icScotland - Armed raid suspect 'shot six times'
icScotland logo
icScotland News Sport icHomes
Search icScotland for:
Today's UK news
News  UK  Today's UK news  Article

Armed raid suspect 'shot six times'

12:05, Sep 3 2012

 

An armed police officer shot a suspect six times within a second of pulling up beside the car he was in, an inquiry has heard.

Azelle Rodney, 24, was killed "instantly" when Met officers carried out a "hard stop" on a Volkswagen Golf in Edgware, north London, on April 30 2005.

Police thought the group in the car - Mr Rodney and two other men, Wesley Lovell and Frank Graham - were on their way to commit an armed robbery linked to drugs.

Ashley Underwood QC told the inquiry into Mr Rodney's death that the officer who shot him, known only as E7, was in the front passenger seat of an unmarked police car that stopped level with the driver's side back window of the Golf.

He said: "Within less than a second of the car containing the officer coming to a halt, he opened fire with a carbine. He fired eight shots rapidly. Of these, six shots hit Mr Rodney. He was killed more or less instantly."

An inquiry is being held into Mr Rodney's death instead of an inquest because of sensitive areas of evidence that would have to remain secret from a coroner. It is the first time that this kind of inquiry has been held to look into a police shooting.

Mr Underwood played a video recording of the hard stop captured by another officer, named as E12, which showed a convoy of unmarked police cars driving through residential streets. As the Golf was brought to a halt, shots could be heard but the shooting itself could not be seen.

Three guns were found in the car, but there are questions over exactly where they were at the time of the shooting, Mr Underwood said. When a ballistics expert came to the scene they found a Colt .45 calibre pistol on the driver's side of the back seat, partly covered by plastic. It was incapable of firing - work to get it functioning again after being deactivated had failed - and was not loaded, although three rounds of suitable ammunition were found in a plastic bag in the footwell.

There were two other guns in a rucksack in the back footwell - a Baikal pistol wrapped in a scarf that was loaded but its safety catch was on, and another that looked like a car key fob that was wrapped in a glove. It was loaded and the safety was off. Lovell and Graham were arrested and later admitted possession of firearms.

Mr Rodney's family left the courtroom, in the High Court Principal Registry of the Family Division, as distressing photographs were shown of the car after the shooting.

 
Nine-year-old boy admits burglary
Wall of flowers for slain soldier
Three arrested ahead of EDL march
Child abduction cases up by 81%
Travellers escape UK's cold spring
Two questioned over mid-air 'fight'
Tiger death zoo keeper 'broke rule'
Investigators probe jet emergency
Murder provokes backlash across UK
Man charged with child sex offences
MI5 'tried to recruit suspect'
Police on alert for EDL parade
Family tribute to murdered soldier
Two held in hospital gun alert
Zoo worker mauled by tiger dies
Man, 31, held in terror arrest
Warning flags on flagship projects
Fuel thieves close stretch of M-way
Man charged over Facebook comments
Government to close DVDs loophole
Top Top

Back Back

E-mail this article to a friend

Printable VersionPrintable version

 
News  UK  Today's UK news  Article
 


Copyright and Trade Mark Notice
© owned by or licensed to Scottish & Universal Newspapers Limited 2013.
icScotland™ is a trade mark of Scottish & Universal Newspapers Limited.
Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement before using this site.

 
Advertisements
 
Jobs in Scotland: