Talk:Specialist Firearms Command

'Dzm' police

Any idea what this is stands for? saw it on an armored truck, on a picture of the arrest of suspected bombers 29 jul 05. Truck is dark blue, back is completely rectangle, front was obscured but looks similar to ford F150 Adidas 15:12, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

The DZM is the ID code for the vehicle. All Met Police vehicles have them on the roof (for helicopters) and recent ones have them on both sides of the vehicles, usually towards the rear. They are usually 3 letters, though some are only 2. A very small number of vehicles will have a number instead of a letter code on the roof and sides. The truck is called a Jenkel. It is,obviously, armoured and used by firearms units for certain tasks. Sapient

Thank you very much Sapient! Adidas 15:33, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Berets

While the article implies the berets are no longer worn, there was a photo published in Metro on 2005-08-02 that showed two armed officers at Liverpool St Station, both wearing berets and dark blue shirts. I've seen a different photo recently of officers wearing berets, although I can't find any online. Zoganes 22:54, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

The clue is that this was at Liverpool St Station. The officers were from the City of London Police firearms unit, not the Metropolitan Police. --Sapient 06:38, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Change of name - now CO19

The Met Firearms Unit has moved from Specialist Operations (SO) to Central Operations (CO) and is now called CO19. This has not been a popular move, apparently... It will take a while for this to be established so I suggest we leave this page as SO19 for the moment. --Sapient 06:38, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

In the media senior officers are now referring to it as CO19 and the new name has been appearing in the newspapers. I've updated the article accordingly and will move it with appropriate redirects. The official websites are out of date, but if you don't believe me, have a look here, or here. Sapient 14:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Glock

I think the Glock model used is the 17 as the 22 is not in 9mm ? Can someone please clear this up ?? --139.168.204.172 09:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"The SFO teams are better equipped and trained than many national counter-terrorist teams"

Surely a bit biased? April 2007

May be true, but needs corroboration. Nick Cooper 09:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Exhibit B:

The ARV officers are all issued with the Glock 17 self-loading pistol in addition to an MP5 or an X26 Taser, one of our [emphasis added] current less-lethal options... In the 2006/07 financial year, the TST teams undertook over 280 deployments.

Sounds like an armed police officer has been writing about this (use of 1st person, exact details). Does this not suggest a conflict of interest when combined with the statement above? Naturally an AFO would be comfortable thinking that he was better equipped and trained than (for example) GSG-9,the SAS, Delta Force and other special ops units. Editus Reloaded 18:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Posted some of that section from a freedom of information act release infront of me. Will ammend. Caffine Junky

No one can make this wild sentance up without being in every single police counter terrorist unit in the world. Because if you havent how do you know one is better than the other if you havent been in it?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Police,Mad,Jack (talk • contribs) 13:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Equipment Used

The guns are covered, but what about other equipment? For example, does anyone know what sort of body armour they use?

ARV Number of deployed times

Under the ARV section it says "In their first year, they were actively deployed on 132 occasions. In 2006, they deployed 2,232 times in response to 11,725 calls to spontaneous firearms incidents." 2,232 seems rather high for 1 year in 1 city! This would make more sense if it was 2,232 times in total since 1991 (their first year) since it would mean roughly 150 per year. Since there is no source quoted for this statistic, I can't check whether it's true or just a typing misunderstanding. I recommend it be changed or removed completely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninj4 (talk • contribs) 13:52, 18 September 2007

The relevant CO19 page states that ARVs were first used in 1991, and that:

"The workload of these ARV's has increased dramatically since their inception. In their first year they were actively deployed on 132 occasions. In 1999, they deployed 1,440 times. 2000 this figure was 1,441. In 2001 it was 1,058 and 2002 2,490 times."

The figure of 2,232 in 2006 does not, therefore, seem out of step. Nick Cooper 17:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

RE: List of firearms issued

When I inserted the list of firearms issued to CO19, I did it in a list format so it could easily be read and more friendly to gain information from. As after all the weapons it has their individual classifications etc. This list is the same as another page, and an anon deleted the list and redirect it to the other page. However, I think this is wrong due to people wanting the information readily avaliable. Any comments/suggestion or general thoughts on the matter would be appreciated, many thanks. Yours, Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 11:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Firearms classification:

It may be an idea to observe more accurate weapon classification in future, the MP5 is not a semi-automatic carbine, it is a submachine gun, as it is chambered for handgun caliber ammunition.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.241.212.210 (talk) 20:13, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you are wrong. British police have designated the Heckler & Koch MP5 as a Carbine due to the British police MP5s being engineered to only fire semi-automatic, so without fully automatic this defeats the object of 'machine', so that is how it will be classified. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 20:16, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Semi-automatic doesn't mean it can't fire fully automatic. It means It can, as well as single round you just have to select the fire mode. It is designated a carbine due to it being small barrelled as carbines are. Just look up the sa80 a2 carbine, it was made so tank crews could use it instead of the longer sa80 a2 rifle, incidentally both of these are also semi-automatic94.172.135.224 (talk) 20:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The MPS use the MP5A2SF and the MP5A3SF which are both semi automatic only, all police forces in the UK use semi automatic weapons. the SA80 series of weapons are all select fire (except the L98A2) meaning they can fire in both automatic and semi automatic modes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.4.67 (talk) 09:51, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Met-police-logo.svg

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List of similar units

List is and will always be redundant to Category:Non-military counter-terrorist organizations. ninety:one 22:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Are they literally identical, or is the list in this article picking out the examples which have significantly similar roles? The category includes at least one pair from within the same country (Grupo Especial de Operaciones Federales (Argentina) and Grupo Especial Uno), with presumably one being closer to SFC than the other.

This does seem pretty WP:OR, though, at the moment. --McGeddon (talk) 17:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that we can compare other units to SFC, because what we have to remember is that SFC is not national, it is just within London's Met. Whereas some of these are national, for example ( I have bolded by input so it is easier to pick out):

• Royal Canadian Mounted Police ERT- Canada - From what I can learn from the article, it seems like this is a civilian body, rather than a national RCMP organisation.
• SWAT, United States of America - I can understand this being in the list, due to roles matching to an extent.
• Police Nationale RAID - France - Again I can understand this being listed, due to roles being the same to an extent, but this organisation is national, whereas CO19 is not.
• YAMAM, Israel - Some roles being the same, but I think it is national.
• Polizia di Stato NOCS - Italy - Same duties to an extent, but it is a national organisation.
• Nationella Insatsstyrkan - Sweden - Same duties to an extent, but again it is national.
• Policía Nacional GEO - Spain - Despite it being domestic law enforcement, it is also listed as "special forces", Although it is a national force it still does go abroad to help the military. For example, the GEO have been in Afghanistan and Iraq, SFC is not an SF unit, so would be wrong to list.

* Polícia de Segurança Pública GOE, Portugal - Same to an extent.

• Hong Kong Police Special Duties Unit - Hong Kong - It is listed as "special forces", and "paramilitary, of which the SFC is neither. Possibly the only thing they have in common is that neither unit is national.
• Singapore Police Force Special Tactics and Rescue (STAR) - National unit, some duties are the same as SFC.
• Emergency Response Unit, Garda Síochána - Ireland - Some duties are the same.

Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 18:13, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Police,Mad,Jack reverts

Resolved

 – Content restored, leading to basis of conversation ending. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 19:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC))

A belief that edits do not help the article is not sufficient to revert the edits. Please provide further contentful discussion please. I note fromt he history of this article that you have been involved in many reversion incidents. 80.65.245.221 (talk) 20:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

A reversion is not classed as an 'incident' in Wikipedia terms, any editor who does not agree with something can revert other editors, and can be reverted themselves. Regarding the message that you left on my talk page - "I believe that your existence doesn't provide any benefit to this planet; what're you going to do? 80.65.245.221 (talk) 20:04, 19 February 2009 (UTC)" please remember to be civil. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 20:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Please leave a descriptive edit summary, particularly if you're reverting the same material twice. What's the problem here? --McGeddon (talk) 00:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Police, Mad, Jack has a history of this sort of thing - see - User talk:80.177.190.147#Before taking Police, Mad, Jacks edits or comments at face value please read the notes below and elsewhere specifically he seems to think he owns a range of articles about the United Kingdon Police. He has been warned about this by admins on several occasions but keeps reverting to type. 80.177.190.147 (talk) 11:50, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Not at all, but of course you are welcome to think this. Once again I will explain, I reverted your edits because I did not agree with them (which any editor is free to do) this is the place to talk about that. I'm finished with this conversation, you win, include what you like on this page. After all, the bigger man always walks away! Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 14:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

That's fine, but you should explain why you're reverting something so that other editors can see what's going on. As you can see from the edit history, if you revert apparently innocent edits without explanation, people may well assume that you reverted them by accident, and revert them back.

And as you say yourself, please remember to be civil. The editor you were trying to revert is not the "smaller man" here. --McGeddon (talk) 15:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

One last thing - you yourself are not whiter than white, you left a very uncivil comment on my user talk page. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 14:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Please avoid using Racist terminology it is offensive and not appropriate to wikipedea - you will be reported if this recurs 86.16.54.32 (talk) 18:17, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh do stop trying to make something out of nothing, I was referring to this well worn saying. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 18:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

SO/CO19 in Popular Culture

I know that in the Daniel Silva novel 'The Secret Servant', the official cover story after Gabriel Allon and Mikhail were photographed at the end, was that they were operatives of the MPS's SO29. SO19 was also talked about a bit earlier in the book.L.J. Tibbs (talk) 17:44, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Infobox choice

My attention was drawn to the UK flag in the infobox, and I was wondering if that was appropriate if this is a London-based organization rather than a national organization. The infobox {{Infobox military unit}} might not be the right choice, though I'm not sure if {{Infobox law enforcement agency}} is suited to the subject. Reidgreg (talk) 15:58, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Twitter is not a reliable source

https://twitter.com/KyleGordonMPS/status/1063128149175820289

inasmuch as it a Police officer's account.

Sammartinlai (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Pending a more reliable source it is accurate however. The police officer in question the chief officer in charge of Firearms policing for London (amongst other things), which is verifiable. Bowchaser (talk) 12:09, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

No it is not. It doesn't meet [1]. It is not a verified account. Sammartinlai (talk) 06:44, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

That may be so, but that is the Chief Officer who is in charge of firearms policing in London and the name is still SCO19. If you look at @MPSonthestreet they are using the hashtag #SCO19 for a series of Tweets about the unit and did not challenge the Chief Officer confirming what it is. THE @MPSonthestreets is a verified account. Happy? Bowchaser (talk) 11:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Leave it at SCO19. That Commander's account is followed by Met verified accounts - it's clearly not fake, albeit not fitting into the reliable source guidance. 07Alpha55 (talk) 22:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Read up Wikipedia guidelines Sammartinlai (talk) 03:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

My own twitter account is followed by several verified acccounts so should use it on Wikipedia? Your argument does not stand. Sammartinlai (talk) 03:08, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Regardless of the Chiefs account being verified or not, the @MPSonthestreets account (which is verified) is clearly continuing to use "SCO19" in its tweets. Common sense has to come into this at some point! Bowchaser (talk) 09:07, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I have now removed the previous WP:TWITTER source and added a FOI response which does indeed confirm that the MPS uses SCO19 as the public name of the unit. I hope this resolves this controversy. John^talk 00:47, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks. Bowchaser (talk) 11:11, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

SCO19 becoming MO19

SCO19 as a whole is undergoing a rename to MO19 which seems to include divisions like Specialist and Organised Crime Unit (SOCU). However, the change is reportedly mostly internal so should this page be updated accordingly? ThatOneGuy000 (talk) 17:20, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

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Four tiers?

The article states that there are four tiers of armed officers, then goes on to describe only two; armed response vehicles and counter-terrorist officers. Where are the other two? Or do the three different roles in armed response vehicles count as separate tiers? — The Anome (talk) 11:09, 23 September 2023 (UTC)