Most ARU's are rarely called on to use their weapons, and every time they use their weapon it is seized as part of the investigation. Every bullet has to be accounted for.
Each officer receives an extremely intensive training, and only the best, with a secure psychological profile make it through. They have to follow a rigid set out protocols before they can engage a threat.
I find the British police protocols and training to be an excellent example of how to approach armed policing. That being said it sometimes goes wrong. In those cases the actions of the officers need to be reviewed, and any negligence or deliberate acts of harm need to be punished within the law.
These officers don't have an easy job. On the most cases they've had to make a split second decision based on their training and their immediate situation.
I'll exclude Charles de Menezes from that, since I still believe that he was shot by armed SAS soldiers operating in public on British streets, authorised by the home office, which they'll never admit to, as it would cause a public outcry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menez...
All ARVs are AFOs, but not all AFOs are ARV. The difference is about 4 weeks (9 weeks vs 5 weeks), and the majority of that is the additional tactics around search and 'call outs' which an AFO (usually being entirely reactive) would not deal with.
The training is intensive, but there's no specific psychological screening beyond the instructors (and colleagues) realising that an individual officer ought not be trusted with a pen, let alone a firearm. There's more screening to become a sexual offences/CSE investigator than there is to become an AFO.
There are more AFOs than you'd imagine, and the majority of them will be only carrying a sidearm.
>They have to follow a rigid set out protocols before they can engage a threat.
No, the protocols are far from rigid. The training means that an AFO is fluent in the 'National Decision Model', which means that they can make dynamic assessments of risk without being hamstrung by a rigid "if this, then that" set of behaviours.
>I'll exclude Charles de Menezes from that, since I still believe that he was shot by armed SAS soldiers operating in public on British streets, authorised by the home office
Then you've been reading too many conspiracy stories. The whole thing was a fuck up from start to finish, but there's nothing in it that needs the SAS to be involved. If they had been, they would have had their own tactical command and De Menzes would probably still be alive.
The comment was quite specifically, "we aren't trained to do that (execute suspect by putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger), but they are at Hereford".
It's hearsay, but far from your usual conspiracy theory.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/1...
