Whilst it is very sad that Harry Stanley lost his life, the policemen involved must have had reasonable fear that he was armed - we don't have a trigger happy police service (thank goodness) and I can understand the concerns of the other armed officers.

With the increased numbers of replica guns and very realistic toys, this is a problem that will get worse not better.
It comes back to "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear". A simplistic statement, I understand, however - why would you need to brandish things in the direction of armed police? why would you need to carry a replica fire arm? why would you antagonize the police in any way?

I don't like the fact that we have to have armed police but you can't give a person a gun and then punish them when they feel they have used it lawfully within the prescribed guidelines. We have taken the decision to allow highly trained officers to carry and use fire-arms. Obviously, Mr Stanley should not have lost his life but surely this was a split second decision made in a stressful situation that the rest of us would be completely incapable of making. We put this responsibility on these men and women and should support them.

Finally ... will he? won't he? I wait with bated breath for the US election results. Our lives are so affected by American foreign policy at present, it feels like we're waiting for the results of a domestic election.

Happy Journeys