Police Scotland defends role of armed officers

Police Scotland has defended its policy of allowing armed officers to attend routine calls, saying it could not let them “drive on past” incidents that were occurring while out on patrol.

In response to concerns over armed response vehicles (ARVs) attending routine call outs – despite Police Scotland agreeing in October 2014 to deploy them only to firearms incidents or where there is a threat to life – Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said each unit will use its own professional judgment and discretion to decide when to respond.

He cited a number of examples in which ARV officers responded, including an incident in January where they recognised a stolen car and prevented the vehicle from moving, detaining two suspects for vehicle theft, drink-driving and housebreaking.

In another incident, ARV officers stopped a vehicle on the M8 after it was spotted driving suspiciously. The driver was subsequently found to be almost three times over the drink-drive limit.

“These are just some of the many examples of positive steps by armed officers on patrol to keep people safe. Officers involved in these incidents were not dispatched to attend – they responded to incidents they came upon in a proportionate and professional manner,” said Mr Livingstone.

“Keeping people safe means we need to have a wide range of resources available to respond when and where needed.

“ARV officers work in support of local policing throughout our communities and provide highly specialised firearms response when the need arises. I want to be very clear: these officers are only proactively deployed by control rooms to incidents which require a specialist response – those involving firearms or threat to life.”

He said that only a small number of officers – 268 at present – are deployed to ARV units.