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| Azelle Rodney inquiry: Firearms officer had killed before | Azelle Rodney inquiry: Firearms officer had killed before |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| A police officer who killed a man in north-west London seven years ago had shot two other people dead earlier in his career, an inquiry has heard. | A police officer who killed a man in north-west London seven years ago had shot two other people dead earlier in his career, an inquiry has heard. |
| Azelle Rodney, 24, was shot six times in Edgware after the car he was in was stopped on 30 April 2005. | |
| Armed police claimed they feared the occupants were carrying machine guns so they could rob a Colombian drugs gang. | |
| As they surrounded the vehicle, a specialist firearms officer identified only as E7, opened fire on Mr Rodney. | As they surrounded the vehicle, a specialist firearms officer identified only as E7, opened fire on Mr Rodney. |
| Lawfully killed | Lawfully killed |
| After Mr Rodney was shot, detectives found three guns in the car and the other two occupants, Frank Graham and Wesley Lovell, were subsequently jailed for possession of firearms. | After Mr Rodney was shot, detectives found three guns in the car and the other two occupants, Frank Graham and Wesley Lovell, were subsequently jailed for possession of firearms. |
| The inquiry into Mr Rodney's death heard that E7 had shot two men and injured a further two during an incident in the 1980s. | The inquiry into Mr Rodney's death heard that E7 had shot two men and injured a further two during an incident in the 1980s. |
| Inquests into the men's deaths later found they had been lawfully killed and the officer received a commendation from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner for his conduct. | Inquests into the men's deaths later found they had been lawfully killed and the officer received a commendation from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner for his conduct. |
| The two injured men were later tried and jailed. | The two injured men were later tried and jailed. |
| An inquiry is being held into Mr Rodney's death instead of an inquest because of sensitive information that would have to be withheld from a coroner. | An inquiry is being held into Mr Rodney's death instead of an inquest because of sensitive information that would have to be withheld from a coroner. |
| Ballistic shield | |
| On the day Mr Rodney was killed, E7 said he was concerned that the three men in the car might have a sub-machine gun. | |
| The VW Golf they were in had been under surveillance for several hours before it was brought to a stop. | |
| E7 opened fire within a second of pulling up beside the car. | |
| He said the officers feared the gang had "a fairly compact weapon that could fire in excess of 1,000 rounds a minute, that's 18 rounds per second". | |
| "The reality is that these people would be untrained, and actually an untrained person with a high-capacity, high-repetition sub-machine gun is more dangerous than a trained person," he said. | |
| He tried putting a ballistic shield in the car he was using, but it blocked access to the door handle. | |
| When asked why he had done this, he said: "I was the person that was going to be right next to someone with a sub-machine gun. | |
| "It wasn't the first time that we had confronted dangerous people armed with that type of weaponry. | |
| "This was high on the scale of danger but it was certainly no more dangerous than other operations that we'd carried out over the years." | |
| The hearing was told that E7 received a commander's commendation in the 1990s after an armed stand-off with a gunman in a minicab office. | |
| In 2004, the Independent Police Complaints Commission recommended that E7 was given "words of advice" after an armed operation. | |
| It was claimed that he left a police car without permission during the operation to test his radio and buy coffee. | |
| E7 said his superiors thought it was "a storm in a teacup" and did not give him advice. | |
| A man was killed during the operation but E7 was not directly involved. | |
| He said: "Nothing I did delayed us getting to the scene at all." |