Police 'Shot Suspect Six Times Within Second'
An inquiry hears details about the death of a man police believed was in a gang that carried out armed robberies on drug dealers.
Monday 3 September 2012 16:25, UK
An armed policeman 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 VW Golf in Edgware, north London.
The hearing into the death in April 2005 is the first ever public inquiry into a fatal police shooting. An inquiry is being held rather than an inquest because of sensitive areas of evidence that would have to remain secret from a coroner.
It was told that 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 on the Golf.
"Within less than a second of the car containing the officer coming to a halt, he opened fire with a carbine," he said.
"He fired eight shots rapidly. Of these, six shots hit Mr Rodney. He was killed more or less instantly."
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. Shots could be heard on the footage 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.
A Colt .45 calibre pistol that was incapable of firing was found, along with a Baikal pistol wrapped in a scarf that was loaded but which had its safety catch on.
The other gun found 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.
Explaining the background to the case, Mr Underwood told the hearing that in early April 2005 the then (HMCE) got intelligence about an armed gang that robbed drug dealers - which they believed included Mr Rodney.
They learned that the gang had a plan to rob some Colombian drug dealers in Edgware on April 5 and told the police, but the heist did not go ahead.