Police training to shoot through vehicle windscreens

In an attempt to prevent attacks like those seen in Westminster last month, police are to be trained to shoot through the windscreens of moving vehicles that pose a terrorist or security threat. Speaking to crime reporters, Simon Chesterman, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on armed policing, indicated a change in policing policy, diverting away from previous protocols that instructed armed police to avoid shooting the drivers of vehicles for fear of sending the vehicle out of control. However, the recent attack on Westminster Bridge, alongside similar attacks in Nice and Berlin, has caused the police force to change tactics. Despite the difficulty of shooting through glass, and the other dangers injuring the driver causes, Chesterman stated that he was confident that ‘armed response vehicle officers are equipped with the right weaponry and ammunition to stop a lorry’. He also spoke about how police forces across the UK are in the midst of recruiting thousands of new armed officers, with hopes to eventually increase the number of armed officers to about 10,500 by extending current recruitment processes to the end of next year.