Armed and Deadly: Police UK (2018): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript
Tony Lang, the leading police marksman who pulled the trigger on 3 different operations but then found himself charged with murder is interviewed, as are officers who tracked down Raoul Moat.
(intense western guitar music)
(gunshot firing)
(siren blaring)
- Armed police!
Hands in the air, hands in the air!
(door smashing)
- Police, stay where you are!
(gunshots firing)
- [Narrator] Britain's armed police
are amongst the toughest in the world.
- Put it down!
- These men and women
face untold dangers.
(sirens blaring)
And every day could be the
day they pull the trigger.
(gun firing in slow motion)
They rarely talk about
the realities of the job--
(police yelling orders)
Or the pressures of taking a life--
(glass smashing)
But now,
we've brought them
together for the first time
to speak openly.
(building exploding)
(gunshots firing)
- I carried on shooting until
I couldn't see him any more.
- [Narrator] In this series,
they break their covenant of silence.
- You acknowledge fear.
You embrace fear.
- And reveal
what it's really like to
be an armed police officer.
- You don't get up in the morning
thinking, I'm gonna go and shoot somebody.
(police yelling)
We get up in the morning
wanting to come home and bath the kids.
- Armed police, stand still!
Stay where you are.
- [Narrator] These
officers come face to face
with marauding attackers.
(attackers shouting)
- It's the most dangerous thing
that you're confronted with
as an armed police officer.
- Lie in wait for
organized criminal gangs.
(gate crashing)
- Crime is changing.
It's evolving.
(heavy drum music)
- [Narrator] And save the
lives of innocent hostages.
- Sometimes you can't
avoid using deadly force.
- A shot may have to be fired,
and indeed that shot may be lethal.
(gunshot firing)
(upbeat synthesizer music)
- [Officer] Our job is
to protect the public.
(metal clattering)
- 866.
- [Narrator] In rooms like
this, up and down the UK,
there lays an arsenal of weapons.
- There are a small number
of people within this country
who want to inflict misery and violence
on our communities.
(gun clicking)
Our officers, every single day,
whether armed or unarmed,
have to bring these offenders to justice.
(techno music)
- [Narrator] This is a job like no other,
where men and women put
themselves in mortal danger
to keep the public safe.
- Armed police, stand still!
(gunshot firing)
- If you're not scared of something,
there's probably a problem.
- [Officer] Get back, head down!
- I've woken up in
hospital a couple of times.
I've been almost killed
on several occasions.
(siren blaring)
(men shouting)
- My dad and I were
never particularly close,
but he was one of these,
"Be careful, son."
You know, if I wanted to be careful, dad,
I'd be the postman, wouldn't I?
You know.
- Get out of the way!
- [Narrator] Tonight, officers reveal
the art of the manhunt,
tracking and containing a deadly threat.
- Felt as if we're closing that net.
(men shouting)
- [Narrator] The tactics they
use to circle their target.
- [Officer] It was the first
operation in UK history
to use explosive entry.
- [Narrator] And how
they face a new terror
that must be neutralized at any cost.
- A manhunt certainly isn't the norm.
If anybody is posing a
threat to the community,
it's got to be dealt with.
(gunfire echoing)
- [Male Caller] I'm
absolutely not gonna to stop.
- You're not--
- You're gonna have to kill.
You're gonna have to kill me.
I'm never gonna stop.
(low, intense music)
- [Narrator] The toughest armed missions
start with a game of
high-stakes cat and mouse.
And in this country,
the pioneer of the modern manhunt is Tony.
- The longer that we give them
to think about their options,
the greater the risks to the public
and to the environment, and to ourselves.
(gunfire echoing)
(people panicking)
Our conventional methods
for an arresting subjects on the loose
is going from premises to premises,
searching, pinpointing them down
to particularly locations,
all intelligence-based.
(explosion echoing)
(sharp, shrill music)
(gravel crunching underfoot)
- There have been a series of
terrorist attacks in London.
Our determination to defend our values
and our way of life
is greater than their determination
to cause death and
destruction to innocent people
in a desire to impose
extremism on the world.
(city bustling)
- [Narrator] Four suicide
bombers have struck,
killing 52 and injuring hundreds more.
Two weeks later, the
city is still in shock
when five more young men arrive in London,
intent on bloody destruction.
(soft, ominous piano music)
(tube announcements echoing)
One, Ramsay Mohammed, boards
a tube at Oval station.
Intent on killing everyone around him,
he detonates a suicide bomb.
(bomb exploding)
(crowd screaming)
But it fails.
- [Male Announcer] London
is attacked once again.
Three tube trains and a bus targeted.
- [Female Announcer]
Eyewitnesses to the attacks
reported that the small explosions
took place in rucksacks.
- [Narrator] Across
London, the other bombs
also fail to detonate,
and the gang members
quickly flee the scenes.
Now, five wannabe bombers are on the run,
and possibly planning their next attack.
(station bustling)
- [Tony] We all felt
that London was unsafe.
We wanted to make London safe again.
- I think that 7/7 was a
watershed for firearms policing.
Tactically, we just hadn't seen
the sort of modus operandi
of the terrorists,
which was to go onto our
tubes and blow themselves up.
- Well, obviously, that was
the wake-up call, wasn't it?
We looked at ways we could
enhance our response to the new threat.
(low, threatening music)
- This was the biggest manhunt
that UK police had undertaken
since the Second World War,
and it became very apparent
that the whole of the MPS
was being activated to try
and capture these individuals.
We wanted to get out there.
we wanted to try and, you
know, make a difference.
(sirens wailing)
- [Narrator] Intelligence
leads armed police
to a block of flats in
the borough of Kensington
in West London, where detectives believe
two of the wanted bombers
could be hiding inside.
- Move back, please.
(low, ominous humming music)
- [Tony] It was on the top floor.
We evacuated the two flats either side.
We contain it as quietly as possible
without trying to arouse
too much suspicion.
- [Narrator] More than 20 armed officers
take up positions surrounding the flat.
Tony can be seen here in the green,
coordinating the operation.
- Once we'd secured the balcony,
the door became my priority.
I wanted to make sure that we
gained vision into the flat.
And the door, being closed,
restricted our vision
into the flat.
(car horn beeping)
(crowd bustling)
- [Narrator] Tony must find a way
to get inside the property.
(explosion echoing)
- Oh, my god.
- Oh my god.
- My son's in there.
- [Narrator] The explosion is Tony
and his heavily armed team,
blowing the flat door from its hinges.
- It was the first operation in UK history
to use explosive entry.
We were then able to see inside.
We were able to stop their
movement from room to room.
We were closing their space down.
(clattering, discordant music)
- We had a sniper on that roof over there,
and you could see into the doorway,
right the way through.
We were pretty convinced that they were
at the rear of the building.
My goal was to get them out
as quickly but as safely
as possible for everyone.
- [Officer On Speaker]
You must do what we say!
You will be safe if you
do what you're told.
- My major concern at this point of time
was that if they came out onto the balcony
and activated an IED,
then the balcony team
who were securing that location
would have been killed.
(heavy, tense music)
(chainsaw roaring)
- They knew we were out there,
and they were not responding to our calls
to come out to surrender.
- They genuinely believed that
he was imminently about
to detonate a bomb.
(gunfire echoing)
(gunfire echoing)
- [Narrator] Britain's armed
police are always updating
the methods they use to
hunt down their targets,
especially when that target
can blow up at any time.
(shuddering music)
(explosion echoing)
- We've had to adapt our tactics.
- The snipers had to up their game.
You know, we were now looking at
potential of having to shoot somebody
in the head at distance
to prevent them detonating
an explosive device.
- How do you deal with a suicide killer
on London's streets
if he is carrying some form of device?
It's a very difficult one to solve.
- [Narrator] It's 2005, and the Met
are conducting the biggest
manhunt in history.
By circling the area and
gradually closing the net,
armed police have surrounded two
of the five wannabe terrorists
who have tried to attack the tube network
with homemade bombs.
(public screaming)
- The net was closing on them.
It was just actually pinpointing them down
to a particular premises.
- [Narrator] But it isn't just
London that's on high alert,
and when news lands
that one of the bombers
has fled the capital,
attention turns to the West Midlands.
Leading the manhunt
there is Stuart Johnson,
who adopts the same
strategy of pinpointing
and then surrounding the suspect.
- The clock is ticking.
If he's armed, he will shoot.
If he's carrying explosives,
then he may detonate those explosives.
My team were prepared to
deal with that scenario.
(heavy, intense music)
- [Narrator] CCTV captures the fugitive,
disguised in a burka, arriving
at the city bus station,
and intelligence tracks him
to a property in the suburbs.
- It's early hours, very quiet.
Not a lot of people around.
Seconds seemed like minutes
from the command being
given to move forward
to the next transmission on the radio.
(swelling music)
It's a difficult time in many respects.
It seems to last forever.
There was the usual pause, a silence.
And then you start to hear
the team progress through the property.
(radio buzzing)
At times, it almost felt
as though I was holding my breath,
waiting for that first
transmission from the team
as to what they'd found inside.
- [Officer On Radio]
Living room is secured.
Moving to stairway.
(static buzzing)
- [Stuart] The team have
gone into the bathroom,
pushed the door open
and they'd encountered
arguably the most dangerous
and threatening scenario
that they would ever experience
in their entire lives.
They'd found a man standing in the bath
with a rucksack on his back
and holding a mobile phone.
(music sharpening)
- [Officer X] I had grave concerns
about the rucksack on his back.
I brought the point of my
aim to the back of his head,
during which time his hands
disappeared towards his chest.
At this point, I formed the opinion
that I was going to
have to shoot this man.
(traffic rushing)
(soft, ethereal music)
- [Narrator] After a violent melee,
armed cops use a non-lethal
taser to disarm the man
and secure his arrest.
Despite all the risks,
no officers were injured.
- There was a very real possibility
that the subject could have been shot.
But in that scenario, it's
a split-second decision.
It worked.
It takes immense bravery and judgment
to be able to deal with
that situation as they did.
- It's a constant argument that
you're having in your head.
There's an element to it where
everything you've done in your training
leads up to that moment.
Do I pull the trigger, or do I not?
(siren blaring)
- Armed police!
Hands in the air, hands in the air!
Hands in the air!
- Open the door!
Open the door!
- Is the action I'm about to take
reasonable, proportionate,
and absolutely necessary
under the circumstances?
- Open the door!
- Open the door.
Door!
Get out the door.
- I would certainly say that at times,
not pulling the trigger is
very, very, very difficult.
(siren blaring)
- Hands!
(low, dark music)
- [Narrator] In London, armed officer Tony
is leading a manhunt in
flats in North Kensington.
He's already used explosives
to remove the door.
Now, he's waiting and hoping
for the men to emerge.
- They were now surrounded
by armed police,
and they effectively knew that.
I only saw that they had
maybe one or two options.
The preferred option for me
was for them to come out
and surrender to police.
- 12 months earlier, terrorists in Spain
had lured police into their hideout
before detonating a suicide bomb.
(explosion blaring)
One officer was killed,
and six more injured.
Now, that incident is
playing on Tony's mind.
- These types of terrorists
would prefer to die
than become arrested by the police.
They knew we were out there,
and they were not responding
to our calls to come out, to surrender.
- [Officer On Speaker] We've
told you to leave twice.
Now I want you to leave the flat.
(metallic, pulsing music)
- [Tony] We placed several
CS rounds into the premises.
- It's not exactly clear what it is,
but we've now heard four shots
coming from the direction
of the flats over there.
- CS will cause you to cough,
cause your eyes to run.
It's a really uncomfortable feeling.
We wanted them to come
out in their underwear.
We wanted to make sure that
as they were walking up the corridor
we could clearly see they
weren't carrying anything,
or nothing was strapped to them.
We were still on edge all
the way through that process.
- [Officer On Speaker] We've
told you to leave twice.
Now I want you to leave the flat.
(light, chiming music)
- [Tony] They were actually
in their underpants,
and they were coming out.
- [Narrator] By zoning in on the suspects,
circling them and flushing them out,
the manhunt is finally over,
and the bombers are alive.
- Dalgarno Gardens was
one of those instances
where we made a big difference, you know?
We arrested two terrorists
and they went to jail for a long time.
- [Narrator] Across the operation,
the five wanted men were
all caught and jailed
for a combined sentence of
over 100 years in prison.
The biggest manhunt in policing history
had stopped a gang determined
to take innocent lives.
(low, troubling music)
But when you're hunting targets
in a large urban area,
sometimes things can go wrong.
As part of the operation,
a Brazilian man called
John Charles de Menezes
was gunned down by armed officers
in Stockwell tube station
in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
(rhythmic drum music)
- Many people will remember the fact that
John Charles de Menezes unfortunately
lived in the same block of flats
as one of the terrorist suspects.
- [Narrator] But surveillance
officers believed
he was one of them, and followed him
to Stockwell tube station.
- They genuinely believed
that he was imminently
about to detonate a bomb on a tube.
(gunfire echoing)
(slow, sad piano music)
- I know the two lads
that pulled the trigger,
the two shooters.
And when ordinary folk
would've been running in
the opposite direction,
they actually ran to what
they thought was their death.
- [Narrator] The Metropolitan police
apologized for the incident,
amidst allegations that
they had behaved improperly.
The victim's family called
for someone to be prosecuted,
but no charges were brought,
and a coroner's court
issued an open verdict.
(train rushing)
The busiest month in police history
put Britain's armed police
firmly in the spotlight.
The art of hunting down
suspects changed forever.
Police now face a new enemy,
(crowd roaring)
one that is fearless
when confronted with a lethal force.
- Off!
(crowd clamoring)
- Today's world is more violent
and less predictable and more political,
in some ways, than the one that
I joined in the late 1970s.
(explosion shattering)
(crowd screaming)
- The tactical challenges
facing firearms officers
have really changed
over the last 10 years.
- Where somebody's willing
to sacrifice themselves
to injure others,
it's very difficult then to
deal with that and contain that when
somebody ultimately wants
to die anyway, I think.
- [Narrator] When hunting down a target
that is motivated to keep killing,
the rules of engagement change.
(grinding, dark music)
Armed cops must do everything they can
to create a buffer zone around the threat.
It's called containment.
- An armed gunman like Raoul Moat
is an extremely dangerous person.
(gunfire echoing)
- I'm coming to get yous.
I'm not on the run.
I am coming to get you.
(sirens wailing)
- Ladies and gentlemen,
for your own safety,
I need you to move back.
- Please give yourself up.
- This was the biggest manhunt
that I've ever been involved with.
You were never safe at any point.
(siren blaring)
He had to be stopped.
- [Narrator] Northumbria, and
there's a gunman on the loose.
37-year-old Raoul Moat, a volatile ex-con,
has opened fire on a love rival,
killing him instantly and
injuring his ex-girlfriend.
Armed officer Neil Robson
is leading the manhunt
for Northumbria Police.
- Raoul Moat's dislike
of Northumbria Police
was long-running.
He'd come into contact with the police
on numerous occasions,
normally for petty crime.
But most certainly, he felt as if
Northumbria Police had affected his life.
(phone ringing)
- [Narrator] Before cops can find Moat,
the fugitive calls the police
and makes threats to kill more.
- [Moat] Hello there, this is the gunman
from Birtley last night.
My name is Raoul Moat.
What I'm phoning about
is to tell you exactly
why I've done what I've done.
The fact of the matter is, right,
that she's had an affair
with one of your officers.
Was he not a police officer,
I wouldn't have shot him.
I've lost everything through yous, right?
Yous just won't leave us alone, right?
You killed me and him before
that trigger was ever pulled.
I'm coming to get yous,
I'm not on the run.
I am coming to get you.
(phone line buzzing)
(intense music)
- [Narrator] Moat has developed
a hatred of the police
in the mistaken belief that his love rival
is a serving officer,
and his hatred is about to explode.
- The radio came to life, and
all I heard on the radio was
a voice saying, "I've been shot."
And I remember looking at
my colleague and thinking,
did you hear what I've just heard?
And then again, the radio came to life
where Dave Rathband
gave his collar number,
and just said, I've been shot.
We realized we were very close to him,
and able to travel there very quickly
to be able to offer some support.
(shuddering, ominous music)
So we get out my vehicle
and I go over to the
police car where Dave is.
And he's slumped in the driver seat
with what I can only describe was
some of the most horrific facial injuries
that I've seen on anybody at work.
(camera flash blaring and charging)
That's when I thought to myself,
that could very easily have been me.
I could've been sitting
in that police car.
I could've been sitting
on that roundabout.
I could've been targeted by Raoul Moat.
And he had to be stopped.
- A lot of police are
haunted, not by ghosts
but by incidents that took
place in their career.
- There isn't a policy to
deliberately kill people.
It's actually to arrest people
and put them on trial and convict them
and put them in prison.
- Here's a man on the run,
looking for police officers to kill.
He could've walked up and picked off
anybody he wanted.
(gunfire echoing)
- [Armed Officer] Armed police!
Get out of the vehicle now!
Get out, get on the ground!
Get on the ground!
Spread your arms, cross your legs.
- Britain's armed police
have never been busier.
- [Armed Officer] Secure.
- [Narrator] In recent years,
they've seen an increase in operations
where armed criminals won't stop
when confronted by police.
(birds tweeting)
But in 2010,
cops in Northumbria were facing a manhunt
with a lone fugitive who was
bent on targeting police.
- An armed gunman, lone
wolf like Raoul Moat
is an extremely dangerous person.
No empathy, no concern for their safety,
no concern for anybody else's.
Probably one of the most
dangerous individuals
you're going to come across,
'cos they've got nothing to lose.
(phone ringing)
- [Moat] Hello, this is
Raoul, the Birtley gunman.
I've just downed your
officer at the roundabout
at the west end of Newcastle.
- Yes?
- Are you taking us serious now?
Well, I'm gonna destroy a few lives
like you've destroyed mine.
- Where are yous?
- I'm not gonna tell you.
Listen, I'm gonna keep coming for yous.
I'm absolutely not gonna stop.
- You're not--
- You're gonna have to kill.
You're gonna have to kill me.
I'm never gonna stop.
- [Narrator] That's the
voice of Raoul Moat.
In 2010, he was on the run
after shooting dead a love rival
and critically injuring his ex-girlfriend.
Now, he's shot a policeman,
and cops are hunting him down.
- His whole intention
was to kill and maim,
and he had to be stopped.
- Mr. Moat, I've said it
before and I will say it again.
We want to apprehend you safely.
Please give yourself up.
(pounding, tense music)
- [Narrator] But Raoul Moat
has no plans to go quietly.
He's shot one police officer,
and he plans to target more.
But for now, he's on the run,
and nobody knows where he is.
- On firearms deployments,
you have opportunities
whereby you relax.
On the deployment for Raoul Moat,
we never had that opportunity to relax,
because you never knew where he was.
I was constantly looking over my shoulder.
I remember sitting in the car
and I thought to myself at that point,
here's a man, a gunman, on the run,
looking for police officers to kill.
And I remember looking around
and seeing my whole team were
all asleep in their cars.
He could've walked up and
picked off anybody he wanted.
- [Narrator] Neil and his
team are closing in on Moat
as his black car is found abandoned
in the remote town of Rothbury.
- If I was a man on the
run, I would go to Rothbury.
You've got huge wooded areas,
you've got huge rural areas.
You also have buildings that are derelict,
that aren't used.
Moat had more than enough
places to hide in Rothbury.
But this was probably
one of the first times
for me that we felt as if
we're closing that net around Moat.
(siren wailing)
- Ladies and gentlemen,
for your own safety,
I need you to move back.
- Can you please move back?
- In a line.
- Keep moving, please.
- [Narrator] With no idea where he is,
police fear Moat could strike at any time.
The whole town is in
lockdown, and in terror.
- This was the biggest manhunt
stroke firearms operation
that I have ever been involved with.
- [Narrator] Neil can be seen here
leading some of the 160 armed officers
he had at his disposal.
- It was almost like a ring of steel.
We had a cordon of armed officers
which were stopping people leaving
or coming into Rothbury.
Inside that were other armed officers
who were responding to sightings
and intelligence and information
that were leading us to locations.
We wrapped Rothbury in that ring of steel,
but the advantage Raoul Moat had was,
he could see us coming,
but we couldn't see him.
The pressure on the force,
and most certainly the senior
officers within the force was,
how can you be certain that he's there?
Have you put all your eggs in one basket?
So we were determined to find him
and to prove that he was there.
I felt that he was in Rothbury,
and it was only a matter of time
before either he came
to us or we came to him.
(birds tweeting)
(siren wailing)
- [Narrator] Neil's hunch was right.
As Moat lets his guard slip
and is spotted close to a
riverbank on the edge of town.
He's armed with a shotgun
and threatening suicide.
The manhunt might be over,
but the standoff continues.
- Raoul Moat had made it very clear
throughout the whole week
that he'd been on the run
that he wasn't going back to prison,
and that you weren't gonna take him alive,
and there was always our hope
that once we located Raoul Moat
that we'd be able to negotiate him
and bring him to a safe rest.
(engine humming)
(dark, shuddering music)
- [Narrator] As darkness begins to fall,
officers throw Moat a sandwich and water,
determined to keep him alive.
- Raoul Moat, I don't think was a person
who thought this through.
I think he acted instinctively.
He found himself in a situation whereby
he had nowhere else to go.
(radio chattering)
He started a course of events
which led him down a road
to where he ended up on that final night.
(music swelling)
(bang echoing)
(violin music)
- [Narrator] In a final act of defiance,
Moat pulls the trigger on his shotgun.
Police officers rush to his aid
and bring in paramedics,
but it's too late.
Raoul Moat died shortly
afterwards in hospital.
(soft music)
(birds singing)
- There was some relief
insomuch as this was over,
and no other member of the public
or no other police
officer had been injured,
but I am a very reflective person,
and what I got a strong sense of
after it was all over was the what ifs.
What if this had happened differently?
What if that had happened?
To do this day, I still think about
what happened that week in Rothbury,
and those what ifs.
- [Narrator] Raoul Moat's family
expressed their disappointment
at how the operation ended,
but an IPCC investigation praised officers
for their well thought out negotiations
and found no evidence of misconduct
by any police officers.
Containing Moat with an
iron ring of armed cops
meant that he was unable to
kill more innocent victims.
- [Officer] Open this door.
You remain where you are.
Don't--
- [Narrator] But not all
operations go according to plan.
- [Officer] Put the knife down now!
Put it down!
- [Officer] A lot of policemen,
I believe, are haunted.
Not by ghosts, but by incidents
that took place in their career.
- I think the ability to be
able to go home and switch off
is a skill in itself.
And I must admit, there
were some occasions where
I probably struggled a
little bit with that.
- You reflect and reflect
and reflect on those,
and you're never going to change that,
but it doesn't stop you thinking,
if only I'd got there sooner.
If only I'd been able to do this,
maybe that person wouldn't
have been injured,
or maybe that person would be alive now.
- [Narrator] Armed police will
only kill as a last resort,
but recently the use of lethal force
has been called on more and more,
as a new threat evolves.
When facing a kamikaze killer,
their only option is to step up
and confront the threat.
(gunfire echoing)
- We're now not looking at
armed criminality, although
we still deal with that.
We're now looking at individuals who
want to kill.
- Put down the gun!
- [Neil] And are happy
to die for that cause.
- When you are dealing with an individual
that has a belief system
that is so extreme
that they're willing
to give their own life
in the belief system
that they're following,
you just have to negate that risk
by neutralizing them as a threat.
(traffic rushing)
- [Narrator] It's a routine day.
This CCTV footage shows
British soldier Lee Rigby
walking from the barracks in Woolwich.
What happens next
would go on to shock
people across the country.
A car careers into him before
two men, armed with cleavers,
launch into a bloody, ferocious attack.
(man screaming)
(heavy, ominous music)
But instead of fleeing,
they remain at the scene,
waiting for armed police to arrive.
- Every time I authorize
the use of firearms,
one of my considerations
is the safety of my staff.
(siren wailing)
- [Narrator] Several armed
police cars race to the scene,
unsure what they'll find.
Their orders are to face the attackers
and only shoot if absolutely necessary.
But as the first cops arrive,
the killers race to confront them.
- [Officer X] I saw a
black male running at me,
waving both hands in the
air in a chopping motion.
In his right hand was
a cleaver, or machete.
I instinctively thought,
he is going to kill me.
I can still see the look
in the suspect's eyes.
(public screaming)
(shots firing)
I saw the second suspect
lying on the ground.
He turned, with the handgun
pointing in my direction.
I thought, oh god, he's going to shoot me.
I feared for my life.
I threw my taser away and
pointed my Glock at him.
As I was doing so, I
heard shots and ducked.
- [Narrator] Within seconds,
the two men had been shot,
and armed officers immediately
begin to give first aid.
- A firearms officer will often deal with
a person who's dying, and have to give,
and seek to give first aid.
Now, that takes a huge amount of,
first of all, professional skill.
But real courage.
- Police officers open fire
knowing that people might die.
There isn't a policy to
deliberately kill people,
because the overall intention
isn't go out and kill people.
It's actually to arrest people
and put them on trial and convict them
and put them in prison.
- [Narrator] Both men
were rushed to hospital
and survived their injuries.
They were later found guilty
of Lee Rigby's murder,
and jailed for life.
Soldier Lee Rigby tragically
died at the scene.
- [Woman] It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
- The new method now is to
drive vehicles into crowds.
- As a firearms officer,
I would be going towards that threat.
(crowd panicking)
- Down, down!
- You acknowledge fear, you embrace fear.
(siren wailing)
- Clear the area now!
- Anybody who says that
they're not afraid,
I think they're not
being absolutely honest.
(gunfire echoing)
- [Narrator] For 13 years,
armed police in the UK
have been developing their tactics,
finding ways to corner armed fugitives
and resolve manhunts
as quickly as possible.
(siren blaring)
- The way in which the police service
reacts and responds to incidents now
is very much based on the lessons learned
of years gone by.
- The quicker that you
could get to the point
where you actually challenged individuals,
then the better that
would be for the outcome.
- The tactics now are more
upfront, more aggressive,
and we will look to
deal with and neutralize
the threat posed by terrorists
as quickly as possible.
(gunshot firing)
- [Narrator] And just a few months ago,
London came under attack, and
the police had just minutes
to execute a manhunt in
the streets of the capital.
- The new method now is to
drive vehicles into crowds.
- [Woman] It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
- As a firearms officer,
I would be going towards that threat.
(crowd panicking)
- Down, down!
- You know there are casualties.
- [Woman] Fucking body bag.
- Anybody who says that
they're not afraid,
I think they're not
being absolutely honest.
(tense, sharp music)
- [Narrator] It's 10pm
on a busy Friday night
when three terrorists strike.
(impact echoing)
- [Woman] It's okay, it's okay, it's okay!
Shit.
(crowd bustling)
- [Narrator] The gang uses a white van
to injure dozens on London Bridge.
- The new method now is to
drive vehicles into crowds.
They will attack innocent people,
who are soft targets, very easy targets,
and it's difficult to defend against.
- [Narrator] At 10:01,
they begin a knife attack
in the pubs and bars of Borough Market.
(shuddering, dangerous music)
(crowd panicking)
(officers shouting)
- Down, down!
Down, down!
- Police, come on!
As quick as you can!
- [Officer] You, run!
- [Narrator] Multiple 999 calls go in
to Metropolitan Police,
and officers face a race against time
to stop the attack.
(overlapping sirens)
(officers shouting)
More than 100 armed officers
make their way to the scene
from all over London.
- Stay out the road.
- [Narrator] They're armed with handguns
and high-velocity carbines
as well as less lethal tasers.
Their instructions, based
on years of experience,
are to confront these men,
to stop them in their tracks
before they can do more harm.
(siren blaring)
- You know something serious has happened,
and you know there are casualties,
and you know there are multiple offenders.
You're scared.
- If you're not scared of something,
there's probably a problem.
You acknowledge fear, you embrace fear.
I don't think anyone, necessarily,
thinks, or gives time to the thought,
that what you're being presented with
potentially could end your life.
(officers shouting)
- What you're thinking about is,
can I get more information?
Where are the suspects now?
(door crashing open)
What are the suspects' descriptions?
Who's going where?
How many other vehicles are coming?
Where are they coming from?
Who's gonna be the first?
This kind of thing.
(officers shouting)
- As a firearms officer,
I would be going towards that threat,
as everybody else is leaving.
You don't know what you're going into.
Are they armed?
Do they have explosive devices
strapped to their bodies?
Anybody who says that they're not afraid,
I think they're not
being absolutely honest.
(sirens blaring)
- [Narrator] Eight minutes
after the first 999 call,
armed officers locate
the three terrorists,
confront them, and take decisive action.
- We will aim for the
biggest part of the body,
which doesn't move that
much, and that is the torso.
- The reason for that is,
that's where most of the vital organs are,
and trauma to the vital
organs is a significant thing
that the body finds difficult to overcome.
(intense music)
(shots firing repeatedly)
(citizen speaking foreign language)
- [Narrator] Eight innocent
civilians had lost their lives
by the time police opened
fire on the attackers.
The three gang members
were killed instantly.
A grim but definitive end to the manhunt.
- But no firearms officer
really wants to pull a trigger.
Why would you?
(slow, somber music)
- To take a life is probably one of...
It's the ultimate decision
that you could make
as a police officer, as a soldier.
- It's not something that
could be laughed about.
It's not something that should
be associated with bravado.
It's a horrifying thing
to have to confront.
It's not easy by any means.
- We don't get up in the morning thinking,
I'm gonna and shoot somebody.
We get up in the morning
wanting to come home and bath the kids.
- When you are in a position where
it's either you or it's
the members of the public
or it's an innocent party,
I just think your training takes over.
It's a horrible place to be.
Not many people'd want to do it.
(building exploding)
(officers shouting)
- We see the glint of the knife up here,
and he's screaming.
"She died, she died, she died."
(gunshot firing)
- If you make any attempt
to endanger life we
will shoot to stop you.
- It's the most dangerous
thing you're confronted with
as an armed police officer.
(gunshot firing)
- [Anonymous Officer] Shit,
this has just got real.
I thought he was dead.
(gunshot firing)
- He made it very clear to us that
he wouldn't ever be taken alive.
(gunshot firing)
- You've done it now,
you've killed a bloke.
(intense, crashing music)
(gunshot firing)
(siren blaring)
- Armed police!
Hands in the air, hands in the air!
(door smashing)
- Police, stay where you are!
(gunshots firing)
- [Narrator] Britain's armed police
are amongst the toughest in the world.
- Put it down!
- These men and women
face untold dangers.
(sirens blaring)
And every day could be the
day they pull the trigger.
(gun firing in slow motion)
They rarely talk about
the realities of the job--
(police yelling orders)
Or the pressures of taking a life--
(glass smashing)
But now,
we've brought them
together for the first time
to speak openly.
(building exploding)
(gunshots firing)
- I carried on shooting until
I couldn't see him any more.
- [Narrator] In this series,
they break their covenant of silence.
- You acknowledge fear.
You embrace fear.
- And reveal
what it's really like to
be an armed police officer.
- You don't get up in the morning
thinking, I'm gonna go and shoot somebody.
(police yelling)
We get up in the morning
wanting to come home and bath the kids.
- Armed police, stand still!
Stay where you are.
- [Narrator] These
officers come face to face
with marauding attackers.
(attackers shouting)
- It's the most dangerous thing
that you're confronted with
as an armed police officer.
- Lie in wait for
organized criminal gangs.
(gate crashing)
- Crime is changing.
It's evolving.
(heavy drum music)
- [Narrator] And save the
lives of innocent hostages.
- Sometimes you can't
avoid using deadly force.
- A shot may have to be fired,
and indeed that shot may be lethal.
(gunshot firing)
(upbeat synthesizer music)
- [Officer] Our job is
to protect the public.
(metal clattering)
- 866.
- [Narrator] In rooms like
this, up and down the UK,
there lays an arsenal of weapons.
- There are a small number
of people within this country
who want to inflict misery and violence
on our communities.
(gun clicking)
Our officers, every single day,
whether armed or unarmed,
have to bring these offenders to justice.
(techno music)
- [Narrator] This is a job like no other,
where men and women put
themselves in mortal danger
to keep the public safe.
- Armed police, stand still!
(gunshot firing)
- If you're not scared of something,
there's probably a problem.
- [Officer] Get back, head down!
- I've woken up in
hospital a couple of times.
I've been almost killed
on several occasions.
(siren blaring)
(men shouting)
- My dad and I were
never particularly close,
but he was one of these,
"Be careful, son."
You know, if I wanted to be careful, dad,
I'd be the postman, wouldn't I?
You know.
- Get out of the way!
- [Narrator] Tonight, officers reveal
the art of the manhunt,
tracking and containing a deadly threat.
- Felt as if we're closing that net.
(men shouting)
- [Narrator] The tactics they
use to circle their target.
- [Officer] It was the first
operation in UK history
to use explosive entry.
- [Narrator] And how
they face a new terror
that must be neutralized at any cost.
- A manhunt certainly isn't the norm.
If anybody is posing a
threat to the community,
it's got to be dealt with.
(gunfire echoing)
- [Male Caller] I'm
absolutely not gonna to stop.
- You're not--
- You're gonna have to kill.
You're gonna have to kill me.
I'm never gonna stop.
(low, intense music)
- [Narrator] The toughest armed missions
start with a game of
high-stakes cat and mouse.
And in this country,
the pioneer of the modern manhunt is Tony.
- The longer that we give them
to think about their options,
the greater the risks to the public
and to the environment, and to ourselves.
(gunfire echoing)
(people panicking)
Our conventional methods
for an arresting subjects on the loose
is going from premises to premises,
searching, pinpointing them down
to particularly locations,
all intelligence-based.
(explosion echoing)
(sharp, shrill music)
(gravel crunching underfoot)
- There have been a series of
terrorist attacks in London.
Our determination to defend our values
and our way of life
is greater than their determination
to cause death and
destruction to innocent people
in a desire to impose
extremism on the world.
(city bustling)
- [Narrator] Four suicide
bombers have struck,
killing 52 and injuring hundreds more.
Two weeks later, the
city is still in shock
when five more young men arrive in London,
intent on bloody destruction.
(soft, ominous piano music)
(tube announcements echoing)
One, Ramsay Mohammed, boards
a tube at Oval station.
Intent on killing everyone around him,
he detonates a suicide bomb.
(bomb exploding)
(crowd screaming)
But it fails.
- [Male Announcer] London
is attacked once again.
Three tube trains and a bus targeted.
- [Female Announcer]
Eyewitnesses to the attacks
reported that the small explosions
took place in rucksacks.
- [Narrator] Across
London, the other bombs
also fail to detonate,
and the gang members
quickly flee the scenes.
Now, five wannabe bombers are on the run,
and possibly planning their next attack.
(station bustling)
- [Tony] We all felt
that London was unsafe.
We wanted to make London safe again.
- I think that 7/7 was a
watershed for firearms policing.
Tactically, we just hadn't seen
the sort of modus operandi
of the terrorists,
which was to go onto our
tubes and blow themselves up.
- Well, obviously, that was
the wake-up call, wasn't it?
We looked at ways we could
enhance our response to the new threat.
(low, threatening music)
- This was the biggest manhunt
that UK police had undertaken
since the Second World War,
and it became very apparent
that the whole of the MPS
was being activated to try
and capture these individuals.
We wanted to get out there.
we wanted to try and, you
know, make a difference.
(sirens wailing)
- [Narrator] Intelligence
leads armed police
to a block of flats in
the borough of Kensington
in West London, where detectives believe
two of the wanted bombers
could be hiding inside.
- Move back, please.
(low, ominous humming music)
- [Tony] It was on the top floor.
We evacuated the two flats either side.
We contain it as quietly as possible
without trying to arouse
too much suspicion.
- [Narrator] More than 20 armed officers
take up positions surrounding the flat.
Tony can be seen here in the green,
coordinating the operation.
- Once we'd secured the balcony,
the door became my priority.
I wanted to make sure that we
gained vision into the flat.
And the door, being closed,
restricted our vision
into the flat.
(car horn beeping)
(crowd bustling)
- [Narrator] Tony must find a way
to get inside the property.
(explosion echoing)
- Oh, my god.
- Oh my god.
- My son's in there.
- [Narrator] The explosion is Tony
and his heavily armed team,
blowing the flat door from its hinges.
- It was the first operation in UK history
to use explosive entry.
We were then able to see inside.
We were able to stop their
movement from room to room.
We were closing their space down.
(clattering, discordant music)
- We had a sniper on that roof over there,
and you could see into the doorway,
right the way through.
We were pretty convinced that they were
at the rear of the building.
My goal was to get them out
as quickly but as safely
as possible for everyone.
- [Officer On Speaker]
You must do what we say!
You will be safe if you
do what you're told.
- My major concern at this point of time
was that if they came out onto the balcony
and activated an IED,
then the balcony team
who were securing that location
would have been killed.
(heavy, tense music)
(chainsaw roaring)
- They knew we were out there,
and they were not responding to our calls
to come out to surrender.
- They genuinely believed that
he was imminently about
to detonate a bomb.
(gunfire echoing)
(gunfire echoing)
- [Narrator] Britain's armed
police are always updating
the methods they use to
hunt down their targets,
especially when that target
can blow up at any time.
(shuddering music)
(explosion echoing)
- We've had to adapt our tactics.
- The snipers had to up their game.
You know, we were now looking at
potential of having to shoot somebody
in the head at distance
to prevent them detonating
an explosive device.
- How do you deal with a suicide killer
on London's streets
if he is carrying some form of device?
It's a very difficult one to solve.
- [Narrator] It's 2005, and the Met
are conducting the biggest
manhunt in history.
By circling the area and
gradually closing the net,
armed police have surrounded two
of the five wannabe terrorists
who have tried to attack the tube network
with homemade bombs.
(public screaming)
- The net was closing on them.
It was just actually pinpointing them down
to a particular premises.
- [Narrator] But it isn't just
London that's on high alert,
and when news lands
that one of the bombers
has fled the capital,
attention turns to the West Midlands.
Leading the manhunt
there is Stuart Johnson,
who adopts the same
strategy of pinpointing
and then surrounding the suspect.
- The clock is ticking.
If he's armed, he will shoot.
If he's carrying explosives,
then he may detonate those explosives.
My team were prepared to
deal with that scenario.
(heavy, intense music)
- [Narrator] CCTV captures the fugitive,
disguised in a burka, arriving
at the city bus station,
and intelligence tracks him
to a property in the suburbs.
- It's early hours, very quiet.
Not a lot of people around.
Seconds seemed like minutes
from the command being
given to move forward
to the next transmission on the radio.
(swelling music)
It's a difficult time in many respects.
It seems to last forever.
There was the usual pause, a silence.
And then you start to hear
the team progress through the property.
(radio buzzing)
At times, it almost felt
as though I was holding my breath,
waiting for that first
transmission from the team
as to what they'd found inside.
- [Officer On Radio]
Living room is secured.
Moving to stairway.
(static buzzing)
- [Stuart] The team have
gone into the bathroom,
pushed the door open
and they'd encountered
arguably the most dangerous
and threatening scenario
that they would ever experience
in their entire lives.
They'd found a man standing in the bath
with a rucksack on his back
and holding a mobile phone.
(music sharpening)
- [Officer X] I had grave concerns
about the rucksack on his back.
I brought the point of my
aim to the back of his head,
during which time his hands
disappeared towards his chest.
At this point, I formed the opinion
that I was going to
have to shoot this man.
(traffic rushing)
(soft, ethereal music)
- [Narrator] After a violent melee,
armed cops use a non-lethal
taser to disarm the man
and secure his arrest.
Despite all the risks,
no officers were injured.
- There was a very real possibility
that the subject could have been shot.
But in that scenario, it's
a split-second decision.
It worked.
It takes immense bravery and judgment
to be able to deal with
that situation as they did.
- It's a constant argument that
you're having in your head.
There's an element to it where
everything you've done in your training
leads up to that moment.
Do I pull the trigger, or do I not?
(siren blaring)
- Armed police!
Hands in the air, hands in the air!
Hands in the air!
- Open the door!
Open the door!
- Is the action I'm about to take
reasonable, proportionate,
and absolutely necessary
under the circumstances?
- Open the door!
- Open the door.
Door!
Get out the door.
- I would certainly say that at times,
not pulling the trigger is
very, very, very difficult.
(siren blaring)
- Hands!
(low, dark music)
- [Narrator] In London, armed officer Tony
is leading a manhunt in
flats in North Kensington.
He's already used explosives
to remove the door.
Now, he's waiting and hoping
for the men to emerge.
- They were now surrounded
by armed police,
and they effectively knew that.
I only saw that they had
maybe one or two options.
The preferred option for me
was for them to come out
and surrender to police.
- 12 months earlier, terrorists in Spain
had lured police into their hideout
before detonating a suicide bomb.
(explosion blaring)
One officer was killed,
and six more injured.
Now, that incident is
playing on Tony's mind.
- These types of terrorists
would prefer to die
than become arrested by the police.
They knew we were out there,
and they were not responding
to our calls to come out, to surrender.
- [Officer On Speaker] We've
told you to leave twice.
Now I want you to leave the flat.
(metallic, pulsing music)
- [Tony] We placed several
CS rounds into the premises.
- It's not exactly clear what it is,
but we've now heard four shots
coming from the direction
of the flats over there.
- CS will cause you to cough,
cause your eyes to run.
It's a really uncomfortable feeling.
We wanted them to come
out in their underwear.
We wanted to make sure that
as they were walking up the corridor
we could clearly see they
weren't carrying anything,
or nothing was strapped to them.
We were still on edge all
the way through that process.
- [Officer On Speaker] We've
told you to leave twice.
Now I want you to leave the flat.
(light, chiming music)
- [Tony] They were actually
in their underpants,
and they were coming out.
- [Narrator] By zoning in on the suspects,
circling them and flushing them out,
the manhunt is finally over,
and the bombers are alive.
- Dalgarno Gardens was
one of those instances
where we made a big difference, you know?
We arrested two terrorists
and they went to jail for a long time.
- [Narrator] Across the operation,
the five wanted men were
all caught and jailed
for a combined sentence of
over 100 years in prison.
The biggest manhunt in policing history
had stopped a gang determined
to take innocent lives.
(low, troubling music)
But when you're hunting targets
in a large urban area,
sometimes things can go wrong.
As part of the operation,
a Brazilian man called
John Charles de Menezes
was gunned down by armed officers
in Stockwell tube station
in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
(rhythmic drum music)
- Many people will remember the fact that
John Charles de Menezes unfortunately
lived in the same block of flats
as one of the terrorist suspects.
- [Narrator] But surveillance
officers believed
he was one of them, and followed him
to Stockwell tube station.
- They genuinely believed
that he was imminently
about to detonate a bomb on a tube.
(gunfire echoing)
(slow, sad piano music)
- I know the two lads
that pulled the trigger,
the two shooters.
And when ordinary folk
would've been running in
the opposite direction,
they actually ran to what
they thought was their death.
- [Narrator] The Metropolitan police
apologized for the incident,
amidst allegations that
they had behaved improperly.
The victim's family called
for someone to be prosecuted,
but no charges were brought,
and a coroner's court
issued an open verdict.
(train rushing)
The busiest month in police history
put Britain's armed police
firmly in the spotlight.
The art of hunting down
suspects changed forever.
Police now face a new enemy,
(crowd roaring)
one that is fearless
when confronted with a lethal force.
- Off!
(crowd clamoring)
- Today's world is more violent
and less predictable and more political,
in some ways, than the one that
I joined in the late 1970s.
(explosion shattering)
(crowd screaming)
- The tactical challenges
facing firearms officers
have really changed
over the last 10 years.
- Where somebody's willing
to sacrifice themselves
to injure others,
it's very difficult then to
deal with that and contain that when
somebody ultimately wants
to die anyway, I think.
- [Narrator] When hunting down a target
that is motivated to keep killing,
the rules of engagement change.
(grinding, dark music)
Armed cops must do everything they can
to create a buffer zone around the threat.
It's called containment.
- An armed gunman like Raoul Moat
is an extremely dangerous person.
(gunfire echoing)
- I'm coming to get yous.
I'm not on the run.
I am coming to get you.
(sirens wailing)
- Ladies and gentlemen,
for your own safety,
I need you to move back.
- Please give yourself up.
- This was the biggest manhunt
that I've ever been involved with.
You were never safe at any point.
(siren blaring)
He had to be stopped.
- [Narrator] Northumbria, and
there's a gunman on the loose.
37-year-old Raoul Moat, a volatile ex-con,
has opened fire on a love rival,
killing him instantly and
injuring his ex-girlfriend.
Armed officer Neil Robson
is leading the manhunt
for Northumbria Police.
- Raoul Moat's dislike
of Northumbria Police
was long-running.
He'd come into contact with the police
on numerous occasions,
normally for petty crime.
But most certainly, he felt as if
Northumbria Police had affected his life.
(phone ringing)
- [Narrator] Before cops can find Moat,
the fugitive calls the police
and makes threats to kill more.
- [Moat] Hello there, this is the gunman
from Birtley last night.
My name is Raoul Moat.
What I'm phoning about
is to tell you exactly
why I've done what I've done.
The fact of the matter is, right,
that she's had an affair
with one of your officers.
Was he not a police officer,
I wouldn't have shot him.
I've lost everything through yous, right?
Yous just won't leave us alone, right?
You killed me and him before
that trigger was ever pulled.
I'm coming to get yous,
I'm not on the run.
I am coming to get you.
(phone line buzzing)
(intense music)
- [Narrator] Moat has developed
a hatred of the police
in the mistaken belief that his love rival
is a serving officer,
and his hatred is about to explode.
- The radio came to life, and
all I heard on the radio was
a voice saying, "I've been shot."
And I remember looking at
my colleague and thinking,
did you hear what I've just heard?
And then again, the radio came to life
where Dave Rathband
gave his collar number,
and just said, I've been shot.
We realized we were very close to him,
and able to travel there very quickly
to be able to offer some support.
(shuddering, ominous music)
So we get out my vehicle
and I go over to the
police car where Dave is.
And he's slumped in the driver seat
with what I can only describe was
some of the most horrific facial injuries
that I've seen on anybody at work.
(camera flash blaring and charging)
That's when I thought to myself,
that could very easily have been me.
I could've been sitting
in that police car.
I could've been sitting
on that roundabout.
I could've been targeted by Raoul Moat.
And he had to be stopped.
- A lot of police are
haunted, not by ghosts
but by incidents that took
place in their career.
- There isn't a policy to
deliberately kill people.
It's actually to arrest people
and put them on trial and convict them
and put them in prison.
- Here's a man on the run,
looking for police officers to kill.
He could've walked up and picked off
anybody he wanted.
(gunfire echoing)
- [Armed Officer] Armed police!
Get out of the vehicle now!
Get out, get on the ground!
Get on the ground!
Spread your arms, cross your legs.
- Britain's armed police
have never been busier.
- [Armed Officer] Secure.
- [Narrator] In recent years,
they've seen an increase in operations
where armed criminals won't stop
when confronted by police.
(birds tweeting)
But in 2010,
cops in Northumbria were facing a manhunt
with a lone fugitive who was
bent on targeting police.
- An armed gunman, lone
wolf like Raoul Moat
is an extremely dangerous person.
No empathy, no concern for their safety,
no concern for anybody else's.
Probably one of the most
dangerous individuals
you're going to come across,
'cos they've got nothing to lose.
(phone ringing)
- [Moat] Hello, this is
Raoul, the Birtley gunman.
I've just downed your
officer at the roundabout
at the west end of Newcastle.
- Yes?
- Are you taking us serious now?
Well, I'm gonna destroy a few lives
like you've destroyed mine.
- Where are yous?
- I'm not gonna tell you.
Listen, I'm gonna keep coming for yous.
I'm absolutely not gonna stop.
- You're not--
- You're gonna have to kill.
You're gonna have to kill me.
I'm never gonna stop.
- [Narrator] That's the
voice of Raoul Moat.
In 2010, he was on the run
after shooting dead a love rival
and critically injuring his ex-girlfriend.
Now, he's shot a policeman,
and cops are hunting him down.
- His whole intention
was to kill and maim,
and he had to be stopped.
- Mr. Moat, I've said it
before and I will say it again.
We want to apprehend you safely.
Please give yourself up.
(pounding, tense music)
- [Narrator] But Raoul Moat
has no plans to go quietly.
He's shot one police officer,
and he plans to target more.
But for now, he's on the run,
and nobody knows where he is.
- On firearms deployments,
you have opportunities
whereby you relax.
On the deployment for Raoul Moat,
we never had that opportunity to relax,
because you never knew where he was.
I was constantly looking over my shoulder.
I remember sitting in the car
and I thought to myself at that point,
here's a man, a gunman, on the run,
looking for police officers to kill.
And I remember looking around
and seeing my whole team were
all asleep in their cars.
He could've walked up and
picked off anybody he wanted.
- [Narrator] Neil and his
team are closing in on Moat
as his black car is found abandoned
in the remote town of Rothbury.
- If I was a man on the
run, I would go to Rothbury.
You've got huge wooded areas,
you've got huge rural areas.
You also have buildings that are derelict,
that aren't used.
Moat had more than enough
places to hide in Rothbury.
But this was probably
one of the first times
for me that we felt as if
we're closing that net around Moat.
(siren wailing)
- Ladies and gentlemen,
for your own safety,
I need you to move back.
- Can you please move back?
- In a line.
- Keep moving, please.
- [Narrator] With no idea where he is,
police fear Moat could strike at any time.
The whole town is in
lockdown, and in terror.
- This was the biggest manhunt
stroke firearms operation
that I have ever been involved with.
- [Narrator] Neil can be seen here
leading some of the 160 armed officers
he had at his disposal.
- It was almost like a ring of steel.
We had a cordon of armed officers
which were stopping people leaving
or coming into Rothbury.
Inside that were other armed officers
who were responding to sightings
and intelligence and information
that were leading us to locations.
We wrapped Rothbury in that ring of steel,
but the advantage Raoul Moat had was,
he could see us coming,
but we couldn't see him.
The pressure on the force,
and most certainly the senior
officers within the force was,
how can you be certain that he's there?
Have you put all your eggs in one basket?
So we were determined to find him
and to prove that he was there.
I felt that he was in Rothbury,
and it was only a matter of time
before either he came
to us or we came to him.
(birds tweeting)
(siren wailing)
- [Narrator] Neil's hunch was right.
As Moat lets his guard slip
and is spotted close to a
riverbank on the edge of town.
He's armed with a shotgun
and threatening suicide.
The manhunt might be over,
but the standoff continues.
- Raoul Moat had made it very clear
throughout the whole week
that he'd been on the run
that he wasn't going back to prison,
and that you weren't gonna take him alive,
and there was always our hope
that once we located Raoul Moat
that we'd be able to negotiate him
and bring him to a safe rest.
(engine humming)
(dark, shuddering music)
- [Narrator] As darkness begins to fall,
officers throw Moat a sandwich and water,
determined to keep him alive.
- Raoul Moat, I don't think was a person
who thought this through.
I think he acted instinctively.
He found himself in a situation whereby
he had nowhere else to go.
(radio chattering)
He started a course of events
which led him down a road
to where he ended up on that final night.
(music swelling)
(bang echoing)
(violin music)
- [Narrator] In a final act of defiance,
Moat pulls the trigger on his shotgun.
Police officers rush to his aid
and bring in paramedics,
but it's too late.
Raoul Moat died shortly
afterwards in hospital.
(soft music)
(birds singing)
- There was some relief
insomuch as this was over,
and no other member of the public
or no other police
officer had been injured,
but I am a very reflective person,
and what I got a strong sense of
after it was all over was the what ifs.
What if this had happened differently?
What if that had happened?
To do this day, I still think about
what happened that week in Rothbury,
and those what ifs.
- [Narrator] Raoul Moat's family
expressed their disappointment
at how the operation ended,
but an IPCC investigation praised officers
for their well thought out negotiations
and found no evidence of misconduct
by any police officers.
Containing Moat with an
iron ring of armed cops
meant that he was unable to
kill more innocent victims.
- [Officer] Open this door.
You remain where you are.
Don't--
- [Narrator] But not all
operations go according to plan.
- [Officer] Put the knife down now!
Put it down!
- [Officer] A lot of policemen,
I believe, are haunted.
Not by ghosts, but by incidents
that took place in their career.
- I think the ability to be
able to go home and switch off
is a skill in itself.
And I must admit, there
were some occasions where
I probably struggled a
little bit with that.
- You reflect and reflect
and reflect on those,
and you're never going to change that,
but it doesn't stop you thinking,
if only I'd got there sooner.
If only I'd been able to do this,
maybe that person wouldn't
have been injured,
or maybe that person would be alive now.
- [Narrator] Armed police will
only kill as a last resort,
but recently the use of lethal force
has been called on more and more,
as a new threat evolves.
When facing a kamikaze killer,
their only option is to step up
and confront the threat.
(gunfire echoing)
- We're now not looking at
armed criminality, although
we still deal with that.
We're now looking at individuals who
want to kill.
- Put down the gun!
- [Neil] And are happy
to die for that cause.
- When you are dealing with an individual
that has a belief system
that is so extreme
that they're willing
to give their own life
in the belief system
that they're following,
you just have to negate that risk
by neutralizing them as a threat.
(traffic rushing)
- [Narrator] It's a routine day.
This CCTV footage shows
British soldier Lee Rigby
walking from the barracks in Woolwich.
What happens next
would go on to shock
people across the country.
A car careers into him before
two men, armed with cleavers,
launch into a bloody, ferocious attack.
(man screaming)
(heavy, ominous music)
But instead of fleeing,
they remain at the scene,
waiting for armed police to arrive.
- Every time I authorize
the use of firearms,
one of my considerations
is the safety of my staff.
(siren wailing)
- [Narrator] Several armed
police cars race to the scene,
unsure what they'll find.
Their orders are to face the attackers
and only shoot if absolutely necessary.
But as the first cops arrive,
the killers race to confront them.
- [Officer X] I saw a
black male running at me,
waving both hands in the
air in a chopping motion.
In his right hand was
a cleaver, or machete.
I instinctively thought,
he is going to kill me.
I can still see the look
in the suspect's eyes.
(public screaming)
(shots firing)
I saw the second suspect
lying on the ground.
He turned, with the handgun
pointing in my direction.
I thought, oh god, he's going to shoot me.
I feared for my life.
I threw my taser away and
pointed my Glock at him.
As I was doing so, I
heard shots and ducked.
- [Narrator] Within seconds,
the two men had been shot,
and armed officers immediately
begin to give first aid.
- A firearms officer will often deal with
a person who's dying, and have to give,
and seek to give first aid.
Now, that takes a huge amount of,
first of all, professional skill.
But real courage.
- Police officers open fire
knowing that people might die.
There isn't a policy to
deliberately kill people,
because the overall intention
isn't go out and kill people.
It's actually to arrest people
and put them on trial and convict them
and put them in prison.
- [Narrator] Both men
were rushed to hospital
and survived their injuries.
They were later found guilty
of Lee Rigby's murder,
and jailed for life.
Soldier Lee Rigby tragically
died at the scene.
- [Woman] It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
- The new method now is to
drive vehicles into crowds.
- As a firearms officer,
I would be going towards that threat.
(crowd panicking)
- Down, down!
- You acknowledge fear, you embrace fear.
(siren wailing)
- Clear the area now!
- Anybody who says that
they're not afraid,
I think they're not
being absolutely honest.
(gunfire echoing)
- [Narrator] For 13 years,
armed police in the UK
have been developing their tactics,
finding ways to corner armed fugitives
and resolve manhunts
as quickly as possible.
(siren blaring)
- The way in which the police service
reacts and responds to incidents now
is very much based on the lessons learned
of years gone by.
- The quicker that you
could get to the point
where you actually challenged individuals,
then the better that
would be for the outcome.
- The tactics now are more
upfront, more aggressive,
and we will look to
deal with and neutralize
the threat posed by terrorists
as quickly as possible.
(gunshot firing)
- [Narrator] And just a few months ago,
London came under attack, and
the police had just minutes
to execute a manhunt in
the streets of the capital.
- The new method now is to
drive vehicles into crowds.
- [Woman] It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
- As a firearms officer,
I would be going towards that threat.
(crowd panicking)
- Down, down!
- You know there are casualties.
- [Woman] Fucking body bag.
- Anybody who says that
they're not afraid,
I think they're not
being absolutely honest.
(tense, sharp music)
- [Narrator] It's 10pm
on a busy Friday night
when three terrorists strike.
(impact echoing)
- [Woman] It's okay, it's okay, it's okay!
Shit.
(crowd bustling)
- [Narrator] The gang uses a white van
to injure dozens on London Bridge.
- The new method now is to
drive vehicles into crowds.
They will attack innocent people,
who are soft targets, very easy targets,
and it's difficult to defend against.
- [Narrator] At 10:01,
they begin a knife attack
in the pubs and bars of Borough Market.
(shuddering, dangerous music)
(crowd panicking)
(officers shouting)
- Down, down!
Down, down!
- Police, come on!
As quick as you can!
- [Officer] You, run!
- [Narrator] Multiple 999 calls go in
to Metropolitan Police,
and officers face a race against time
to stop the attack.
(overlapping sirens)
(officers shouting)
More than 100 armed officers
make their way to the scene
from all over London.
- Stay out the road.
- [Narrator] They're armed with handguns
and high-velocity carbines
as well as less lethal tasers.
Their instructions, based
on years of experience,
are to confront these men,
to stop them in their tracks
before they can do more harm.
(siren blaring)
- You know something serious has happened,
and you know there are casualties,
and you know there are multiple offenders.
You're scared.
- If you're not scared of something,
there's probably a problem.
You acknowledge fear, you embrace fear.
I don't think anyone, necessarily,
thinks, or gives time to the thought,
that what you're being presented with
potentially could end your life.
(officers shouting)
- What you're thinking about is,
can I get more information?
Where are the suspects now?
(door crashing open)
What are the suspects' descriptions?
Who's going where?
How many other vehicles are coming?
Where are they coming from?
Who's gonna be the first?
This kind of thing.
(officers shouting)
- As a firearms officer,
I would be going towards that threat,
as everybody else is leaving.
You don't know what you're going into.
Are they armed?
Do they have explosive devices
strapped to their bodies?
Anybody who says that they're not afraid,
I think they're not
being absolutely honest.
(sirens blaring)
- [Narrator] Eight minutes
after the first 999 call,
armed officers locate
the three terrorists,
confront them, and take decisive action.
- We will aim for the
biggest part of the body,
which doesn't move that
much, and that is the torso.
- The reason for that is,
that's where most of the vital organs are,
and trauma to the vital
organs is a significant thing
that the body finds difficult to overcome.
(intense music)
(shots firing repeatedly)
(citizen speaking foreign language)
- [Narrator] Eight innocent
civilians had lost their lives
by the time police opened
fire on the attackers.
The three gang members
were killed instantly.
A grim but definitive end to the manhunt.
- But no firearms officer
really wants to pull a trigger.
Why would you?
(slow, somber music)
- To take a life is probably one of...
It's the ultimate decision
that you could make
as a police officer, as a soldier.
- It's not something that
could be laughed about.
It's not something that should
be associated with bravado.
It's a horrifying thing
to have to confront.
It's not easy by any means.
- We don't get up in the morning thinking,
I'm gonna and shoot somebody.
We get up in the morning
wanting to come home and bath the kids.
- When you are in a position where
it's either you or it's
the members of the public
or it's an innocent party,
I just think your training takes over.
It's a horrible place to be.
Not many people'd want to do it.
(building exploding)
(officers shouting)
- We see the glint of the knife up here,
and he's screaming.
"She died, she died, she died."
(gunshot firing)
- If you make any attempt
to endanger life we
will shoot to stop you.
- It's the most dangerous
thing you're confronted with
as an armed police officer.
(gunshot firing)
- [Anonymous Officer] Shit,
this has just got real.
I thought he was dead.
(gunshot firing)
- He made it very clear to us that
he wouldn't ever be taken alive.
(gunshot firing)
- You've done it now,
you've killed a bloke.
(intense, crashing music)