Should British police be armed?

The call for British police officers to be armed has been renewed after the fatal shooting of a police woman in Bradford yesterday. Another female police officer was shot in the shoulder. Both were apparently wearing body armour.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 officers in England and Wales are already armed with 1 in 10 London Metropolitan police officers armed following the bombings in July. Most of those officers with weapons are part of special armed response units while the majority of British officers remain unarmed.

The last poll of police officers some four years ago then showed that 80% of them did not want to be armed. This reflects the fact that since 1975 only 89 officers have died in the line of duty and shootings are still very rare. The debate is now front page news again, but it remains unlikely that all officers will be armed anytime soon.

The police officer killed yesterday has been named as Sharon Beshenivsky. She was shot in the chest. Teresa Milburn is recovering from being shot in the shoulder and is under armed police guard in hospital.

Two people were arrested this morning in London in connection with the shooting.

This is the first fatal shooting of a female officer in the UK since 1984.

Tributes to shot women officers - BBC News