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  1. #1
    DF Moderator EvilBoB's Avatar
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    Default Expensive and impractical - why UK police struggle to watch terror suspects

    Source : http://news.sky.com/story/expensive-...pects-10891865

    This gets me.. OK - so it takes up to 45 people to watch 1 suspect which is impractical but... if one person was keeping tabs on a number of people on the watch list I wonder how many incidents could be stopped/avoided. I'm sure that a change in routine would be easy to spot without 45 people doing 24 hour surveillance. Simple resources such as monitoring phones and just checking on the condition of the property and anything new that appears would help?

    Maybe I'm wrong but I think quoting the need for up to 45 people to watch 1 suspect is overkill. Bond didn't need that many people
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    DF VIP Member BertRoot's Avatar
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    Default Re: Expensive and impractical - why UK police struggle to watch terror suspects

    Utter bollocks. I smell a rather shit excuse. Just let anyone kill or maim us then. Human life is cheap after all.


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    DF VIP Member Over Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: Expensive and impractical - why UK police struggle to watch terror suspects

    Assuming they had 45 people watching Jean Charles de Menezes, it sounds like they probably needed at least twice the number to competently and safely carry out the job.

    Just read the article more closely and I have a feeling it is just a load of shite made up on the spot.

    So for example, lets say there is a day team and a night team of 15 people.

    I could be wrong, but I think it's a reasonable assumption not all of the 15 people would be doing the same task. Just a hypothetical example:

    7 visual surveillance officers, all trained in stuff like various devices like IR video cameras, facial recognition, etc. I suggested more than one, as they may need to put a few in various locations (e.g. front and back of house, on the left of the house and on the right of the house, and on the left and right turn on both the subsequent junctions in order to able to discreetly follow the target).

    1 officer as a supervisor locally overseeing the operation

    3 officers specialising in communications who may be listening in on phone calls, bugs attached to walls, inside the premises, etc.

    1 officer who actually plants the bugs

    3 drivers in order to be able to move the various people around as required.

    I could be talking complete shite, but I think it's a reasonable guess by a layman to explain why a team of 15 would be needed.

    So you have the day team and the night team, then you have the reserve team.

    They said officers may get exhausted or spotted, or maybe even removed from the operation for other reasons.

    So lets say the people in the AM and PM team who plant the bugs have to be removed from the operation.... using my hypothetical example we only have 1 bug planter in the reserve team. We have loads of spare drivers though, so shall we replace a bug planter with another bug planter on the PM shift, and for the AM shift replace a bug planter with a driver?

    As I said earlier I could be completely talking out of my arse, or it is possible the article is intentionally misleading or short on real details to avoid leaking sensitive information.

    But reading that article just sounds like a load of bull.

    Lets now ignore my hypothetical example and look at what the article suggests.

    Each team has half a dozen cars, a small van and a large van. So I make that 8 vehicles, so if you want to do the job without endangering everyone else on the roads, surely there must be a driver and someone actually watching so each team must consist of 16 (already more than 15). Surely each team must have more people who perform more highly specialised tasks.

    Again I could be wrong but to me this whole article seems more like propaganda rather than truthful and informative news.

    However I have a feeling this bit may be truthful (but shocking that they would be publishing such sensitive information):

    "But the cars will have hidden microphones and recorders and often something unusual, such as headlights with changeable configurations. If a target might think the distant headlights in his rear-view mirror have been following him for a while, the surveillance team can switch one off, so the suspect believes he now has a motorbike behind him."

    I know someone who was driving round and almost bumped into a car coming out of a junction in some backstreets at night time. Turned out the car was undercover police who pulled over my mate and tried to do him for dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention, etc. Luckily my mate owns a garage so is fairly clued up. He asked the coppers why they were driving in the dark at night time without any lights on, and why they did not stop at a stop line. Suddenly coppers got put into their place. However I find it interesting as I am not aware of any legislation that allows a car user to legally turn off one headlight intentionally, whether the driver is police or civilian.
    Last edited by Over Carl; 26th May 2017 at 09:28 PM.

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