One.

Correct. Victor Charlie Four One notified me

that the suspect was travelling towards us

and authorised us to carry out a real-time intercept.

Yeah.

Things get a wee bit fuzzy for me here, Sergeant.

Maybe you could be a ray of sunshine and...

burn off the fog. Mmm?

- I'm waiting. - Sir, I'm waiting for a question.

What the Super's asking you is how come,

as per the statement given by Victor Charlie Four One,

- you were ordered to wait for support... - Not ordered. Advised.

But you went ahead and carried out the hard stop anyway.

The suspect was travelling at high speed to an unknown destination

with the intention of committing a gangland execution.

Or so the intelligence said.

The intelligence DID say, and if that's wrong, sir,

take it up with them.

Can we please just stick to a line of questioning that

relates to Victor Charlie Five One's actions?

On you go, Sergeant.

It'll help if I refer to the map in our folders,

document four.

Travelling at high speed along Prince's Road,

the suspect approached a line of parked cars with open road ahead.

I was concerned if we didn't carry out the hard stop immediately, the suspect would get away.

- Oh, and that was your decision, was it? - No, sir.

It was the decision of the Strategic Firearms Commander

who designated the operational objective of preventing the suspect

carrying out an act of lethal force,

added to which, as police officers,

it's a non-negotiable duty to protect the public.

- May I answer the question now? - Please do.

Fearing the suspect would get away and pose a danger to the public,

I took the decision to close off his route of escape

by executing a hard stop manoeuvre on Prince's Road

that trapped the suspect's vehicle between ours and the parked cars.

The suspect then made his escape on foot via an alleyway,

and I gave chase.

This foot chase led to a confrontation in Prince's Court.

We need you to tell us all about this confrontation.

Once in Prince's Court,

almost immediately the suspect realised he was cornered.

The suspect turned his weapon on us and fired. We returned fire.

Shots struck the suspect in the head and proved instantly fatal.

We've received written statements from yourself

and the other AFOs on your team.

- Said statements agree you all entered Prince's Court together. - Correct.

See, the thing is, we've got a statement

off of an eyewitness on Prince's Road.

Says that you entered that rough ground

at least 30 seconds before the rest of your team.

I was first out of our vehicle. That would have misled the eyewitness.

You're saying she's mistaken?

I'm saying that my written statements and the written statements of my team are accurate.

Yes, they are. And entirely consistent

in every detail.

- You and your team, you acted as one? - Correct.

That's not always the case with you and your teams, though, is it?

In your four years at South Ferry, there's been a fair few

'transfer requests from officers who didn't want to stay in your team.

'Some guys can't cut it. I want them off my squad.