Huddersfield

It is now more than six years since the West Yorkshire police shot dead a man who was probably a career criminal in the course of what they euphemistically call a hard stop. I had been taking an interest in this matter, which seemed to be making little progress when I last looked, in 2021. However, it seems that the review by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) was concluded and the inquest was completed towards the end of last year, concluding that Yassar Yaqub was lawfully killed. The IOPC did make some fairly bland looking recommendations about record keeping.

However, I have seen no explanation of why the police failed to stop or arrest the occupants of the vehicle in question without killing one them, albeit one who appears to have been armed at the time. Which as far as I am concerned is all very unsatisfactory. Why, for example, having stopped the car, was there no loudspeaker invitation to surrender, to leave the car with hands up?

See references 1 thru 4.

But there is some good news at reference 5, in that things have got better since 2016-2017, as can be seen from the snap above.

PS 1: my impression had been that the sometime director general of the IOPC, one Michael Lockwood, an accountant, had done a good job. Things were looking up. However, in December of last year he came under investigation - no more information given - and was told to resign. There is presently an interim director general, one Tom Whiting, another accountant, who has spent quality time with local government.

PS 2: on a related matter, I record some sympathy for the HR department of the Metropolitan Police. You need policemen who are willing and able to deal with violent and quite possibly armed young men. To which end you need to be fit, to be trained and to have a good streak of aggression. On the other hand, you need policemen who are all sweetness and light in other circumstances. What with one thing and another, it may not always be easy to find enough qualified candidates. Not altogether frivolously, I associate to late medieval romances (and their 19th century makeovers) about knights in armour who were savage and successful on the battlefield - maybe fighting foreigners who did not really deserve any better - but who were also gentle and attentive lovers in the boudoir.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=huddersfield&max-results=20&by-date=true.

Reference 2: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/news/inquest-concludes-following-police-shooting-yassar-yaqub.

Reference 3: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/cy/recommendations/recommendations-west-yorkshire-police-february-2021.

Reference 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-62988076.

Reference 5: Deaths during or following police contact: Statistics for England and Wales 2021/22 - IOPC - 2022.