in a police custody unit.

Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana, born in New Zealand, died early Friday morning from five gunshots wounds inlficted on him by as as-yet un-named Pakistani national who was not only on the 'person of interest anti-terrorism list, but was a drug and occasional firearms ammunition dealer. He somehow manged to then shoot himself in the neck, whilst handcuffed.

Read, and please note that Sergeant Ratana is only the 17th police officer to be killed by a firearm in mainland UK since the end of WW2. -

Investigations continue into murder of Met officer at police station

Investigations are continuing into the death of Metropolitan Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana who was shot dead by a handcuffed suspect at a south London custody suite.

Known as Matt to his family and friends, 54-year-old Sgt Ratana, who was originally from New Zealand, joined the force in 1991.

He died in hospital after the 23-year-old gunman opened fire at Croydon Custody Centre in south London in the early hours of Friday.

The suspect, who had been arrested for possession of Class B drugs with intent to supply and possession of ammunition, also shot himself during the incident at about 2.15am and is in a critical but stable condition in hospital.

No police firearms were fired and the case is not being treated as terror-related.

A murder probe has been launched and investigators from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog attended the scene.

The IOPC have obtained CCTV from the custody centre as well as body-worn video footage from the officers present.

These will now be reviewed in the coming days, and initial accounts from the officers present will also be taken.

The suspect was arrested by regular officers following a stop and search, then handcuffed behind his back before being taken to the station in a police vehicle.

The IOPC said he was taken into the building and sat in a holding area in the custody suite, then opened fire while still in handcuffs as officers prepared to search him with a metal detector.

IOPC regional director Sal Naseem said: "It is at that point that shots were fired resulting in the fatal injuries to the officer and critical injuries to the man.

"A non-police issue firearm, which appears to be a revolver, has been recovered from the scene. Further ballistic work will be required."

Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, who with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, led police officers across the capital in a minute's silence on Friday, described Sgt Ratana as a "talented police officer".

He was "big in stature, big in heart, friendly, capable, a lovely man and highly respected by his colleagues", and leaves behind a partner and adult son, Dame Cressida said.

Forensic officers in white suits were seen entering the police station on Friday morning, while floral tributes were left throughout the day.

Forces across the country flew flags at half-mast as a mark of respect and tributes poured in for Sgt Ratana, who Dame Cressida Dick described as a "lovely, lovely, much-respected police officer".

Leroy Logan, a former Met superintendent, said there were questions to be answered around the circumstances which led to the shooting.

"How did that person come to be in the station, whether it's in the yard or the building itself, and be able to produce a weapon, whether it's on them at the time?" he told BBC News.

Sgt Ratana is the eighth police officer in the UK to be shot dead in the last 20 years and the first to be murdered by a firearm in the line of duty since Pcs Fiona Bone, 32, and Nicola Hughes, 23, in September 2012.

They were murdered by Dale Cregan in a gun and grenade attack while responding to a report of a burglary in Greater Manchester.

The Met sergeant is the 17th from the force to be killed by a firearm since the end of the Second World War, according to the National Police Memorial roll of honour.

Unarmed Pc Keith Palmer, who was stabbed in March 2017 by terrorist Khalid Masood during the Westminster Bridge attack, was the last Met officer to be killed in the line of duty.

The roll of honour includes Pc Andrew Harper, who died when he was caught in a tow rope and dragged along country lanes after trying to stop quad bike thieves in Berkshire in August 2019.

Police officer killed in Sulhamstead
Pc Andrew Harper was killed in Berkshire (Thames Valley Police/PA)
The Thames Valley Police officer's three teenage killers were cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter after an Old Bailey trial.

His widow Lissie Harper, who is campaigning for a change to the law which would see all those convicted of killing emergency workers receive a life sentence, said: "This is devastating news.

"No person should go to work never to return. No human being should be stripped of their life in a barbaric act of crime.

"Another hero has been taken from us in unwarranted violence."

Latest videos on AOL UK

quote:

The IOPC said he was taken into the building and sat in a holding area in the custody suite, then opened fire while still in handcuffs as officers prepared to search him with a metal detector.

If this report is accurate, the phrasing seems to suggest that they arrested him, transported him, and brought him into the detention center, and were only then preparing to search him for weapons...


The norm over here is to thoroughly search immediately upon arrest, and another search is conducted before bringing them into a secure area like a holding cell or detention center. But cops over here still get shot from time to time like this, usually due to complacency/laziness on the searching officer's part.

There's also a phenomenon wherein when searching someone, some officers will sometimes stop when they find something. So for example, if searching and they find a knife, their brain goes "cool, I found it, my search was successful", and they don't continue on to complete the search and find the additional gun/drugs/whatever that is also there.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
There's also a phenomenon wherein when searching someone, some officers will sometimes stop when they find something. So for example, if searching and they find a knife, their brain goes "cool, I found it, my search was successful", and they don't continue on to complete the search and find the additional gun/drugs/whatever that is also there.

When I took my NV CCW class, the instructor was LV Metro PD and was wearing black slacks and a golf shirt. He was barely printing at all and produced 10 (ten) concealed handguns from under his clothes. It was like the magic trick when the guy keeps pulling eggs out of someone's mouth or ear. He took each gun out from concealment and passed it around the class, so we could all see what they go through.

Unfortunate, and sad. Officers in the states miss guns during searches too, though. I’ve been fortunate to never have done so, but I’ve worked with people who did.

The statistics intrigue me though. When unarmed British police encounter armed suspects, do they usually withdraw and request armed backup? Do unarmed police routinely respond to calls of armed suspects? Do they respond to in-progress breaking and enterings, robberies, etc.? Are they proactive in doing traffic stops and suspicious persons stops? Suicide threat calls, etc.?

I realize they don’t have the same prevalence of firearms with the general public, but criminals are criminals and you can’t tell me their badguys don’t have guns.

It’s sad to say but that officer is dead because of complacency.

And they knew this guy was a known scumbag and weapons dealer, and they didn’t search him thoroughly before anything else? Unbelievable.

Rest in peace, officer.

I freely admit I missed a gun during an arrestee search. NA Mini Revolver. It was found on him in the jail. It can happen. I used the episode as a learning experience.
Afterward:
Cuff first, then search. Changed to hinged cuffs.
In the Sally Port, search back seat for anything dumped. If no transport module in vehicle, yank out the back seat and check under it.
R.I.P Sgt. Ratana.

What's the benefit of hinged handcuffs overall and regarding someone with a weapon on them? They just allow for less movement?

quote:

Originally posted by Jester814:
They just allow for less movement?

Yes. A limber individual can often rotate his cuffed hands from the rear to the front, and that's much more difficult with hinged cuffs, not to mention just less freedom of movement in general.

Unless I missed it, I wonder if the criminal was cuffed in front. That is a mistake we hear about here from time to time for a variety of reasons, including because it results in fewer complaints. Sometimes, however, it results in bad things for the police. Only guessing, of course, but because such incidents are so rare in the UK, I would suspect that front cuffing is more common there.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by Jester814:
They just allow for less movement?

Yes. A limber individual can often rotate his cuffed hands from the rear to the front, and that's much more difficult with hinged cuffs, not to mention just less freedom of movement in general.

Unless I missed it, I wonder if the criminal was cuffed in front. That is a mistake we hear about here from time to time for a variety of reasons, including because it results in fewer complaints. Sometimes, however, it results in bad things for the police. Only guessing, of course, but because such incidents are so rare in the UK, I would suspect that front cuffing is more common there.

Negative Ghostrider.

Standard issue cuffs in the Met are: Hiatt Speedcuffs (now owned by Safariland/BAE). SOP is cuffed behind, since if cuffed in front, the cuffs make a nifty garrotte.



I carried them when I was in, and now my son, a serving Met officer, does as well.

Also SOP was the practice of removal of cuffs in the charge/custody room, dependent on the demeanor of the arrestee, when told to do so by the custody sgt. This was followed by a full search of the prisoner to allow their property to be listed by the custody sergeant. This does not negate a search on the street when the person is arrested, but is in addition to it.

Knowing the Met as I do, there will be an exhaustive and wide-ranging investigation to find out what happened, and heads will roll if necessary.

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:
SOP is cuffed behind ....

Well, my point was that sometimes SOPs aren’t followed even in the US where statistically the danger from improperly handled arrestees is much higher.

If everything was done correctly, though, it would be very interesting to learn how the subject managed to retrieve a hidden gun when cuffed like that, much less shoot someone five times. And then there’s the question of how/where he shot himself if he were still cuffed properly with the ones pictured. Possible, yes; difficult, certainly, but probably not as difficult as shooting the officer five times before shooting himself.

On the other hand if, as you seem to indicate, searching at the station is normally after the arrestee is uncuffed, then that would explain everything with no mystery involved. That was actually a fairly common practice in the US at one time, but it has been highly discouraged in recent decades. (A more thorough search should usually be conducted again after the uncuffing, but only after the preliminary cuffed search to find anything like an effective weapon.)

If I were the investigating officer at this point, I’d be asking, “Was he still cuffed while searched?” “And if so, were his hands really cuffed behind him as called for by SOP?” It’s a tragedy, but such things usually happen because someone or somebodies didn’t do right.

Thanks for the explanation; always good to learn such details from those in the know.

I'm sorry for the tragic loss of Sergeant Ratana, and condolences to his family, friends, and fellow officers.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
When I took my NV CCW class, the instructor was LV Metro PD and was wearing black slacks and a golf shirt. He was barely printing at all and produced 10 (ten) concealed handguns from under his clothes. It was like the magic trick when the guy keeps pulling eggs out of someone's mouth or ear. He took each gun out from concealment and passed it around the class, so we could all see what they go through.

In the weeks and months after the 9/11 attacks, talk turned toward security in the U.S., both at the government level as well as the private sector/ corporate level.

Major Bob Bevilacqua was a Green Beret and frequently appeared on Fox News as a military and security expert. During one of his appearances he was wearing a suit & tie with the jacket buttoned closed and when the interviewer asked him about what security measures U.S. corporations/ businesses should consider he unbuttoned his suit jacket to reveal that he had an M4 carbine slung under one shoulder, explaining just how he had "smuggled" it into the building and studio in plain view (while being escorted by a building security guard)...obviously pointing out how Fox News itself was vulnerable to penetration and making his point that increased security measures needed to be reconsidered across the country.

If I recall correctly the M4 under his jacket was a full scale non-working replica with the stock collapsed.

It's too soon after this incident to know all the details, but it should come as no surprise that some criminals are capable of hiding weapons and must be assumed/ treated as armed until proven otherwise.

I'm curious about the details in how the attacker managed to shoot himself in the neck, and whether this was simply due to the handcuffs limiting his hand movements making aiming impossible...or if he intentionally shot himself.

quote:

Well, my point was that sometimes SOPs aren’t followed even in the US where statistically the danger from improperly handled arrestees is much higher.

Absolutely. No SOP will survive someone deliberately ignoring it or being lazy. All of us in LE know people who skate on thin ice, and sometimes it breaks. Typically, it's not the skater who suffers, but someone else.

People get complacent and that’s when shit happens unfortunately. I arrested a 14 year old kid that was literally twice my size who just stabbed another kid in the neck with a pen and was damn proud of himself and smiling like he just won the lottery. The “experienced” idiot I was working with tried to tell me that we weren’t gonna cuff this teenaged psycho giant since we were only going down the road.. our car didn’t have a cage either btw.

My uncle was a high up cop over there for a long time and he tells me that they come across guns very regularly over there. Just amazes me that this guy didn’t search him immediately

I was printing a guy one day that a female officer had brought to the PD to determine his name.....he told her his name was “Fred Anderson” ...1. Fred Anderson is a local car dealer 2. I’ve never met a black guy named Fred...we knew he was lying to us..but no one had ever seen him before.

He was searched before being out in the car, and was cuffed behind him on the way to the PD.

So while he was uncuffed, he whispers to me...don’t freak out, I’ve got a gun taped under my armpit...don’t tell that female cop- she looks like she would kill me...

I had him assume the position on the wall, reached under his four hoodys and pulled a duct taped Glock 19 off him. Walked out into the hallway and asked the officer to bring a gun box to me...she almost pushed past me to strangle this guy.

I was in on the interview later when his prints came back as wanted in NJ for murder....he had the murder gun one him. He told the detective that he didn’t try and use the gun because the lady cop was so aggressive and he knew “down here” (the South) we would just kill him if he did anything. He had been in the city for less than 15 minutes when he was a passenger that rear ended...had he not lied about his name we would have never pursued printing him and he would have most likely gotten away from the law.

He was later convicted for the murder. But it left a bad taste in my mouth. She was a great officer but had missed a pistol...this incident was used to every one I ever trained as an example that stuff can and will slip by and thru the stystem. When I retired I was known as the “officer safety” cop...

"please note that Sergeant Ratana is only the 17th police officer to be killed by a firearm in mainland UK since the end of WW2. -"

That's a little azz place compared to the usa.
Like South Dakota.

quote:

Originally posted by Haveme1or2:
"please note that Sergeant Ratana is only the 17th police officer to be killed by a firearm in mainland UK since the end of WW2. -"

That's a little azz place compared to the usa.
Like South Dakota.

Hardly. 57m people, compared to 884,659. Closer comparison would be New England or Florida

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:

quote:

Originally posted by Haveme1or2:
"please note that Sergeant Ratana is only the 17th police officer to be killed by a firearm in mainland UK since the end of WW2. -"

That's a little azz place compared to the usa.
Like South Dakota.

Hardly. 57m people, compared to 884,659. Closer comparison would be New England or Florida

UK 2019 population count is 66.65 million.

Perhaps the correct metric when referring to "place" should be "area" rather than population and square miles fittingly does that. So GB has per Wiki, counting its 1000 or so little islands, some 80,823 square miles and South Dakota has 75,898 square miles of area and those numbers do seem comparable. Nonetheless, "population" and its seemingly greater inherent resulting congestion on an island when compared to a state defined by lines on a map set in a huge open prairie seems a more meaningful measure.

I should also note that having spent a few occasions at a Travel Lodge and its delightful pub in Croydon two and three decades ago that it was a pleasant and handy to London suburb but seemed less so as the years passed.

Tac, can you read my earlier post and help with some of the questions?

Genuinely interested in what causes the disparity.