We all make mistakes – as individuals and organisations. The important thing is to admit and learn from them. This matters most when the mistakes are serious ones. And that is why the failure of the Metropolitan police to acccept its share of responsibility for the death of one of its own officers in a terrorist attack last year, until it was forced to do so by a coroner, is so worrying.
In a ruling delivered on Wednesday, Mark Lucraft found that PC Keith Palmer and the other four victims of last March’s attack in Westminster – Kurt Cochran, Leslie Rhodes, Aysha Frade and Andreea Cristea – were unlawfully killed by Khalid Masood, who drove into pedestrians before crashing his vehicle and running at the gates of parliament. There he murdered Mr Palmer, who was unarmed, with a knife before being shot by an armed officer who was guarding the then defence secretary, Michael Fallon. The coroner highlighted police “shortcomings” including in the supervision of two armed officers who were also on duty. Had they been at the gate, he said, instead of patrolling the grounds, “it is possible that they may have been able to prevent PC Palmer suffering fatal injuries”.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PccFOC
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