More armed police after Paris terror attacks
More than 20 new firearms officers are to be recruited in the West Midlands in the wake of the Paris terrorist attack.
New Chief Constable Dave Thompson, who took up the top job this week, said the move would boost 'capabilities' in case of a similar attack in the region by terror groups such as the so-called Islamic State (also referred to as Daesh).
It marks an increase of more than 10 per cent in manpower as Mr Thompson admitted officers are faced with what he described as a 'new phenomenon' of individual unpredictable attacks.
The 47-year-old said: "I am satisfied we have a good level of armed policing here but the critical incidents such as Paris make you realise how quick things happen. The ability to deploy a good, capable concentration of firearms officers quickly is very important.
"There is work going on nationally looking at if we have the right numbers, but in advance of that work we have decided to start doing some of the recruiting now because we don't just want to wait for the national answer to come.
"The recruitment will be focussed on the armed response vehicles, those first responding to incidents.
"It is a fairly modest growth. We don't go into precise numbers but it is in the twenty-ish mark plus.
"I think that will give us a lot more capability to deal with multiple incidents. Why do I think it is important? Because I think unarmed policing in the UK is incredibly important and we want to preserve that but the challenge of Daesh means we need to be prepared that we can protect the public in the most extreme circumstances.
"Now, I think the security and intelligence work we do is the thing that protects us. But I would be very complacent if I did not think we had to think about scaling up. It is not because of a threat I fear today, tomorrow or what is going to happen immediately, but I do need to look a little further down the road because it takes a long time to train these officers."
Latest Home Office figures showed West Midlands Police had 148 specially-trained firearms officers who took part in 669 operations in 2014.
It takes four months for initial firearms training and recruits will be taken on from within the force.
There are almost 400 armed police officers across the region, with hundreds of others in neighbouring areas as back-up.
As well as the 148 in the West Midlands force itself, there are 136 in West Mercia, 67 in Staffordshire, and 35 in Warwickshire.
