Training | 2009.12.20
Firearms officer made online death threat against sergeant
A specialist firearms officer has been disciplined for boasting in an online forum that he could "put a bullet" between the eyes of his sergeant.
The 41-year-old police officer was given "words of advice" and transferred to another unit after officials at Greater Manchester police read his postings on the networking site UK Police Online.
The unnamed officer writing as "Dibble" spoke about a named sergeant whom he described as his "nemesis". Mentioning that the sergeant had retired, he said: "That was fortunate for him, because otherwise there would have been a good chance that on the first day I was carrying a gun I would have walked into his custody office and put a bullet between his eyes. Believe me, nobody would have tried to stop me and it would have been worth doing the time for!"
He described the sergeant as "the most obstructive b*stard I\'ve ever had the displeasure to work with – he just delighted in making your life as difficult as possible", adding: "He left you wondering just which side he thought he was on."
The posting by the officer, classed as a moderator on the site, was made in July last year, less than a month after another firearms officer at the force, PC Ian Terry, was fatally shot on a training exercise.
The professional standards department at Greater Manchester police discovered the postings in March. In a statement, the chief inspector, Andy Holmes, said: "This matter was reported on 9 March 2009. The officer was immediately suspended from firearms duties and following management advice he was moved to another post within the force on 13 June 2009."
A senior police officer is understood to have described the officer as an "idiot" for making the threat. However despite being criticised, Dibble appears to have remained active on the forum. In recent months he has bemoaned senior officers\' salaries and "utterly pointless" paperwork, gaining one of the highest user ratings on UK Police Online. In a posting in June, he welcomed the departure of the then home secretary, Jacqui Smith, describing her as "weak and inept".
"Can anyone remember when we last had anyone that could even approach being described as a \'decent\' home secretary? I can\'t," he said.
He was also critical of a story in the Guardian which revealed that only nine out of more than 5,000 complaint allegations against Scotland Yard\'s riot squad were substantiated. "I see that potentially as 4,991 people who were simply incapable of recognising that they were out of order and behaving in an unacceptable manner," he said.
Relating to the online threat to kill a sergeant in his firearms unit, Dibble received the lightest disciplinary action, described by a police source as "advice" from senior colleagues. However, he has still criticised the police service as too disciplinarian.
In November he wrote: "Today it is perfectly possible to find yourself being investigated for doing something you (and almost everyone else) would not have thought was an issue at all." He said officers were losing their jobs "for things that only with the most extreme view could be interpreted as a discipline offence".
The following day he complained he spent all day dealing with "muppets and scumbags" and then getting "dumped on from a great height by my incompetent management".
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/20[...]ms-officer-threat-online-forum
