The Police Ombudsman has found that a police officer acted justifiably when she fired a shot at a man who was threatening officers with a machete in Portadown.
The shot missed and the bullet lodged itself in the living room wall of a house.
The incident happened in the Obins Avenue area of Portadown on 25 November 2010.
Use of live fire was justified given the immediate and serious threat to officers.
After investigating the circumstances, the Police Ombudsman recognised the distress caused to the occupants of the house, but concluded that the use of live fire was justified given the immediate and serious threat to officers.
All discharges of police firearms in Northern Ireland are independently investigated by the Police Ombudsman. During their enquiries, Police Ombudsman investigators interviewed police and civilian witnesses and reviewed relevant police documents and radio transmissions.
The scene of the incident was mapped, photographed and forensically examined, and the officer’s gun and ammunition were seized.
When interviewed, the woman who had initially been threatened with the machete said that at about 8.30pm two men, who were at her house and had been drinking heavily, became aggressive towards her. She said she was threatened with the machete and told to hand over items of jewellery she was wearing.
The woman managed to escape from the house and made her way to a local business, where a 999 call was made to police.
The men’s descriptions were circulated on police radio and a police patrol spotted two suspects running into an alleyway between Obins Drive and Obins Avenue.
Three officers got out of their vehicle and followed the men, one of whom they noticed had a machete, into the alleyway.
Man waved machete in the air and scraped it off a chain fence as he approached officers.
They ordered the men to stop and to drop the machete, but the man with the weapon (Man A) instead approached the officers. The officers, who were all female, said Man A was acting extremely aggressively and waving the knife in the air. At one point he scraped it off a chain fence.
All three officers drew their guns and warned him to drop the weapon or they would shoot. He continued to move towards them thrusting the weapon forward as he did so.
A fourth officer who arrived on the scene also drew his weapon. A civilian witness who followed the officers into the alleyway said he had seen a man with a machete pacing about with the weapon, which he hit against a wall. He said the man had been shouting: “Shoot me.”
If you don't shoot me I'm going to kill you.
The officer who fired the shot (Officer 1) said she did so after the man shouted “F**king shoot me. If you don’t f**king shoot me I’m going to kill you.”
Officer 1 believed Man A was talking directly to her. She said she feared for her life and fired a single shot when he lunged at her with the machete. She estimated he was about six feet from her at the time, a figure corroborated by one of the other officers at the scene, although another officer and the civilian witness estimated the distance to be closer to 20 feet.
Householder left shaken after bullet lodged in living room wall.
The round missed its target and passed through the living room window of a house, before lodging in a wall. The occupants were later interviewed by Police Ombudsman investigators, and although shaken by the incident, were not physically harmed.
Man A and the man who had been with him were subsequently arrested. Both were later interviewed as part of the Police Ombudsman’s investigation. Man A said he had put the machete down when asked to and was unaware that a shot had been fired until he was told by a doctor after the incident. Both men said they had been intoxicated at the time.
Officer 1 said she fired the shot as she believed she had no other option. She judged that she could not have used CS Spray or her baton given the distance between her and Man A, and said that to have engaged in close combat would have placed her within range of the machete.
She added that she was not armed with a Taser and Man A had failed to comply with repeated warnings to drop the weapon. She could not explain how the shot missed as she had fired at Man A’s chest area with the intention of hitting him.
Enquiries established that Officer 1 was properly trained and authorised to carry the weapon, which was found to be in full working order.
Use of live fire was officers last remaining option.
At the conclusion of the Police Ombudsman’s investigation, a report was forwarded to the Public Prosecution Service, which directed that Officer 1 should not face prosecution in relation to the discharge of the firearm.
Having also reviewed the evidence, the Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, concluded that no disciplinary action should be taken against the officer.
He noted that Man A had failed to comply with her instructions and posed an immediate threat. He also acknowledged that Officer 1 had considered other options and had fired a shot only when she believed it was the last remaining course of action open to her.