Former Detective Chief Superintendent of the Met Police, Kevin Hurley, has called for all officers to be armed following an attack in Hainault today.
Five people were treated for injuries in hospital and a 14-year-old boy has been killed, after a 36-year-old man attacked police and members of the public with a sword.
In a statement, Met Police Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe revealed that the suspect had been arrested on suspicion of murder, and is not speaking to officers.
Reacting to the incident on GB News, Kevin Hurley and former Scotland Yard Detective Peter Bleksley debated the need for all police officers to be armed, as Hurley claimed that the police are "paid to protect us".
Peter Bleksley has called for all police officers to be armed with tasers
PA / GB News
Bleksley called for officers to be armed with "tasers instead of firearms", as he argued that adding "100,000 firearms to the streets of Britain will not make it a safer place to live".
Hurley disagreed, and claimed that "every officer in the country should be equipped with a sidearm" like they are in "every other country in the world apart from Iceland and Norway".
Hurley explained: "This isn't about arming the police to protect them. This is giving them another tool to protect us.
"What I'm talking about is a discreet side arm on the hip of every officer, so that when someone is running amok, like the case in Nottingham, they can take decisive action."
Police officers attended the scene after five people were attacked with a sword
PA
Bleksley responded to Hurley's argument, and revealed that recent polling with the Met Police showed that the "majority of officers do not want to be routinely armed with firearms".
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Bleksley told GB News: "There is sadly a huge problem with regards to recruiting and retaining police officers these days, and whilst I can see the arguments in favour of arming every police officer, my contention is if we do, there are going to be a huge increase in the amount of occasions when firearms are discharged.
"I agree we need further rolling out of tasers, particularly to frontline response officers. I would like to see all officers armed with tasers, and I think there is a greater groundswell of police opinion and public opinion that would support that."
GB News host Tom Harwood highlighted that if the two police officers who were stabbed in the Hainault attack had a firearm on them, the incident "could have been over faster".
Bleksley responded: "Handing a firearm to each and every cop on the streets, I think is a manifestly catastrophic idea."
Kevin Hurley says we 'pay our police to protect us'
GB News
Throwing the argument back to Hurley, the former Detective argued: "We pay our police to protect us.
"And quite clearly, in incidents that have occurred all over the country, people are killed because unarmed officers respond.
"Whether that's the case of Cumbria, killing 12 people, the incidents at Borough Market where it took armed police to stop them, and so on."
Hurley concluded: "This is another classic example where a guy with a samurai sword ran amok, chopped up people and could have easily killed them. You need to have the first police officer on scene be able to take decisive action and stop them harming the public or killing them."