Gun-Toting U.S. Police Officers Dismay English Bobbies
Take a typical night of violence in the big city. There's a drive-by shooting, a barroom brawl, maybe a domestic feud during which a husband threatens to knock off his wife for putting his socks in the wrong drawer.
Enter the police. Siren blaring, the squad car screeches to a halt, and out steps the officer, ready to diffuse the tension. He pulls out his . . . night stick?
Not bloody likely, old chap.
In England, however, police officers, or ``bobbies,'' don't carry guns. Nor do they wear bulletproof vests. Police officials from Northumbria, in northeast England, ending a weeklong visit to Washington today, said they were most struck - and saddened - by the American fascination with firearms.
``The perception here is that police can't carry out their job without a gun; they're not in uniform unless they're armed,'' said Northumbria Superintendent Denis Fowler. ``Surely, there must be situations where guns are not needed.''
Britain has a strict gun-control law. The average criminal doesn't carry a gun, so police don't need them, either, he said. In rare circumstances, specially trained armed officers - equivalent to an American SWAT team - will be called in to defuse a particularly violent situation.
Last year, there were 16 homicides in the Northumbria region, which has a population of 1.5 million. By comparison, the city of Seattle, which has one-third the population, had more than three times as many killings.
Fowler attributed the difference to culture. In England, he said, people are not brought up ``on a steady diet'' of believing they need to own a gun, he said. The single biggest crime problem in his country, he said, is car theft. In fact, there are few, if any, drive-by shootings. Gangs exist, but they mostly break into and steal cars, he said.
Chief Mike Shanahan of the University of Washington police department said he wished his officers didn't need to arm themselves, but that they'd be ill-equipped to fight crime without them, a fact he, too, blames on society.
``From the time you're a child watching television, you learn that the gun is your friend, the gun will protect you. We won the West with a six-gun,'' he said.
The group of five from Northumbria was in town to study American police techniques. They visited the Bellingham Police Department, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office, UW police and the Seattle Police Department.
Today, they completed the tour with stops at the Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Customs. In June, Washington police officials, including Shanahan, as well as a representative from the Mercer Island and Renton police departments, will make a similar tour of Northumbria.
The visits are sponsored by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
A final note for history buffs: The term ``bobbies'' comes from Sir Robert Peel, a 19th century Englishman considered the father of modern policing, and the term cop comes from the old-time hat badges worn by ``bobbies'' which were made out of copper.