Free Republic

Climate change campaigners halted a coal train yesterday outside Drax, Britain's biggest power station, and shovelled its contents on to the only line into the plant. More than 20 tonnes of coal blocked the tracks as protesters strung ropes between the train and the girders of a river bridge as police watched from a distance. More than 30 protesters swarmed aboard the 21-wagon freight service. Hidden in banks of cow parsley beside the line to Drax, North Yorkshire they struck at 8am after watching two empty trains arrive to collect ash in the previous two hours. The train had halted...

Police can shoot children with stun guns By STEPHEN WRIGHT Last updated at 23:55pm on 2nd September 2007 Police will be allowed to shoot children with Taser stun guns despite concerns they could trigger heart attacks. Officers in ten forces will be able to use the 50,000-volt weapons - which paralyse targets for a short time - against all potentially violent offenders. However campaigners have called for police to be banned from using Tasers on children. The Defence Scientific Advisory Council medical committee told the Home Office that not enough was known about the risks of using Tasers against youngsters....

Loving Big Brother by William Norman Grigg July 26, 2005   The killing of Jean Charles de Meneze by London police, who wrongly suspected Meneze of being a suicide bomber, demonstrated the folly of giving police a license to kill on the basis of suspicion. Yet some neoconservatives "love" this and other Big Brother policies. The July 22 shooting death of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes at the hands of plainclothes London police left Fox News commentator John Gibson swooning with admiration."I love the way the Brits have 10 million cameras sticking up the nose of every citizen...

More police join firearms protest More than 120 firearms officers in London are refusing to carry guns after two colleagues were suspended over a shooting, police representatives claim. Harry Stanley, 46, was shot dead in 1999 after police mistook a table leg he was carrying for a shotgun. An inquest on Friday returned a verdict of unlawful killing and Pc Kevin Fagan and Insp Neil Sharman were suspended. Mr Stanley's widow, Irene, says other officers should go back to work as the verdict "has nothing to do" with them. She told BBC News: "They weren't there. It was to...

Give police Star Trek-style weapons, says senior British officer Fri Feb 13, 7:33 PM ET LONDON (AFP) - A British police chief has revealed the type of weapon he would most like to see officers carry in the future, it was reported Saturday -- a disabling "phaser gun" of the sort used in television show "Star Trek". The gun -- which Deputy Chief Constable Ian Arundale admitted might not be developed for many years -- would be able to turn "someone's brain off", he was quoted as saying by The Guardian. Arundale, who is head of the Association of Chief...

More than 100 British police officers will visit Ground Zero in New York to mark the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist atrocity. The Queen has sent a message to the group, who are from 28 forces across the country, sending her "warm good wishes". The officers will wear full uniform for a memorial service at St Thomas Church on September 10 and will pay respects at Ground Zero the following day alongside US police forces including the NYPD and the Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey. Pc Norman Brennan, founder of Protect the Protectors which...

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S NINE PRINCIPLES The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly...