How safe do you feel on our Island?
The chief constable outlined in his annual report that his aim for the force is to make the Isle of Man the 'safest island in the British Isles'.
But after a number of high profile incidents in recent months seeing the deployment of armed officers, is that still the case here?
Superintendent Danny Rotchell is in charge of uniformed operations on the Island and Inspector Paul Kemp is a trained fire arms officer.
They've been telling Amy Griffiths what the picture is on the Isle of Man:
Hi there. I'm Amy Griffiths and I'm one of the journalists in Manx Radio's Newsroom and you're listening to Newscast. So I'm Superintendent Danny Rochle in charge of uniform operations for the Constabulary, Inspector Paul Camp, Organizational Development and Lead on Media. It's certainly something that we've seen some speculation in relation to, so it's probably useful for us to just explain why people are seeing more armed officers out there. And in simple terms, we've recently changed our deployment model whereby previously armed officers were not routinely deployed across the island. The officers have always been present, have always been able to be deployed, but more on the on-call capacity. We've recently changed that so we now have an armed response vehicle on the road in a position to respond hence why people are seeing them more and more and seeing them round and about the island. And is there a reason why that model's changed and why we do have them now going around more routinely? I think there's a number of reasons and just to touch on, there's been no dramatic change in relation to the threat on the island would be the first thing that I would say. The island still remains the safest island in the British Isles, that's been highlighted in the recent Chief Constable's report, but we do see some challenges and the fact that it remains a low threat doesn't mean that there's no threat and we will be naive to think just because something hasn't happened previously, it may not happen in the future. So the changing deployment model is very much predicated on the fact that when we've looked at previous response times in relation to deployment to armed incidents or incidents whereby we need to utilize resources to mitigate a threat to stop something happening, then previously that was on average 48 minutes now, that's not something that I'm prepared to accept and certainly from conversations with the Chief Constable it's not something that he's prepared to accept. So by having offices readily available we are in a position to respond far more efficiently, far more effectively and to make sure that we can maintain the island being as safe as it is. What incidents would armed officers usually be deployed to? So I suppose there's a number of different reasons why we would specifically deploy armed officers. We have officers such as Inspector Kemp next to me who have trained as tactical firearms commanders, they receive ongoing training in relation to assessing what the threat and risk is, so the simple answer is they could be deployed to anything whereby there is a threat to either the individuals themselves, members of the public or indeed to police officers, so they may be deployed under what would be called an armed authority, they would be given a briefing, they would be given specific tactics to look at and that may be an incident where you might see them pointing guns at people. Day to day, now that we have armed response officers on the road, they may attend any incident across the island in what I would describe as a conventional capacity, now without wanting to speak too much jargon and policely speaking relation to that, that is basically the armed response officers are just cops who happen to have additional tactics available to them, you will see that they've got a gun on the hip, you will see that they've got a taser, but what you won't see is in the back of the van they've got additional capabilities in relation to first aid, they've got advanced training in relation to first aid, they've got specialist equipment to allow us to assist the ambulance service for example in gaining entry to properties and also with the vehicles at the drive they're in a position to deliver additional driving tactics as well, so they could be deployed to any incident on the island in either a conventional capacity or indeed for an armed response to an incident. So in simple terms they could go to a road traffic collision and be dealing with that, as in any cop does, they could go to a shoplifter and deal with that, all that happens is that if there is then an armed incident they are able to deploy quicker, so we would then obviously find someone else to then take that role over from them and they would then redeploy to that other thing but effectively their police officers, they just have different kit. If I come to you then Inspector Kemp and talking about the amount of training, I mean there's an awful lot that is covered within this armed officer training, so what is that training like, how intensive is it? It's very intensive, for the actual people on the coalface, the officers armed officers themselves, the amount of training they do is equal to the United Kingdom, we do exactly the same training, so all our officers do exactly the same training as the UK, we have to hit the UK standard, it's a tough course, let's say we put ten people on a course, not all ten people are likely to get through that, from then they'll then go and do additional tactics, additional training and that's always ongoing and there's all sorts of other things that they then do to do with driving as well because they have to, armed tactics also incorporate driving as well. Moving on to then other people within these roles, so there's like a senior officer that's with them at all times and he or she is basically their supervisor for these events, well that's additional training, that's an additional course, it's quite a stringent course, they have to pass certain things. There's then somebody else called a tactical advisor, a tactical advisor is the person that is a firearms officer, is somebody who is trained in that arena and who knows the tactics backwards and again has had to do a very very intensive course with a high failure rate as well or a reasonable failure rate as well and had to pass that at the point that I get called in because an armed incident has been considered, we've had to do a very intensive course in the UK, I have to say in 26 years of policing it is by far the hardest course I have ever done, it's pass or fail, there is no messing around, I can attest to that, it's a lot, so this is not something that is taken lightly, it has to be done very very carefully and there is a lot to it, but ultimately the very bare basics of this is these are patrol officers, they are patrol officers that have a different skill set, so if we need to turn on that skill set we can do it at the drop of a hat. And psychologically as well because obviously that training sounds so intensive in terms of just the physically going out and doing it but also that psychologically the impact of bearing arms as well and potentially having to use them, what kind of impact does that have on the officers as well. So we actually have a lot of welfare things in place not only for the officers anyway, for what they have to do as you've just described but also should in the, and I'm touching wood here, should an incident take place, there is a care provision that is in place that we can call upon to support those officers and also ensure that they're looked after in the longer term. To some people this will be quite a scary conversation that we're having, the idea of having armed officers here who have the capabilities of performing these duties if necessary, but what message of reassurance do you want to give the public just about how safe the island actually is comparatively still. So what I would say is the island is as I say still the safest island in the British Isles, this goes some way to increasing the safety and ensuring that we have available tactics, we have available people to deploy and as Paul has just outlined there, what we have is we have the best trained, best equipped and best placed officers to be in a position to respond to that and that is in support of a number of other agencies across the island. We obviously are in a position to assist colleagues around first aid provision and also a method of entry for example, and ensure that we can keep people safe. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio Newscast, you are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. a lot. [BLANK_AUDIO]
