gun free Britain, Police having trouble?

BRITAIN: Police overwhelmed by rash of shootings
Date: Oct 10, 2006 2:09 PM
PUBLICATION: The Province
DATE: 2006.10.08
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: A40
SOURCE: Sunday Telegraph
DATELINE: LONDON
WORD COUNT: 374

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'Many' gun crimes may be going unsolved: BRITAIN: Police overwhelmed by
rash of shootings

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LONDON -- Police chiefs have admitted they "lack the co-ordination and
intelligence" to deal with Britain's gun crisis, sparking fears that
thousands of crimes are going unsolved.

Senior firearms officers have told the Sunday Telegraph that, owing to
time and cost pressures, police currently analyze fewer than half of all
guns recovered to see if they have been used in previous crimes or keep
a forensic record of them for future investigations.

They also say they "do not know" how many guns are entering the country,
intelligence is "piecemeal" and some rural police forces are forced to
"guess" at the true nature of gun crime in their area.

The admissions come amid a series of high-profile gun crimes across the
country.

There were 13 serious shootings in the past month alone, including the
killing of two 17-year-olds in a packed McDonald's restaurant in
Brixton, south London. Nathan Williams, also 17, was gunned down in a
Nottingham shopping precinct.

One senior police source said that police forensic operations are
currently outsourced to several different companies.

He said: "The resulting lack of cohesion and high costs mean we only
keep a forensic record of about 40 per cent of the guns recovered.

"It is common for guns to be re-used within the criminal fraternity --
after a shooting in one city, the gun may turn up at an incident at the
other end of the country.

"If the police do not have a record of that weapon being used in the
first place, then many previous crimes may be going unsolved."

Later this month, Keith Bristow, head of gun crime for the Association
of Chief Police Officers, will launch a "radical" new nationwide
firearms strategy.

It will include a new police forensics unit, to be run internally by the
police, with sites in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

There will also be a multimillion-dollar "ballistics intelligence"
database, to record the distinctive characteristics of all guns
recovered by the police.

The police are still installing the complex software needed to run the
program, however, and admit it will not be online until 2008.

Former assistant chief constable Bob Golding, who heads operations for
the database, said: "If we currently have less than half the picture,
that is not good enough -- vital intelligence possibilities are being
missed."

Michelle Forbes, vice-chairwoman of Mothers Against Guns, said: "The new
ACPO strategy sounds exactly what we need because, at present, gun crime
is out of control on the streets of Britain."

Last year, there was a 16-per-cent increase in serious gun injuries and
a 10-per-cent rise in robberies at gunpoint. Crimes involving handguns
and shotguns each rose seven per cent.