This one is going to be as long for you to read as it will be difficult for me to write. I originally intended this to merely be a review of Devon and Cornwall Armed Response Vehicle (ESU/MRT/SWAT/GIGIN/RAID) Sergeant Harry Tangye’sbook Firearms and Fatals.
However, the more I read Firearms and Fatals, the more I thought of, and made comparisons and contrasts with a) other books by or about police that I had read, b) non-recent situations involving police that I remember from the media. I will be doing an injustice to Sergeant Tangye by basically using his book as a springboard to make these comparisons and contrasts. Sergeant Tangye is an exceptional human being. This is evident in one his early chapters wherein he writes of working, pre-police days, in a care home. This was a particularly painful chapter for me to read as aspects of it reminded me of my mother’s horrific last years and how I completely failed her. As well, as in Mr. Mike’s Owl’s Moonlightand John Chambers’ A Belfast Child, Sergeant Tangye shows a love of nature and a willingness to explore, both attributes which neuroscientist Dr. Daniel J. Levitin says are associated with longer health spans (including longer preserved cognition) as opposed to mere longer lifespans in Successful Aging. Furthermore, just like these two gents, Sergeant Tangye, although he loves nature, does not go to the extreme of Lermontov and Laura Ingalls Wilder who advocate a complete running away to nature, a return to an Eden-like pastoralism that never was, as a solution for today’s ills. This shows an exceptional responsibility on the part of these three gents. The extremist Kōdō-Ha Japanese officers of the 26 February 1936 incident tried to overthrow the de jure government, massacring the Prime Minister and others in the process, on the basis of this pastoralist obsession, that Japan was losing its way in “modernity.” (Incidentally, the man who crushed the Kōdō-Ha was then-Japanese Imperial Gendarmerie OC Hideki Tojo, later hanged for war crimes. This should tell you all you need to know about the useless Hollywood/Wagnerian “good guy vs. bad guy” paradigm.) At the same time, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in Romania, Walter Darré in Germany and Lionel Groulx in Québec also preached extremist pastoralism, which included eliminating “cosmopolitans.” That Codreanu and Darré bloodily succeeded where Groulx failed is a question of infrastructure and logistics and NOT a difference in their levels of intent, hatred or fanaticism. This is a distinction that all would be well-advised to master and understand. That Sergeant Tangye, like Mr. Mike and Mr. Chambers, loves nature but is mature and wise enough not to engage in the cult of pastoralism as a cure all speaks enormously to the strength of his character.
That being said, Sergeant Tangye wrote Firearms and Fatals with the express intention of elucidating the non-police public about what it is like to be a Constable/MOS in 2020. I think I can try to help that purpose by relating other things I have read of regarding police to Sergeant Tangye’s book
In the interests of disclosure, I know Sergeant Tangye from social media. He has always been exceptionally kind to me. Likewise, I was born in Canada, but I grew up in America. Specifically, I attained military age well after 1973, when the Draft/National Service/Conscription was abolished in America, which means that I was rejected by the Army, which means that there was no way the more demanding service, like the Marines or the Police would have had me. I am not and never was a Constable/MOS, in other words, so I as experientially ignorant of policing as are the idiot drunk students Sergeant Tangye had to deal with. The only difference is that I am not anti-police. This, however, does not mean that I view police as flawless. I am very well aware that some police murder. Simply Google Antoinette Franks and Eamon Collins and you have your proof right there. That being said, as far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of police-involved shootings bear no resemblance whatsoever to the murders committed by Antoinette Franks and Eamon Collins. Lastly, I get the bulk of what I know about policing from books. I also read a lot of books about brain health and conditions after my mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia nearly three years ago now. Despite all my reading, I completely failed to improve her quality of life, to extend her healthspan, and I completely failed to stop my mother from dying. This is something to bear in mind when you read the following. If there is any conflict between what I write and between what a Constable/MOS tells you, listen to that Constable/MOS and not to me.
Also in the interests of disclosure, I hold views on law enforcement that are vastly different from those of the average North American, so much so that I had a disagreement on these views with none other than John Cardillo, who is hardly convincing as a bleeding heart liberal. Let me explain, first in general, than in specifics.
I do not have a problem with what is decried in North America as “militarised policing.” The evidence shows me that “militarised police” pose zero threat to democracy. From 1969 to 2004, the British Army and the Ulster Defence Regiment patrolled Ulster alongside rifle-armed Constables of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Operation BANNER. What effect did this have on democracy? SFIRA terrorist Bobby Sands was elected to Westminster from his prison cell. In North American terms, that would be akin to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed running for and winning a seat in Congress from his abode in Guantanamo Bay. Likewise, Britain currently maintains Operation TEMPERER, just like France currently maintains Operation SENTINELLE, both having the military patrol alongside police. As well, Sergeant Tangye carried the Heckler&Koch G36 rifle (the rifle used by Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Kerri Russell wherein Cruise’s character is blown across the length of a bridge while carrying the G36), so he, like France’s GIGN, RAID, and BRIs is far more “militarised” than was Derrick Chauvin. What impact did this have on democracy? None. Neither TEMPERER nor Sergeant Tangye prevented ne’er do-well agitator “Tommy Robinson” from rioting. SENTINELLE in no way impeded the Yellow Vest skells from rioting.
An aside. Yes, I consider “Tommy Robinson” and the Yellow Vests skells in the exact same category as the skells who attacked Congress, Mumia, Joanne Chesimard and Louis 17xDupree. I do not give a damn what your politics are. Touch a Constable/MOS, and you are a skell. End of story. Although I hate SFIRA, and although the loyalist paramilitary UDA and UVF also hate SFIRA, I have no love for the UDA and the UVF, both of who, as reported by former Para and RUC Sergeant Harry McCallion in Killing Zone, attacked the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Aside over, let me get to specifics on how my views on policing diverge from those of the majority of North Americans. In Survival Course, British South Africa Police Constable Chris Cocks recounts how he, while leading a stick/section/squad of PATU (Police Anti-Terrorist Unit, not an investigatory body like the UK’s Counterterrorism Police or the NYPD’s JTTF, but rather a rifle-armed unit that hunted down terrorists) ordered, set up and executed an ambush of several Africans for violating curfew in 1979, despite members of his own stick saying “THIS IS MURDER!” I find this to be acceptable policing. Likewise, I find the events of the Stalker affair, described by Sergeant McCallion in Killing Zone, to be acceptable policing. Some North Americans who do NOT find the Stalker affair to be acceptable policing are members of the NYPD, judging by their postings on this public unofficial NYPD board THEE RANT, formerly the NYPD RANT. This shows that police are not monolithic, while inadvertently highlighting one instance of police bias and double standards. You see, many members of the NYPD are Irish Catholic, which is why they have a problem with the Stalker affair, but have zero problem with NYPD Officer O’Keefe shooting Kikko Garcia. The thing is, on objective comparison, the Stalker affair and the O’Keefe-Garcia shooting are exactly identical; police shoot dead skells well-known to police, but unarmed at the time of their death. Why, then, do the RANTers object to the Stalker affair but not to the O’Keefe-Garcia shooting? In the Stalker affair, it was Irish Catholic skells who were shot dead, while in the O’Keefe-Garcia shooting, it was an Irish Catholic doing the shooting.
Let me give further examples of the differences between my views on policing and those of most North Americans. In Bush Pig, District Cop, British South Africa Police Patrol (then Section) Officer Ivan Smith recounts a) going on patrol with an FN FAL rifle (chambered for the.308 Winchester/7.62x51mm NATO round, the cartridge used by the long and heavy M-14 rifle the recruits train with in Full Metal Jacket), b) his Constables (African members of the BSAP) and he beating the ever-living daylights out of locals who mocked them on their morning jog through the city, and, most importantly, c) that perhaps one of the reasons the terrorists never used the border crossing he and his stick were surveilling was that they knew that there were rifle-armed police waiting there for them. Section Officer Smith also recalls how the terrorists usually never attacked BSAP personnel or BSAP or Army vehicles because they knew that the BSAP and Army were legally able to respond with rifle fire. The terrorists had Kalashnikovs (AK-47 s in American), the BSAP and Army had FN’s, so they were evenly matched up for firepower. Why, then, did the terrorists, unlike the Yellow Vests and #BLM avoid direct confrontation with the BSAP? Because the terrorists knew that the BSAP had no idiotic rules of engagement, of the kind that severely hampered Sergeant Tangye (who had to keep his G36 locked in his vehicle most of the time) and the NYPD of today (who only patrol with revolvers.)
An aside on the BSAP, the police force of Rhodesia. One rebuttal to what I have said above would be “Rhodesia lost the war anyway.” Yes. However, Rhodesia was blockaded and limited in resupply while no one stopped the Soviets and Chinese from pouring in weapons to the ZIPRA and ZANLA terrorists respectively. This means that, in assessing the outcome of the BSAP’s freedom from ROE’s, we cannot escape the confounding variable of the blockade. Secondly, thanks to that asshat Dylan Roof, there is the impression that Rhodesia was a white supremacist regime like that of Quebec. As Section Officer Smith points out, at the end of the war, the majority of the Security Forces were African. What is more, on his many PATU patrols deep in the bush, there were always African Constables and Sergeants as part of his stick, equally armed with FNs. At no point did these African Constables and Sergeants shoot dead Section Officer Smith or any of the Patrol Officers on the stick, when they had plenty of opportunity to do so. But, in a leisure game of “murder ball,” described by Section Officer Smith as being like football/soccer and rugby in the official goal, but actually turning into BSAP members simply beating the hell out of each other on the field, African Sergeants and Constables beat the living daylights out of white Patrol Officers and vice versa, then everyone repaired to the mess for a drink and a laugh. This demonstrates that the African Sergeants and Constables of the BSAP had agency and that they were anything but the lackeys of the white Patrol and Section Officers.
Let me give another example of how my views on policing differ from those of the average North American. In Killing Zone, Sergeant McCallion states that “constant pressure” (i.e. a massive police presence on the streets) prevented UVF retaliation for SFIRA shooting dead Willie “Frenchie” Merchant and how a similar massive (500 Constables) police presence at an SFIRA funeral in overwhelmingly (as in there were only two Protestant families living in the town and police had to fly in by helicopter since SFIRA mined the roads) Carrickfergus prevented a riot.
Let me give one more example of how my views on policing differ from those of the average North American, and then let me explain why my views on policing differ from those of the average North American. In Armed and Dangerous, about London’s most vicious robbery gangs up to the 1990’s, Wensley Clarkson describes the London Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad, better known as The Sweeney. The Sweeney is most analogous to today’s Brigades de Recherche et Intervention of the French National Police, the Vols Qualifées (Robbery) units of the Montréal Police and Sûreté du Québec that “Shotgun Bob” Menard and Albert Licasek respectively served in and the NYPD’s old Stakeout Unit as described by Combat Cross-winner Detective Ralph Friedman in Street Warrior. After a fashion, the Sweeney somewhat resembles the more modern NYPD Street Crimes Unit, the difference being that the Sweeney specialises in anti-robbery. Clarkson says that, in the 1970’s, the Sweeney let the following be known to the underworld “If you carry a gun, WE SHOOT YOU!” Chuck Schumer and Heidi Rathjean could not come up with a more effective gun control law in their wildest dreams. Clarkson claims this announcement was “counterproductive”...then, just a couple of paragraphs reports that, by the 1990’s the Sweeney was so effective that it had “created a vacuum” in the underworld, a vacuum only filled when out-of-towners began arriving later in the 1990’s.
Now, as to why I consider all of the above acceptable policing. For this, I turn first to NYPD Captain Tom Walker’s Fort Apache, about the 41st Precinct in the Bronx. In the prologue, NYPD MOS arrest a man for shooting another man through the head with an arrow. The arrestee is popular in the neighbourhood. Bricks start flying through the station house windows. The duty Captain tells all available MOS to grab baseball bats while authorising the release of shotguns from the locker. The bricks continue to pour in. Then the rioting members of the neighbourhood penetrate the station house with all manner of weapons, only temporarily being beaten back by MOS with baseball bats. The rioters penetrate the station a second time, this time only dispersed when MOS from the back fire their revolvers over the rioters’ heads.
This sounds like a scene from the original Assault On Precinct 13. It will evoke no sympathy from those who dislike police, so maybe the next excerpt from Fort Apache will. A Black/African family, the Pearls, move into the neighbourhood, which is now rife with gangs (Skulls and Royal Jades are the ones named.) These gangs, much like the UDA described by John Chambers in A Belfast Child and much like SFIRA described by cop-killer Eamon Collins in A Killing Rage, say they are there to “protect the neighbourhood from crime, from pushers and users,” then begin to shake down bodegas (New Yorkese for off-licenses). The Pearl sons, having lost their father, want nothing to do with the gangs. The gangs beat up a preteen member of the family. Because the Pearls cannot go to the 41 without being observed by the gangs, the oldest brothers illegally obtain guns. The gangs firebomb the Pearls’ house. The older brothers herd the family upstairs to safety, then fire back at the gangs with their illegal guns. The gunshots are reported to the 41, which sends in MOS who nick the gang members still on the scene, while ignoring that the brothers illegally had firearms (the latter being something MOS would NOT be able to do in the era of bodycams; remember that!)
That is one thing that happens when gangs do not fear police because they know the police are restrained by rules of engagement that would make the entirety of Vietnam look like a free-fire zone. Here are a couple of other things that happen, even when police have fewer ROEs than they do now, but are not allowed to wipe out the gangs in the manner that Prefect Cesare Mori wiped out the Mafia in southern Italy before WWII. In A Belfast Child, John Chambers recounts how he grew up in a situation very similar, but not identical to (more on this distinction below) that of the Pearl family of Fort Apache. His father had died and he was sent to live with this scumbag named Alastair who routinely beat him for no reason. The estate (projects, PJs, Section 8 Housing in American) Mr. Chambers lived in was controlled by the UDA, who kidnapped, then beat, then, effectively, tarred and feathered a woman from the estate because she was dating a Catholic. In that way, the UDA, like the gangs of Fort Apache, asserted that that estate, Glencairn, was their turf and that they controlled it. This is a faulty assertion. There is evidence that the UDA was very well aware that Alastair was routinely physically abusing Mr. Chambers. What did the UDA do about Alastair? Absolutely nothing. They were more interested in beating and ritually humiliating one of their own women for going out with a Catholic man than they were in “protecting” a vulnerable boy from “their” community from child abuse. THAT is what happens when you allow gangs to “police” your community because you have a problem with the duly constituted police of jurisdiction. The exact same thing happened in the Catholic section of town, where Mairia Cahill, the granddaughter of a legendary SFIRA leader, was raped by a member of SFIRA who was never convicted because people in the community stopped Ms. Cahill from going to the RUC.
That, in a nutshell, is why I support a policing more vigourous than most in North America would accept. Now, as to the question of “very similar, but not identical.” In no way here am I trying to set up what renowned PTSD expert Dr. Jonathan Shay calls “pissing contests,” between either differing police forces, or between MOS/Constables of the same force who served at different times or between groups of civilians who have lived under the threat of anti-state organisations. In the above paragraph, I said that the UDA were similar, but not identical to, the gangs described in Fort Apache. The two are similar in that both claim to “protect their community” while actually not doing so, while actually terrorising and shaking down the very community they profess to “protect.” The situations are similar enough to compare to see if solutions can be extracted from the similarities. The situations are different in an important regard that must equally be taken into consideration when thinking of solutions. As far as I know, neither the Skulls nor the Royal Jades are around today while the UDA is. This says nothing about the fact that all three groups were vicious and violent. This, rather, speaks to vast differences in logistical and infrastructure capacity between the Skulls and the Royal Jades on the one hand and the UDA on the other. For one thing, as Detective Friedman says in Street Warrior, “In New York City, you do not know the people living next door.” This is something one definitely cannot say of Glencairn, the Shankill, the Falls or the Ardoyne in Belfast, which helps to explain the UDA’s and SFIRA’s superior infrastructure and logistics relative to the Skulls and Royal Jades. As well, the Skulls, the Royal Jades and their modern equivalents (Fort Apache recounts events of the 1970’s) are primarily business-oriented in that they are lower-level elements of the Nocturnal Retail and Services sector. While Harry McCallion and othershave reported that the UDA was involved in the Nocturnal Retail and Services Sector, neither the UDA nor the UVF nor SFIRA are primarily business operations. This difference is important. In 1995, a young boy was killed by a bomb in Quebec during a feud between different elements of the Nocturnal Retail and Services Sector. The result was the formation of Carcajou, a Montreal Police—SQ—RCMP “joint task force” focused on this Sector, which caused the Sector to clean house and then, by 2000, focus entirely on business. By contrast, a bombing in Ulster, although it would result in equally intense security forces scrutiny, would not be enough to compel the players there to, from then on, focus exclusively on business, since business is but a means to them, as opposed to being their raison d’être.
In a similar vein, the attack on Fort Apache I described above is not entirely alien to something that happened to Sergeant McCallion. One day, when he was still at the RUC “police academy” in Fermanagh, SFIRA mortared the academy, causing several injuries, damaging at least one building, but, miraculously, killing no one. Was the attack on Fort Apache of the same order of magnitude as SFIRA mortaring the Fermanagh police academy? No. Were the two attacks so completely alien from each other as to render comparison impossible? No. This much is supported by the similarity of words written by Captain Walker of the 41 and Sergeant McCallion of Belfast. Sergeant McCallion wrote “Never have I seen such hostility in the eyes of civilians looking at me.” Captain Walker writes that his car was stripped of its tyres right in the 41’s parking lot, and that “I was slowly learning that all the attacks on us were directed at our uniforms not our persons.” This, from the 1970’s, goes back again to a couple of things Sergeant McCallion noted upon entering the Fermanagh “police academy” in 1985.
In Ulster, there are three religions; Protestant, Catholic and Police
A popular saying in the Shankill [a Protestant, supposedly “pro-police” area if one believes what Irish-American irredentists regularly spout] is
- Who’s that yer beating?
- A peeler [Ulster for “cop”]
- Step aside and let me have at ‘im
- Away with you, find yer own peeler to beat.
This brings me back to Sergeant Tangye. In a couple of places in his book, he speaks of the need to respect police, and how the fact that the respect police had when he came On The Job is now gone. Sergeant Tangye is absolutely correct. However, the contrast between, not only the word, but also the temporal, differential between his and Sergeant McCallion’s service says a lot. Sergeant Tangye served in England. Sergeant McCallion served in Ulster (better known as “Northern Ireland” by Irish American irredentists who have the uncritical ear of most North American media.) England and Ulster are in the same country in the same way that New York State and Montana are in the same country, as well as in a like manner that New York City and Plattsburgh/the Adirondack region are both in New York State. Sergeant McCallion joined the RUC in 1985, then was injured in a car accident in 1990 and invalided out. (Unlike NYPD MOS in such a situation, there is no indication that Sergeant McCallion received a ¾ pension for life for sustaining an injury rendering him unable to do further police work, which again shows that not all police agencies are alike.) Near as I can tell, Sergeant Tangye came On the Job in 1990 and retired in 2020.
My point is as follows. When Sergeant Tangye came on in 1990, police in Devon and Cornwall were still respected. When Sergeant McCallion came on in 1985, the police in Ulster were hated by both communities. All of this within the confines of the same country. This should make it clear that NOT ALL POLICE SITUATIONS ARE THE SAME. I will come back to this in a bit, but first, let me emphasise Sergeant Tangye’s point on respecting police by supporting it with an extract from Detective Friedman’s Street Warrior (which, like Fort Apache, describes events in the 1970’s.) Specifically, Detective Friedman says
In the Four One, if a police officer was not feared and respected, he would get chewed up and spit out, which usually meant an assignment elsewhere in the city where local kids did not set their parents on fire for fun.
Now, logically, if you do not like the prospect of kids in your neighbourhood setting their parents on fire for fun, it would follow that you would then respect the police instead of having them chased away and allowing the murderous arsonist kids to run rampant.
This brings me to police shootings, and potential police shootings, something Sergeant Tangye talks a lot about. Specifically, Sergeant Tangye states how there is a move to segregate Constables involved in shootings for hours on end, and how Constables involved in shootings cannot speak to defend themselves for the YEARS it takes to clear their names while the decedent’s’ fellow skells openly march straight to the Vatican, get a waiver from the Pope and have the decedent declared a Saint on the spot, sans even one Miracle attributed to the decedent. This is something that correlates to a situation I am aware of, and it is something that bears comparison to a situation Major Chuck Guess of the New York State Police found himself in in 1997.
The situation I am aware of is that of Saint Sean Bell. In the 2000’s, Saint Sean, reputed Nocturnal Pharmaceutical Salesman, emerged from a well known Nocturnal Pharmaceutical Exchange. Police ordered Saint Sean to halt. Saint Sean, instead of complying, jumped in his vehicle and tried to run the police over. The police opened fire, rendering the former Sean Bell Saint Sean Bell on the spot. Then-NYPD Commissioner Raymond “Popeye” Kelly rushed to condemn the MOS involved on the spot, going so far as to violate the chain of custody to show off one of the MOS involved’s revolver to the media (“Popeye”’s son is a journalist.) Mayor Michael Bloomturd, who had cut police salaries to 25K a year, also condemned the MOS involved before there was even a trial. Only a rare sensible judge saved the MOS. And here, a side note on “police unions” is appropriate.
Paddy Lynch is the head the PBA, the largest NYPD union. (Detectives have the DEA—not to be confused with the federal anti-drug agency of the same acronym—, Sergeants have the SBA, Lieutenants the LBA, Captains the CEA, much like, France, ordinary MOS/Constables belong to either UNSA or Alliance Police, while Officers belong to either the SPCN or PoliceSC.) In the era of social media, Paddy has been extremely vocal, even voicing support for Donald Trump. Paddy was not always like this. Quite the contrary. During the Saint Sean Bell incident, Paddy pulled off an extremely impressive, Oscar-worthy dual impression of Harpo Marx and Houdini, as in he was nowhere to be seen or heard. Paddy only had his “Come to Butthead” moment once social media became a thing. Not to mention that the PBA Presidency in New York City has long been viewed as a stepping stone to Democratic Party advancement.
Now, Major Chuck Guess of the New York State Police (for those in Britain, if New York was like England, the New York State Police would be the force that patrols the highways as well as the smaller cities outside of London and Manchester. In fact, Sergeant Tangye’s functions, covering both the rural areas and small towns, is more or less the mission of the NYSP, or any State Police/Highway Patrol in America, much like the SQ in Quebec and the Gendarmerie in France.) In 1997, Major Guess was State Trooper Guess, and he was involved in a shooting. Major Guess spends far fewer paragraphs on shootings than Sergeant Tangye does. That is because he was cleared by a Grand Jury within the same year, as opposed to being subjected to the torture Sergeant Tangye describes for years on end. This is important. If then-State Trooper Guess had been crucified the way Sergeant Tangye’s fellow ARV Constables are, chances are, he would not have been promoted, which would have been a disaster. You see, in 2015, two murderers escaped from Danemorra Prison in Clinton County in Upstate New York, close to the Canadian border. As he details in Relentless Pursuit, Major Guess was the Incident Commander of the multi-agency operation that eventually nicked both escaped murderers.
Major Guess’ Relentless Pursuit resembles Sergeant Tangye’s chapter on hunting down a man with a machete in that both searches took place in the remote countryside. The searches differ in that Major Guess had more men and other resources available to him. Major Guess’ hunt also highlights a couple of other differences between police situations, differences the public should note. One of the escaped killers was neutralised by an Agent of BORTAC, the US Customs and Border Patrol’s ARV/ESU/GIGN/RAID, most equivalent to Germany’s Grenzschutzgruppe Neun (GSG9.) The killer aimed a gun at the BORTAC Agent who neutralised the killer in the middle of the bush. The Agent belonged to a unit and agency identical in function to GSG9, but his action was less spectacular than GSG9’s operation in Mogadishu. Law enforcement situations differ, and this is not the fault of the Constable/MOS/Agent.
Likewise, it took weeks for Major Guess and his teams to nick both escaped killers. Those partial to TV cop shows would conclude from this that the NYSP and other agencies involved in that manhunt are inferior to Detective Friedman and the NYPD because of a case wherein Detective Friedman and his partner recovered a revolver stolen from a Famous But Incompetent Agent within hours. Specifically, said Famous But Incompetent Agent came crying to the 41 that he lost his gun. Detective Friedman’s boss put him and his partner on the case. Detective Friedman and his partner went to the most likely suspects and read them their rights. After that, Detective Friedman’s partner pulled out his blackjack and, in Detective Friedman’s words, “the skells immediately invoked their right to talk,” the result being that the Famous But Incompetent Agent’s revolver was back in the 41 within hours of said Agent coming in whining and crying like a little bitch. Detective Friedman found Famous But Incompetent’s revolver within hours while it took Major Guess weeks to nick both escaped killers. The reason for the difference is that Detective Friedman already had a lead and was working in an area a fraction of the size of Upstate New York. The time differential is no reflection at all on Major Guess. But more on this incident in a couple of paragraphs. I just want to highlight a couple of points regarding Major Guess.
First, there is one similarity between Sergeant Tangye and Major Guess that stands out. Both are avid, lifelong learners. Sergeant Tangye says “Never miss the opportunity to take a course!” and relates how he relished the training involved in forming plans and becoming an incident commander (I may have that specific title wrong.) Major Guess joined the NYSP right out of the US Army’s Air Cavalry (where he was a helicopter pilot.) In addition to the NYSP Academy, he also took up Scuba and MRT (Mobile Response Team, the NYSP’s ARV/ESU/SWAT/GIGN/RAID) training. After each of his promotions, he always made it a point to tour his command and listen to his subordinates as they told him precisely what their problems, lacks and needs were. In this respect, he also closely resembles Sergeant Tangye, who emphasises listening. One negative thing about Major Guess is that he buries summonses (ticket) writing in one paragraph describing all his duties as a State Trooper while Sergeant Tangye openly has a whole chapter on summonses.(In defence of Major Guess as a whole, I saw him praised on social media by an MOS of a rival agency who was a union delegate for that rival agency, which renders his praise of Major Guess, a boss, what the folks on Law&Order Call “statement against interest.”) I believe I know the reason why this is, and this is a change that can help policing in North America.
It is known that, in New York Cityand in Ferguson, Missouri, Constables/MOS have summonses quotas. Is this the case in Devon and Cornwall? I do not know, but I have strong reasons to think that it is not. I did some research into policing structures in England. They are VASTLY different from policing structures in North America. In North America, city police answer directly to the Mayor and City Council while State Police/Highway Patrol answer directly to the Governor and State Legislature. The Mayor, City Council, Governor and Legislature are all also responsible for generating revenue, which gives them incentive to lean on ordinary Constables/MOS to bang out as many summonses as possible per tour. In England, by contrast, police answer directly to an elected Police Authority, who is NOT part of the city council and INDEPENDENT of the Mayor. Structurally, therefore, the Police Authority has no reason to pressure Constables/MOS to bang out an entire book of C’s per tour, which strongly suggests that the C’s issued are for legitimate traffic violations, as opposed to disguised shakedowns. If, in North America, municipal and State/Provincial policing were removed entirely from the control of elected officials who also have the responsibility for revenue generation and, instead, placed under the control of an authority resembling England’s Prefect-like, but democratically elected, Police Authorities, who have ZERO involvement in revenue generation, summonses quotas would disappear, bringing along with them a lot of the resentment that exists towards North American police.
This would be a change. The problem is that, as Major Guess says, “The concept of improvement means different things to different people.” Major Guess should know. He joined the NYSP’s MRT before 9/11, in an epoch when the MRT was spread too thin, did not have their own vehicles, and were misused. This changed after 9/11, when the MRT was deployed to NYC to support the NYPD ESU. However, one other crucial element from Major Guess’ MRT days must be mentioned. He says “We were parochial.”
There, in a nutshell, goes the myth of the “blue wall.” Major Guess admits that, as an MRT member, he had problems with other Troopers. Likewise, Sergeant McCallion writes that some of his fellow RUC Constables were “insufficiently motivated.” Chris Cocks of the BSAP writes about two of his PATU stick mates coming to blows in a bar. Ivan Smith of the BSAP reports similar incidents, including how, once, he got away with poaching (BSAP rations being insufficient) while his “fellow law enforcement officers” of the Wildlife Department looked to nail him for a second instance of poaching, while his bosses routinely ignored him at promotion time, despite his having passed the tests. BSAP Special Branch Detective Ed Bird recounts how his “fellow law enforcement officers” of Rhodesia’s Wildlife Department fined him for poaching, and how a political boss of his used this fine to stymie his promotion.
All of these incidents of Blue Falconry, which show that the Blue Wall is a myth, or, at best, a temporary situation of unity existing because police all over the planet feel besieged, is reinforced by something that happened during Katrina in 2005. A group of NYPD MOS volunteered to go down to New Orleans to help out the NOPD. They went down in marked RMP’s (police vehicles, although, in North America, simply modified civilian models as opposed to purpose made vehicles like South Africa’s Cassipir.) When they were in Virginia—again IN MARKED RMP’S—Virginia State Police summons whores pulled them over and wrote them up. From then on, there has been a proverb in the NYPD, “Virginia State Police are proof that anal sex gets you pregnant.” Nor was this an isolated incident. Circa this time, there was a website Copswritingcops.com, wherein MOS/Constables who had been written by other MOS/Constables—DESPITE HAVING SHOWN THEIR CREDENTIALS—could out and shame these unscrupulous empty arrest record summons whores.
This relates to the point I want to get back to regarding Detective Friedman and his partner. “Famous But Incompetent” is a moniker the FBI is known by, just like the CIA and NSA are respectively known as Clowns-In-Action and No Such Agency. The point I want to get at is Sergeant Tangye’s point that having a degree, now becoming a requirement for joining the police in England, will not make you a better Constable/MOS. Sergeant Tangye is correct. Famous But Incompetent proves him correct, as well as illustrates one of THE major problems with law enforcement and “justice” both in North America and Britain.
A large number of Famous But Incompetent Agents are, in fact, lawyers by training. How good does that make them in law enforcement? As illustrated by Detective Friedman, they have problems holding on to, and then finding, their guns. If that is not enough, just look at James Comey. I am not talking about any of his supposed political leanings. I am talking about the fact that he talked publicly NON-STOP, when there was a mechanism, called a Classified Congressional Briefing, wherein he could have fulfilled his duty to Congress. Comey is a lawyer, yet he does not have the sense of a newly minted Detective who knows that the ONLY thing you say in public is “I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.”
Comey is part of the legal industry which, in common law countries like North America and Britain, is a major part of the problem. Forget what you see on Law&Order. That is pure fantasy, Dracula without the fangs, Star Wars without the lightsabres. (For one thing, that show constantly has its lead character, a single mother, visiting victims at night after the end of tour when, in real life, Bloomturd imposed caps on pensionable overtime long ago.) As David Simon noted in Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, prosecutors are generally law school graduates who are too dumb to master the basic principle of the legal industry. This would be “billable hours.” Calling the Constitution the basic principle of the legal industry is like calling fibre optics the basic principle of proctology. In Common Law countries, law students are generally not required to intern in the Prosecutor/DA’s/State Attorney’s office before graduation, and are free to chase internships at a fancy Wall Street Mergers&Acquisitions firm at the end of the very first year. A hierarchy exists among lawyers just as it exists among doctors. The best law students join mergers&acquisitions firms, work on contracts, never go to trial (which is a) a gamble, b) evidence of a failure of lawyering, as in a failure to get opposing counsel to agree to a resolution amenable to both counsel over the course of several days worth of discussions, meaning racking up several days worth of billable hours moolah at the expense of the suckers—err , “clients.”) Only mid-tier law students become prosecutors, and these are in the purgatory known as the prosecutor’s office until such time as they score a Red Ball (big case) that gets them noticed by the Wall Street firms that first rejected them, a Red Ball such as nailing a Constable/MOS. You don’t believe me? Look at the closing arguments of the Zimmerman trial. Specifically look at De la Rionda’s hysterical performance. This tells you two things. One, contempt of court is not a crime in Florida the way it is in New York. Two, De la Rionda was clearly using his closing argument as an audition tape for a big Wall Street firm, where he could stroll in at 10.45 AM, scream at the Junior Associates who had just put in a 48 hour day, shag female Junior Associates and Paralegals in the copy room, go for multi-hour martini lunch at the Harvard Club with the Mayor, make happy hour and do blow off the belly of a high end escort, stop by Tiffany’s to get something in the $1K range to keep the wife silent, then don tuxedo to receive the Bar Association’s Lawyer of the Day Award/
Prosecutors and trial lawyers, in contrast to TV mythology, are NEVER the best lawyers. You never see the best lawyers because they are too busy writing and negotiating contracts, and then partying in Miami, doing blow off the bellies of high end escorts on high-end yachts. Prosecutors, on the other hand, like public defenders, have such a poor grasp of billable hours that they come to an agreement on any particular case under an hour, which means that they would be making pennies per case if they were in the private sector. The only difference between a prosecutor and a Famous But Incompetent Agent in that regard is that the latter tends to work out more.
Yes, I know that Sergeant McCallion, after his accident, became a barrister specifically to work on criminal cases. He is the exception, not the rule. This much is evident in his reaction to a fellow law student’s suggestion that welfare should be abolished. Sergeant McCallion showed this fellow law student a homeless man. Then he told his fellow law student that he grew up in similar circumstances, and that, were it not for the dole, he would have been even more anemic than he was, and the Army would have rejected him outright. Sergeant McCallion also told his fellow law student that they had been passing by the same homeless man every day, and that, while this was the first time his fellow law student even looked at the homeless man, Sergeant McCallion had noticed him on day one. Again, Sergeant McCallion is the exception and not the rule.
In Germany, by contrast, ALL law students are required to do an internship in the prosecutor’s office in order to graduate, and becoming a public defender is not regarded as the colossal failure as it is in Common Law countries. One of Germany’s best known lawyers is Ferdinand von Schirach (also an author of crime short stories and one crime novel.) Yes, Ferdinand von Schirach is the grandson of Hitler Youth Leader and Gauleiter of Vienna Baldur von Schirach—who died half blind when Ferdinand was six. Ferdinand volunteered to be a public defender. His doing so did not lead to his family disowning him, or stripping him of the title “von,” the way Niki Lauda’s father disowned him after he found out Niki was racing cars professionally. If the Common Law countries were to require their law students to intern at the prosecutor’s office and to valorise criminal law as being just as noble are mergers&acquisitions law, perhaps there would be half-intelligent prosecutors and “justice” would be more than a letterhead word ripped out of a Superman comic book. Another alternative is suggested by the case of the BSAP’s Ivan Smith. Being shorthanded, the legal system in Rhodesia allowed BSAP Patrol Officers to act as prosecutors in cases involving crimes less than murder. Section Officer Smith became an expert prosecutor, putting many non-murderous criminals behind bars. As regards checks and balances, he was not the judge and jury as well. He had to convince a magistrate of the worthiness of his argument.
Let me go back to Detective Friedman for a bit. A couple of quotes from his book are worth mentioning. For one thing, he says that, when called to a robbery, he never activated his sirens so as not to notify the skell of his arrival. Sergeant Tangye says the same thing in his book. A couple more quotes from the middle of his book, contrasted to the end of his book, are elucidating. Detective Friedman says
- A week [in the 1970’s] without at least three homicides was newsworthy.
- You know when autumn arrived[...]when the homicide rate began to dip to very high, down from extremely high
- Brining in a prisoner dead was not advised, but anything short of that was usually overlooked and considered good police work.
- We use violence to implement justice.
- Normally prisoners were transported directly to the station house for processing. Most of mine went to Lincoln Hospital.
- I was getting a reputation as someone who didn’t take shit from the street. If criminals cooperated during the arrest, they were fine; if they raised their hands to me, I raised mine to them.
These are all things Detective Friedman says in the core of his book, which relates incidents during the 1970’s. At the end of his book, he relates revisiting the 41 in 2013. By that time, the 41 was no longer called “Fort Apache.” It was called “Little House On The Prairie.” Although unthinkable in this day of #BLM and bodycams, Detective Friedman’s methods and those of his fellow MOS in the 1970’s actually worked in pacifying the 41. But there is another quote from the end of Detective Friedman’s book that is worrying. During this 2013 revisit of the 41, he recounts a serving MOS telling him
- Precinct-level bosses are good, but when you get to borough and Puzzle Palace [1 Police Plaza, the NYPD’s headquarters] level, they get a ball-ectomy before they get their rank.
This is the world Sergeant Tangye and MOS/Constables serving today live in. This is why crime is up. Sergeant Tangye is a gentleman and only voices negative comments about his bosses directly once, when he talks of an ill-advised stunt to mix ARV and Response Constables. Sergeant Tangye does, however, routinely condemn the collection of useless statistics. This is borne out by the abomination officially called COMPSTAT, but actually called FUDGESTAT, by NYPD MOS. FUDGESTAT was the brainchild of Willie Brattton. It is actually used to scream at bosses when they report higher the “acceptable” numbers of crime, which leads to NYPD Sergeants forcing MOS to rewrite every incident not involving a dead body as DisCon (Disorderly Conduct.) This much is corroborated by Detective Friedman, who says that, in the 1980’s, the aforementioned Puzzle Palace decided
If cops less actively looked to make collars [“to collar” is New Yorkese for to nick], there would be fewer potential problems.
This, again, is the world Sergeant Tangye and serving MOS/Constables work in.
About bosses, both Detective Friedman and Sergeant Tangye are correct. Ivan Smith recounts how his bosses told his PATU stick to go hunt for terrorists based on strings and tacks these bosses laid on a map without ever having visited the Operational Area itself, which shows that, even though the BSAP did not have FUDGESTAT, it had plenty of Fudge-for-brains bosses. This is also evident in the fact that Section Officer Smith’s bosses had him document each and every grain of mealie and everything else in the inventory each time he was transferred, which is reminiscent of the insane situation David Simon describes among Baltimore Homicide in the 1980’s in Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets;”Murders comes and murders go, but be DAMNED SURE you write down AND CIRCLE EACH AND EVERY MILE YOU PUT ON THE RMP BEFORE EOT!” Section Officer Smith attributes this fudgery to the fact that most bosses were British and not Rhodesian born, which suggests that they were educated at Eton and Oxford and knew a hundred different native languages and dialects, but had not one lick of hoss sense about conditions in Rhodesia. The boss problem, however, translates across forces and across time. Paul Palango details how RCMP bosses have always preferred to deploy the majority of their Constables in remote rural policing duties in the Provinces and Territories outside of Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland (the latter three having their own Provincial Police) so as to get a lucrative paying contract from rural communities in exchange. Google the words “Julian Fantino” and “RCMP SSgt. Bob Stenhouse” and you will see how Fantino (then Toronto Police Chief, later a Conservative MP who, happily, was shitcanned by voters, karma being a bitch) plotted to exploit media coverage of gang wars of the epoch to shake down elected officials for more money, and how Fantino was so enraged that SSgt. Stenhouse revealed this to Yves Lavigne that he forced the RCMP to court-martial and dismiss SSgt. Stenhouse. Google “Paulson, C-8 Carbine,” and you will see how, despite the massacre of several of his Constables, RCMP Commissioner Paulson refused to arm his surviving Constables with the modern Colt Canada C-8 Carbine, citing as an excuse the need for a “needs assessment.” In real life, according to Royal Irish Regiment Captain Doug Beattie,MC, the C-8 carbine has long been in use by the British Special Forces. This means that Paulson is nothing more than an arrogant jumped up little Colonial asshole who has the nerve to think he knows better than the professionals in the Mother Country. Thank God Paulson is no longer Commissioner.
Then, there is the NYPD’s Eric Adams. Adams took two tests and became a Captain. Then, he took two more tests and became a State Senator, from which perch he proceeded to routinely attack serving MOS while his private bodyguard detail illegally carried ASP batons. Speaking of the NYPD, Captain Walker states that Fort Apache, the 41, was a penal assignment within the Department, where careers went to die. So much for bosses looking out for Constables/MOS, so much for “the blue wall.”
Asshole bosses who have had a brain-ectomy on top of a ball-ectomy are a big problem with policing today. But not all police bosses are assholes. One example of a good police boss was RUC Detective Superintendant Ian Phoenix, killed in the 1994 Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash. DS Phoenix skippered E4A, the RUC’s surveillance unit, which frequently worked with the SAS. On one such operation, an SAS Trooper named “Gaz” compromised the surveillance in order to stop a terrorist attack. The next day, in the briefing room, “Gaz” sat alone. No one else, E4A or SAS, wanted to be associated with the man who had blown months of work. In walked DS Phoenix, who said “What Gaz did was the right move. Under no circumstances could we have allowed that attack to happen.” All of a sudden, ‘Gaz’ was the most popular man in the room, receiving many comments of “Good call, Gaz!” DS Phoenix then declared “Yes it was a good call. Too bad no one else but Gaz had the balls to make it.” Nor was DS Phoenix the only good boss. Sergeant Tangye names a few, and no one on the NYPD/THEE RANT ever had anything bad to say about Captain Tom Walker of Fort Apache, in contrast to what they said about the Witkowitzes, Pulaski and Wicked Witch Jaffe.
Police forces the world over need more Ian Phoenixes, Tom Walkers, Chuck Guesses and fewer Julian Fantinos, Paulsons and Eric Adams at the top. Ian Phoenix is also mentioned, and was highly respected, by Sergeant McCallion. Here again, contrasts between Sergeant McCallion’s and Sergeant Tangye’s times in service are merited. Sergeant McCallion reports that many of his colleagues turned to drink to ease the strain. Sergeant Tangye recounts how one fellow Constable left the Service because of PTSD incurred from walking in on a lad who had just hanged himself. The stresses are there despite the decade, and the differences in the decades stand out. Sergeant McCallion recounts how, when one UDA hardman, Billy Dixon, tried to threaten him, he shoved his revolver barrel into the soft of Dixon’s chin and cocked the hammer back to single action, scaring Dixon shitless. This would be career-ending and worse for Sergeant Tangye and serving Constables/MOS. This development bodes ill for both the police and the public, including those hostile to police. After the Fermanagh “police academy” was bombed, Sergeant McCallion reports that, although shaken, his fellow recruits were determined not to allow the bombing to stop them. By contrast, Sergeant Tangye describes a situation wherein Constables/MOS feel no support, to the extent that “no one stays in the same force for long.”
Thos who do not like police will rejoice at this—not appreciating that the bodycam era is deleterious to them as well. Sergeant McCallion recounts how, after he nicked one robber, that robber begged him to speak up for him in court, saying that he was trying to move out of the area and go clean. Sergeant McCallion did speak up for this unwilling associate of a bigger crew in court, and the man received a suspended sentence, and was allowed to reform his life. Could Sergeant McCallion have done this with a bodycam? No. Doing so would be considered as something along the lines of “failure to take police action” and recorded. Sergeant McCallion and John Chambers recount how, as youths, they, due to the extremity of their poverty, were involved in unofficial supply chain management. Sergeant McCallion recounts how the Glasgow police would simply give him a smack on the head and then told him “Don’t do this again!” Mr. Chambers recalls how the RUC knocked on his door to retrieve the supplies, having been tipped off by the Army, and then simply telling him to not do this again. Would this be possible in the bodycam era? Again, no. This would be construed as “failure to take police action,” and the Constables in charge would have no choice other than hauling in Messers McCallion and Chambers, booking them and giving them criminal records.
That is the downside of bodycams which those who do not like the police fail to understand. Bodycams practically eliminate a Constable/MOS’s discretion and ensure that offences so petty that, before the bodycam era, they would have been dismissed with just a warning are now automatically and irrevocably translated into a criminal record for life.
This is already even longer than I thought it would be, so I will try to keep it to only a few more points. Let me start with a few more words on Sergeant McCallion and Sergeant Tangye and Section Officer Smith. Only in Sergeant McCallion’s case are there enough Constables/MOS (500 at one funeral) to do the job. Section Officer Smith reports that one of the reason PATU was a flawed concept was that there were never enough Section Officers to have one PATU stick consistently patrol together over time. Likewise, Sergeant Tangye details how threatened suicides force a Constable to watch over the threatening person, reducing those available. This is consistent with Captain Walker’s report that Fort Apache, the 41, had a population of 171,000, with only 367 MOS to police the area. Speaking of policing, this brings up the ostensibly contradictory nature of Sergeant McCallion. He says in one place that police are can only work with the consent of the people, and that hardcore Loyalist areas were only patrolled and not policed. In the same chapter, he cheers when he hears of UDA hardman Billy Dixon’s death, and sends a bottle of champagne to the team that neutralised the SFIRA bomber who mortared the “police academy” in Fermanagh. After he left the police, Sergeant McCallion willingly became a barrister (“trial lawyer” in American) and he successfully brought several cases against Mainland police departments for wrongful prosecution. Sergeant McCallion shows very clearly that, even as individuals, we are neither black nor white, that we are never consistent.
Sergeant Tangye has a chapter on Snitches and Stitches and another one on gangs. He acknowledges that social support (schools, community centres) are necessary, but he also says that cooperation from the community is necessary. On a related note, on his chapter on dealing with the machete-wielder, he reports that that community lied to him when he questioned them about the skell in question. This is consistent with David Simon’s Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, as well as with Sergeant McCallion and Mr. Chambers’ books wherein cooperating with the police was a non-no in these communities. The problem explicitly highlighted by Sergeant Tangye and described in the other books is an ancient one. The Romans had the same problems with the Cherusci east of the Rhine, the Cherusci leader Segestes cooperating with them, the Cherusci leader Arminius slaughtering them. The Teutonic Knights had the same problem with the Prussians (the REAL Prussians, who were Balts, as opposed to “Prussians” like Frederick the Great, Bismarck and the Great General Staff who were merely Germans who settled in the lands of the long-extinct REAL Prussians) who would sometimes ally with them against warring tribes, then turn on them. One solution the Romans and the Teutonic Knights both used with varying degrees of success was the Rhodesian solution of “turned terrs,” of recruiting friendly natives to inform on and fight against the hostile natives, much as the US Government did with the Pawnees, Shoshone and Crow against the Cheyenne, Arapahoe and Sioux. This had some success in Rhodesia and the other aforementioned contexts, but would be hard to implement in today’s Britain and North America.
Another solution is found in the contrast between Sergeant McCallion and Mr. Chambers’ books and upbringings. As I said, both Sergeant McCallion and Mr. Chambers were unofficially in the supply chain management business as youths due to the extremity of their poverty. Sergeant McCallion got out of it before he was seriously nicked. Mr. Chambers did not. One other clear difference between the two men is as follows. Mr. Chambers reports that none of his teachers took the slightest interest in him, which made him view his prospects even more dimly. Sergeant McCallion, by contrast, had one history teacher who took him under his wing and inspired him to be better.
Teachers, in other words, MATTER. That is why they merit the highest pay possible and the most support available. Teachers are as much a part of the solution to today’s tensions as are police. Like police, teachers need to have the shackles removed from them. When I was a wean, discipline was a thing in school. I was smacked twice (collar undone, smiling.) Far from causing “long –lasting trauma,” the experience of being smacked twice, reinforced by being screamed at daily for five days a week for ten months of the year from the ages of six to seventeen, inspired in me a studiousness and a penchant for obedience that I would not otherwise have had, the latter translating into being law-abiding as a teen and adult.
A couple of other things about Sergeant Tangye. He is an exceptional human being. You feel his pain as he recounts attending an accident wherein an elderly couple died, and when he recounts his using the example of a dead girl he saw in his programmes against drunk/drink driving. Yet, he is also exceptionally resilient in that he does not dwell on bad memories, on sad memories of those he lost, and he is able to remember only the good things. He also talks about road accidents and how difficult it is to preserve a crime scene, which is reminiscent of the Baltimore Homicide proverb from Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, “Your victim only dies once, but your crime scene dies a million deaths.”
Lastly, and importantly, in his chapter on spit hoods, he mentions, offhandedly, something that shows that the Devon and Cornwall Police’s training is superior to that of Derrick Chauvin’s department. The context is a prisoner who attempted suicide. Sergeant Tangye and fellow Constables are trying to control him while he is spitting, hence the call for spit hoods. While they are attempting to control the prisoner, however, Sergeant Tangye says that neither he nor his fellow Constables ever try to get on top of the prisoner because they are aware that positional asphyxia could result. Derrick Chauvin clearly did not know this.
As a result, one suggestion for improvement for North American police forces would be that they receive exactly the same level of training as Devon and Cornwall’s ARV Constables and France’s GIGN, RAID and BRIs. This would cost the Mayor more money, which would mean there would be less money for the bosses to have nice clean white shirts and all kinds of gold braid on their uniforms. However, in the end, it would be worth the tradeoff of having fewer lawsuits resulting from positional asphyxia and other avoidable incidents.
Now, I cannot let this “review,” such as it is, of Sergeant Tangye’s book go without at least a couple of criticisms since I am not a hagiographer. One criticism relates to an early chapter, wherein then young Master Tangye demonstrates an aptitude for practical chemistry and field expedient thermodynamics that would have made him a natural for any EOD unit. Problem is, he did not title that chapter “Practical Chemistry and Field Expedient Thermodynamics.” Rather, he titled it somewhat unwisely.
Secondly, Sergeant Tangye mentions the Heckler&Koch G36 Rifle, but does not offer his opinion on it. Perhaps this is because of the Official Secrets Act. However, I bring up the G36 for the following reason. Until 2018 , it was the official rifle of France’s Gendarmerie and National Police. In 2018, all of a sudden, the Ministry of Interior decided that the G36 was, for reasons best known to them, no longer useful, just as the Ministry of the Armies suddenly determined at the same time that the FAMAS rifle was no longer useful. The National Police and the military received the Heckler&Koch 416 (an overengineered M-16 without the grip on top) as a replacement, while the Gendarmerie chose the Czech CZ Rifle. The problem with the H&K 416, as reported by Raids`Jean-Marc Tanguy is that the magazine keeps falling out for no apparent reason. For this reason, it would have been helpful to have Sergeant Tangye`s insights regarding the continued serviceability of the G36. If Sergeant Tangye had said that, at the time of his retirement, there was nothing wrong with the G36, this would suggest that the French Ministries of the Interior and of the Armies took considerations other than practical in declaring that the eternally magazine-dropping H&K 416 was suddenly an absolute necessity.
Now, I want to close with a couple of further book recommendations for police as well as for people who do not like the police. These books are John Chambers`A Belfast Child, Eamon Collins`Killing Rage and Sergeant Harry McCallion`s Killing Zone. I have written extensively in this entry about the first and the last books. They speak of men who grew up on the opposite side of the law. Collins did not grow up on the opposite side of the law. He became a Customs Officer, as well as a member of SFIRA, in which capacity he was responsible for the murder of his fellow Customs Officer Ivan Toombs because Mr. Toombs was of the wrong religion. For that reason, I recommend Collins` with a far greater degree of unease than I recommend the other books. Neither Mr. Chambers nor Sergeant McCallion are cop killers. Eamon Collins was. However, Collins did repent of his murder enough to cooperate with the law and turn against SFIRA, and, in his book, he openly condemns this murder gang. Also, unlike Mr. Chambers and Sergeant McCallion, Mr. Collins is no longer alive. He was murdered. His exact murderers have never been identified but, given where he lived at the time of his murder, it is not difficult to hypothesise who these murderers are.
For police these three books give some insight as to what it is like to be on the other side of the law. For those who do not like police, these three books show that one can simultaneously not like the police while, even though it may only come eventually as in the Collins case, still end up being on the right side of the law. Just because one has bad experiences with police, that does not mean one must automatically join, or stay with, a criminal organisation.