Two firearms experts said on Tuesday that a police operation that ended in the death of Azelle Rodney was marred by errors, some of which made it “almost inevitable” that someone would be shot.
The experts were commissioned by the official inquiry into the death of Rodney, who was shot six times by a police marksman in north London in April 2005.
The firearms experts said police could have arrested Rodney and others they suspected of planning an armed robbery hours before the confrontation at gunpoint, and that the tactics chosen by senior officers made it “almost inevitable” someone would be shot.
Rodney was killed by an officer known as E7 after a car he was travelling in was forced by police to stop in Edgware, north London.
Officers had intelligence that Rodney was part of a gang on its way, possibly armed with automatic weapons, to attack a rival gang. Weapons were recovered from the vehicle.
On Tuesday Gary Gracey and Andrew Mawhinney testified on the tactics and decision making of the Met operation.
Between them they have over four decades of firearms experience serving as police officers in Northern Ireland.
E7 was in an unmarked car which ended up next to the vehicle police wanted to stop.
Gracey said a different tactic should have been used rather than leaving E7 so close to a potentially armed suspect. “It does create almost an inevitability that somebody is going to get hurt.”
He added: “I personally would have not put any officers in that position.”
Both men said that they would have advised officers who had been following Rodney’s car covertly, to switch on their lights and sirens when making the stop, so they could be clearly identified as police officers. The Met officers shouted no warning before E7 opened fire, the inquiry heard.
Gracey and Mawhinney said police could have arrested Rodney and other suspects hours before the shooting, when a surveillance team saw a bag they suspected contained weapons being placed in a vehicle in Harlesden, north London.
Both witnesses said stopping the car when it was static presented less risk to officers and the suspects, and allowing it to travel on for several miles increased the dangers.
The inquiry has heard that the officer who killed Rodney had previously killed two suspects and injured two others after an operation in the 1980s.
Leslie Thomas, counsel for Susan Alexander, the mother of the deceased, asked Gracey if five suspects shot was an exceptional numbers of people for a police firearms officer to have killed or injured in their experience.
Gracey replied: “Yes, as a number of people shot it would be exceptional.”
Anne Studd QC, for the Met, said one problem faced by firearms officers, who were trying to remain undercover, was that they stood out because they were white in what she claimed was the “predominantly black” area of Harlesden.
The claim drew objections from the lawyers for the Rodney family and from the inquiry chair, Sir Christopher Holland.
Tuesday was the last day of oral evidence. Closing submissions will be heard next month, with the inquiry report expected in spring 2013.
Officers in unmarked cars followed the Volkswagen Golf Rodney, 24, and two others were in, before deciding to force it to stop.
E7 was in a car that pulled up alongside the VW Golf with Rodney sitting in the back seat.
E7 said Rodney’s movements and body language, including ducking down and coming back up again, left him convinced he had to open fire. Forensic evidence is at variance with parts of the officer’s account, the inquiry has heard.
Video of the shooting shows E7 firing eight shots in just over a second.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/13/errors-made-azelle-rodney-shooting-inevitable
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