A brief thread for the police tactics experts this week:

No one should be expected to disarm a person with a gun/knife with their bare hands, you are likely to be seriously injured or killed. Anyone who tells you they can do this safely is lying, this is not a Kung Fu film.

Taser is good for keeping a suspect at a distance and gaining control with less injury. It is great, but can fail for various reasons and often does. When facing a person with a knife/gun taser should ideally be used alongside a conventional firearm.

If you’re only defence against a person with a knife/gun is taser there is a high chance you will be seriously injured or killed. As I said, it’s great, but it is not a substitute for a firearm.

‘Shoot them in the hand/leg/knife’ A pistol bullet is not much bigger than a pea, trying to hit a moving limb at any distance is nearly impossible & incredibly dangerous. Even if you were incredibly lucky it is unlikely to neutralise the threat & people will be inured or killed.

If you miss, which you likely will, the missed round will continue on until it hits something, a car, a house, a child. Aim for the centre mass and try not to miss.

As mentioned, pistol rounds are very small and one shot is rarely effective. Officers often need to fire more than one round to neutralise a threat. If the threat is still present, officers will likely continue firing until it is gone and everyone is safe.

Warning shots. Bullets fired in the air will continue travelling, sometimes for miles, before they come back down. See above with regards to stray rounds flying down the road or falling from the sky. This is not Hollywood, don’t fire warning shots.

If an officer has the chance to shout a warning they will. Often ‘armed police, put the knife/gun down’ or something along those lines. The situation doesn’t always allow this though and sometimes officers will have to fire without a warning.