Airport police rules of engagement

Both your links are the same. Did you intend the second one to be different?

That’s a good point, @peter. I’ve never been in such a situation, but I guess, If someone points a gun at me (police or not), I would just do as instructed – I don’t aim to become an hero.

Having said that, the recent French case seems to be unlawful.

Peter wrote:

who actually knows the rules of engagement of police in different countries around Europe

Indeed the problem is that it they are different in different countries. And in any case, if the police get it wrong, an apology isn’t going to be of any use to you.

A friend of mine, a high ranking (formerly armed) police officer told me that in Ireland a police officer is only allowed to shoot if they are in life threatening danger or someone else’s life is in danger. And they are only allowed to draw their weapon out of its holster, if they have already made the decision to shoot. They can’t use it as a threat.

There is a special armed response unit, who I presume have different engagement rules as they are usually deployed in response to an armed incident.

But really, it’s unwise to put yourself into a situation when the rules of engagement even have to be considered. If an officer has to consider them, then you’ve taken things way too far already.

This will obviously be very country-dependent. Also, it will vary with which branch of law enforcement.

I have a friend in the UK in the local county constabulary and by inference it’s near-impossible to get shot at that level:

• Firearms are not carried personally (but may be in the back of the patrol car), and only a percentage are trained in their use.
• There is a marked aversion to paperwork; they view their job as maintaining law and order, not filling forms, and avoid unnecessary arrests because of the ensuing admin
• The culture is against it. An anecdote to explain: during training, they put a trace amount of pepper spray in their own eyes; the whole class vowed never to use it in real life. As Dublinpilot says, use of force is an admission of failure.

Of course, the policeman you see at the airport might be from a completely different force or department, and none of the above applies. I get the impression that UK policing is highly compartmentalised with strong job demarcations: (gruff London accent) “that’s not my job, that’s ‘Specials”.

I would rank France high in a list of likelihood of police shooting in a civilised country. Not sure why though. In this case, ‘them and us’ mentality, more aggressive procedures, feeling of unaccountability? Changing the culture of a large government organisation takes decades, and I suspect the real reasons and solutions are buried deep.

Middle-aged well-dressed white men Pilots don’t fit the profile

@Peter at Avignon did they get you to stop by waving their.guns at you? That would be unusual in such a situation in France.
What happened in Nantaire was just totally wrong which is why the police officer is currently AFAIK in jail and on a charge of murder.
French people in general recognise that this police officer was wrong and that he should face the same consequences as anyone else.
Most police do not act this way, although Paris has had and does have policing problems and the French police carry more arms per capita than the USA.

Peter wrote:

claiming they would never shoot at a departing aircraft

A woman pilot here got a bullet hole on the tail of her Cherokee because the police shot at her when leaving an airport in Africa, don’t remember exactly where. At later service intervals, she specifically made it clear that the hole should be left intact, as a souvenir. (which also created lots of jokes later on )

In Norway, the police isn’t normally armed, and would never come after you at the airport without a serious reason (I have never heard of such an episode). But IF the overall situation were such that armed police came after you on the taxi way (terror attack, war or similar I guess), I would indeed stop ASAP as the next thing that would happen would be an F-35 “on my 6” if I did take off and I for sure wouldn’t think they would hesitate all that much in shooting me down.

But, EOBT. I have always thought that to mean Estimated Off Block Time, the time the aircraft starts to move for take off (the point in time you get a taxi clearance for departure). The way we practice it (right or wrong) is the time set plus or minus 15 minutes. Usually EOBT becomes approximately take off time depending on how much you and ATC mess around.

Anyway, that situation looks very strange. Why did the police come after you? Did they drive a car? Why didn’t ATC simply tell you to taxi back to the police? Why did you receive a taxi clearance if none should be given? Was it not a controlled field?

Peter, you did the right thing. End of the story.
Yes, french police is more and more twitchy but noone should be messing with them in the first place. And it is becoming a national sport.

I live a few miles from Nanterre. It is not the world you know in Kent or Norway. This is the kind of neighborhood that can turn into chaos in 5 minutes. Those thousands of fireworks launched at police come from somewhere. Those firearms too.
I would by far prefer that kid to be alive but he had to be stopped somehow. He could have killed a child (or your grand child) at each of his car chases (he had quite a few in his police record despite being too young to drive, yes that’s reality here). Near zero response from the justice department. This kid was totally out of control. If he had been locked up for his past crimes, he would be alive today.

When a cop or an innocent pedestrian get killed, we don’t start a thread.
Nobody think of the people of his neighborhood which lives he and his buddies made impossible. Those are not places you would like to live at.
Nobody think of the two innocent lives taken because of these riots.
Few think of all those who lost their job or business in the looting.
Not to mention the politicians who add fuel to the fire.

I pray for all of them, and for sanity to come back to my country.

It is crazy, tearing up their own neighbourhood and burning their neighbours cars, looting their own local shops.
Images show that the kid was already stopped and 2 police officers talking to him through the car window when one of them shot him.
Justice must take its course for him. Just like justice must take its course for the over 3000 arrested for rioting.
Like many, country living, French, we have watched what has been going in some of our large cities, with shock but have tried to understand les banlieu and their sense of grievance against police and discrimination. But that has turned into anger against these people since they drove a burning car into a mayors house and in trying to flee his wife and one of his children were injured. He was in the town hall at the time monitoring the riots, although they weren’t happening in his area.
For those who don’t know, French mayors are generally popular
Far more popular than any politicians in the assembly, and much much more popular than Borne or Macron. So if there is no justice in finding and prosecuting the perpetrators of this act then likely all politicians in the assembly, especially the government, can say goodbye to their jobs. There may need to be a 6th Republic.