Talk:List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom

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Single deaths should be sorted[edit]

The List of Single deaths is mixed up not sorted,

Single deaths

It should be sorted preferably by the dates

Is there a list of Law Enforcement Officers killed by people in the UK? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.53.68 (talk) 16:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


John Shorthouse, aged 5 (shot dead by police in the West midlands in 1985) is not on this list. I don't have enough details to edit the list myself. Smudge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.39.47.133 (talk) 23:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cynthia Jarrett[edit]

This article is called List of people killed by law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom. It includes Cynthia Jarrett, but reading the article mentioning her, she died from a stroke during a police search of her home. Surely this is not classed as "killed by law enforcement officers"? Including her in this list just seems inflammatory.

Also, as previously mentioned, is there a list of murdered Police Officers? If not then this article seems biased by nature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.150.2.4 (talk) 02:17, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A list of Police Officers killed in action is a good idea, but the lack of such a list is a problem of editor lazyness, not a problem of this article.--Cerejota (talk) 10:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The opening sentence states that this is a list of people "who died directly or indirectly because of the actions of law enforcement officers, regardless of the manner of death". It is clear that she did indeed die, probably indirectly, because of the actions of the police, so she should be included. RolandR (talk) 12:28, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some information is missing[edit]

The Wikipedia page about the RUC says this, of the RUC during “The Troubles”: "In the same period, the RUC killed 55 people, 28 of whom were civilians."

- I do not see 55 names of people killed by the RUC listed in the article.


The Wikipedia article about the Black and Tans mentions the death of Tomas Mac Curtain.

"For instance, Tomás Mac Curtain, the Mayor of Cork, was assassinated in March 1920 by local RIC men"

He is not listed in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.228.219.158 (talk) 12:23, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


This list is woefully inadequate - the IPCC have published the actual statistics and ti is considerably higher than this: https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/research_stats/Deaths_Report_1314.pdf - The guardian has used the details on the wiki page to report the stats but please can people use the correct data — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.80.203.208 (talk) 09:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is a work in progress and is never complete, you are welcome to add entries with a reliable reference to the artice, note that most of the cases in the IPCC report dont meet the criteria to be listed here, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 11:22, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Troubling criteria[edit]

I note that the introduction states that it lists deaths of those, "who died directly or indirectly because of the actions of law enforcement officers, regardless of the manner of death, duty status of the officers, or if they acted officially or unofficially." This seems a ridiculously broad brush without any indication even of broad categories, listing those deliberately shot in firearms operations with those murdered by terrorists who also happened to be police officers. This is especially problematic given so many red-linked or unlinked individuals, so readers will be unaware of individual circumstances.

Sarah Everard presents an interesting point further to those RUC incidents, since this broad criteria does include her - and the perpetrator did abuse their position as an officer - but this list doesn't exactly make it clear that her death was entirely disconnected from any legitimate policing. I am not saying other killings included were justified, however I think it's fair to say they occured as part of a "genuine" police response (even if the officer was technically off-duty) to a call or similar. Whilst the possession of a legitimate warrent card does of course complicate things, she was in effect killed by someone impersonating an officer - which would be an entirely different list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zander Brown (talk • contribs) 19:58, 11 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why not add a new category? It seems too specific to be its own list (only ~10 cases max) but at the same time if someone wanted that information they would look for it here. In this new category we could put Sarah Everard, Ruth Fuerst, Federick Buruns, Paddy Loughran, Pat McBride, and Michael O’Dwyer for a start. Odysseushogfather (talk) 15:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]


I would think at the very least that the page needs dividing into sections of types circumstances of deaths, with some further indication of the role of the person being shot (e.g. as armed robber in the furtherance of crime, as in the case of Nunes and Markland). Nick Cooper (talk) 17:21, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly adding a sentence on the circumstances would add to the the article, particularly as most do not have related articles to explain. I am not sure about dividing it into sections yet but I am not against the idea. MilborneOne (talk) 07:32, 9 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that there is an issue with the scope of this article. I don't think "Killed by police" is a good way to describe "died of unrelated cause after being arrested" - Leroy Junior Medford and Nuno Cardoso being two examples . Either it should be renamed "Notable deaths involving police" or refined to persons actually killed by police. MegaPowerTape (talk) 17:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Killings by" vs "deaths following police contact"[edit]

VoluntarySlave has twice today attempted to add text suggesting variations to the effect that as the list is incomplete it, "does not give an accurate count of the number of people killed by law enforcement officers," and cites the IPCC page/report on Deaths during or following police contact. This is highly misleading because there is a huge difference between deaths caused by the actions of LEOs - which is the scope of this page - and deaths for whatever reason following any sort of contact with LEOs. The IPCC figures for 2014/15 do indeed show a high total of 141, but 69 are suicides, and 13 road traffic accidents. There was only one fatal shooting. There were 17 "deaths in or following police custody," of which ten were where restraint had been used, and seven where there was, "no restraint or use of force." The remaining 41 were "Other deaths following police contact" which were investigated by the IPCC.

By definition the vast bulk of these deaths fall outside the remit of this page, with the exception of fatal shootings (for 2014/15 the single death - Dean Joseph in September 2014 - is listed), and perhaps some of in police custody, but it would very much depend on specific circumstances that would need to be discussed here first. Nick Cooper (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The difference between the IPCC has already been covered if VoluntarySlave reads the comments on this page and notes the inclusion criteria are not the same. MilborneOne (talk) 20:54, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Structure[edit]

Hi, I moved post-2000 incidents to a table structure to make it more readable. When I have time, I will do the rest. I haven't change any content (at least not on purpose) cannywizard (talk) 14:07, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've just converted the 1990s into a table (I didn't include the police force though). LondonBrit (talk) 14:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding "description" Column[edit]

Adding a brief description about the Killing would be wise, it would be useful to the reader so they can gain a brief understanding of what happened and what the killing was deemed to be. Simmilar to the US list List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United StatesBSOleader (talk) 09:45, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Duggan clean up[edit]

I have cleaned up the section of Mark Duggan as it previously contained an excessive amount of one sided information about criticism of the incident and it failed to mention that the shooting was ruled lawful by a jury. C. 22468 Talk to me 10:42, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect police forces[edit]

Some of the police forces are obviously incorrect. For example, Patrick O'Donnel was shot in London, so clearly it wouldn't be Greater Manchester Police. Sure enough, when I checked and article about the shooting, it was the Metropolitan Police. The source given is the Daily Mail (not a reliable source), which doesn't even mention Patrick O'Donnel. Here is an article from the Guardian which shows that it was the Met: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/18/ukcrime.ukguns — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.249.220 (talk) 09:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, I corrected an error whereby the Met have been incorrectly identified as the force directly involved in the killing, but in reality it was the City of London. Slightly less extreme (both being London forces), but definitely something to watch for and cite. 07Alpha55 (talk) 13:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Ireland incidents[edit]

The recently added incidents from the Troubles certainly merit inclusion somewhere, but I'm not sure this list is the best place. They tend to overwhelm the relatively rare incidents in England and Scotland (I can't see any entries from Wales). The rarity of those incidents is part of what makes them notable, whereas the frequency of incidents in NI underlines the controversial nature of policing during the Troubles. I would suggest creating a separate list for incidents during the Troubles, which could also include killings by military personnel, including the many dubious incidents involving the SAS and the IRA (which is worth an article in itself). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:21, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I will add a template which suggests the article be split into separate Northern Ireland and England, Scotland and Wales articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LondonBrit (talk • contribs) 10:50, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Split proposal[edit]

It seems no discussion has been started despite a split template being placed on this article, the proposal is to split this article into 2 articles, one for Great Britain and one for Northern Ireland. I support this as the reason many people may come to this article will be to look at killings in the UK, and may find that the Northern Ireland ones are not relevant to what they are looking for. I also feel a separate list would allow for better explanation of the troubles period in Northern Ireland, currently a reader of this list could be confused by seeing so many killings in Northern Ireland.Theprussian (talk) 12:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and support the split proposal for the reasons I outlined two sections above. The killings during the Troubles are a very different kettle of fish to the shootings of armed robbers and other deaths involving civilian police in GB. A dedicated list for NI would also allow it to be scoped to include killings by the military, which would be out of scope for this list but very relevant to one for NI. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:25, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The article doesn't meet the criteria for splitting: it's not overly long, and no part of it is irrelevant or disproportionate.
This is a list of killings by police in the UK, and Northern Ireland is part of the UK, so it's most definitely relevant.
Counting the single killings, there are about 60 from NI and 80 from Britain. There are actually more from London than NI.
The reason a lot are from NI is because it has the UK's only armed police force, and because a conflict happened there. We can't rewrite history and we shouldn't split an article to make the numbers 'balanced'. Shifting the NI killings into another article gives a false impression, implies that they're all different to the killings in Britain, and implies they aren't as notable. Many of the NI killings were conflict-related, but plenty were killed in ordinary car thefts and robberies. A reader needn't become confused by seeing so many killings in NI, as the article explains why this is so. ~Asarlaí 22:45, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Although it's tempting, I feel that splitting the NI content out will cause more problems that it "solves." As Asarlaí says, some of the NI deaths are not related to the Troubles, and by the same token whilst most are, there are others that are more of a grey area.
I think we need to work towards properly formatting the pre-1990s deaths, and would also favour not having them, split by decades, as they currently are. I know this will result in a large table, but it will aid anyone who might wish to sort by location, force, etc. I also think we need to amalgamate the multiple death incidents with the individuals for the same reason. Nick Cooper (talk) 10:56, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So how about a list of deaths related to the Troubles? The scope of this list wouldn't cover killings by special forces, regular army, and other non-police units but those are well worth listing somewhere. (In fact I've been meaning to write something about the SAS's dubious activities in NI for years). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:47, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You've "been meaning to write something about the SAS's dubious activities in NI"? What about their more positive actions, including saving lives and stopping terrorism? Perhaps you might reflect on whether or not you would be the best person to write such an article, as your sentence suggests a strong POV on your part. --82.21.97.70 (talk) 03:52, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I completely disagree with the idea of splitting this article up, except to suggest that separate articles could be warranted for each of the individual countries of the UK - one for Scotland, one for England and one for Wales (or one for England & Wales combined). I have no doubt that there is already at least one article for Northern Ireland on the subject. To be clear, the suggestion appears to be that Wikipedia should specifically exclude police actions taken in Northern Ireland from the UK total, and then discuss incidents on a purely geographical level. I'm sure that most atricles on this subject, and on most other subjects, deal with a country-by-coutry categorisation. There is undoubtedly no exclusion of the statistics for Hawaii or even Alaska in USA-related subjects, merely because they are geogaphically distinct.

There is no confusion: the article deals with killings by law enforcement in the UK, and Northern Ireland is part of the UK. While there have been exceptional circumstances in Northern Ireland, I would argue a couple of points. Firstly, as I've already said, Northern Ireland is part of the UK. There is no need to split the article, but the article should (and does) suggest that a higher amount of deaths have happened as a result of the Troubles. Secondly, the Troubles weren't confined to Northern Ireland, and police officers from other parts of the UK have taken actions against suspected terrorists in relation to the Troubles, particularly in England. Thirdly, police forces throughout the UK have also had to tackle international terrorism, yet there is no call here to exclude terrorist incidents in the likes of London and Glasgow from the article. There are also already a plethora of articles about the Troubles. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to make sure a decent number of relevant articles are linked in the see also section.

Finally, a point of comparison. The last time I read the article on the BSE crisis in the UK, it didn't exclude Northern Ireland. This is despite the fact that Northern Ireland had the situation under much better control, due to earlier adoption of computerised records of cattle. The article pointed this out. In fact, Northern Irish politicians and the farming community made a special plea that Northern Irish beef should be treated differently because of this, but the idea was rejected for some time because the numbers from Northern Ireland at the time helped make the whole of the UK a little better. --82.21.97.70 (talk) 03:49, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree with split. Even if one believed that the IRA were somehow ‘different’, its operatives were present in many places, and killed in some of them. JDAWiseman (talk) 17:29, 5 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@JDAWiseman: The issue is not whether the IRA were different, but that the police are and were different. (Please ping me if you respond to this comment) Thryduulf (talk) 16:33, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I still feel quite strongly that this should be split, either geographically (one list for NI, one for GB) or topically (one for Troubles-related deaths, one for others) because they're very different animals. Killings by a highly militarised police force during an active insurgency have very little in common with killings done in the course of normal civilian law enforcement. For example, a shooting of an armed robber holding a bank at gunpoint could happen almost anywhere, whereas summary executions by Ulster Special Constables are largely unique to the political situation in (Northern) Ireland and are not treated the same way by journalists or academics. A Troubles list could also be expanded to include killings by the military (eg the 1972 Bloody Sunday and Loughgall) and is clearly notable as a topic for a standalone list. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:10, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's obvious that the killings have something quite important in common: somebody has been killed. Splitting the article by causes of death doesn't make much sense when it doesn't consider them at any other part.
    Summary executions by the B-Specials (who were dissolved before the Troubles began) are not the most common aspect of police killings in Northern Ireland (I counted ten instances in the article of Special Constabulary action resulting in deaths, compared with the fifty-six Troubles-era killings mentioned at the top of the article).
    Additionally: if we were to split these into very different 'animals,' then we would have to pick across every case of a killing in the UK between 1800 and present to work out which animal each is.
    To split this on a geographical level of NI/GB seems absurd to me. Northern Ireland's deaths happened because of a policy and attitude difference, yes, but every Police force mentioned will have different policies- lawfulness of killings determined in the Scottish courts will differ from English, Welsh, or Northern Irish courts by way of the option of 'Not proven,' and one cannot even fall back on the defence that this does not constitue a large number of Scottish cases, because by the use of 'Not Proven', 'Not Guilty' does not mean the same in Scotland as in the rest of the UK. This seems an even more relevant difference than merely that there were an increased number of deaths.
    To split it on a temporal level (which would be my preferred option if a split does go ahead) would obscure much of the data you're trying to segregate (i.e. killings during the 'course of normal civilian law enforcement'- can we say that a bank robber getting shot during the Troubles was or wasn't connected with the Troubles itself?), while not being particularly useful.
    The split on topic, as outlined, seems impossible. Should we include B-Specials killings in this list if a split goes ahead because they aren't part of the Troubles topic, or exclude them because they are part of the 'conflict in Northern Ireland' topic? We would have to go through each Troubles-era killing across the UK with a fine-toothed comb and work out precisely what level of connection it shares to the Troubles, and if it meets some threshold decided by methods I can't guess, it would be exlcuded. This would fragment information more than it would clarify it, and your threshold would likely be unacceptable to just about everybody aside yourself.
    Additionally: expanding the potential NI police killings article to include military killings would cause exactly the same issue you are looking to solve here- those are definitely very different animals. The goals of the RUC and the goals of the British army were not equivalent. 88.110.183.233 (talk) 17:20, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support this proposed split per HJ Mitchell's reasoning, with preference for a geographic split as policing in Northern Ireland is fundamentally very different to policing in Great Britain. Not least because the police in Northern Ireland are routinely armed whereas routine arming is not only something that doesn't happen in GB it's something that is actively opposed. (Please ping me if you respond to this comment) Thryduulf (talk) 16:33, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ireland 1801 to 1922[edit]

Leading on from the discussion about Northern Ireland deaths above, it occurs to me that we do have a potential issue with deaths in Ireland between 1801 and 1922, whenR the whole island was part of the United Kingdom. Currently we have included two multiple killings and one single killing in this time period, all in what had yet to become Northern Ireland. I'm not sure we should be including these, unless we are including other deaths in Ireland between 1801 and 1922, and potentially thats a huge can of worms. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:26, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Ireland came into being in May 1921 and all of the incidents are after that date. I agree that we shouldn't include incidents from places which are no longer part of the UK, which is why I removed Bloody Sunday. ~Asarlaí 13:16, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, my mistake. I was going on the date the Anglo-Irish Treaty became effective, and overlooked NI being previously "defined" in 1921. Nick Cooper (talk) 20:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sarah Everard[edit]

The criteria states “regardless of the manner of death, duty status of the officers, or if they acted officially or unofficially” so surely she should be on this list right? Yennalylematernova (talk) 19:50, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. The point of the page is surely killings by police in the pursuit of their duty (either lawful, or unlawful). She was brutally murdered in an abuse of his documents and police uniform, but wasn't in the pursuit of his duties. easytiger (talk) 10:41, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would understand the wording officially or unofficially to mean in pursuit or not in pursuit of duty so should be included. ~~ Rhagfyr (talk) 23:13, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Article name change?[edit]

The number of people who die following police contact in the UK is far higher than this article suggests. The Independent Office for Police Conduct states that 19 people died in or following detention in police custody in 2020/21 alone. Given as the majority of cases in this article are shootings, should the articles name be changed to reflect this? for example, List of fatal shootings by law enforcement Officers in the UK. Baileybobfam (talk) 20:29, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All males?[edit]

Are there any females on this list? 86.184.193.206 (talk) 15:51, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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