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I've now read every comment in this thread and have not seen a single answer to the question: what happens in Europe if someone calls the police to report an ac

I've now read every comment in this thread and have not seen a single answer to the question: what happens in Europe if someone calls the police to report an active shooter incident? Can someone please answer this question in good faith? Everyone in this thread seems to be treating this question as an accusation.

vages 5y ago
I can’t answer for Europe as a whole, because European police is not federalised or centralised in any way. There is a multilateral Europol. My guess is that in countries with a recent history of war but now a more stable state (some Eastern European countries) you would probably get a quicker response. In Western European countries, there would probably be a long response time. In Norway we have had two terrorist attacks for the last ten years (both by right wingers, one aimed at the Social Democratic Party youth convention and the second at a mosque), and in both cases police were too slow to respond. This is based on nothing other than my gut feeling.
srcreigh 5y ago
This was shared 5 hours ago aka ~1:30–3:30am in Europe
londgine 5y ago
this is the first example that I can think of > At 12.03 p.m., a 112-distress call reached Halle fire-emergency HQ; one minute later, police were informed.[24] At 2.40 p.m., federal police quick responders BFE+ arrived in the city of Halle.[25][26] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halle_synagogue_shooting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halle_synagogue_shooting So it took about 2 and a half hours for the BFE to arrive in the city.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hnaccount_rng 5y ago
  They are not the only tactical response force though. But in general I feel like, at least for Germany the response scenario for big events (like Halle) is more: 1) secure the situation, ie make it stationary and have a secured cordon 2) call in the pros (typically GSG9 out of Bonn) 3) take the time to establish communication and deescalate in the mean time And similar things for situation that don’t warrant escalation to GSG9. Ie the typical street cop will not be the one going in swat style. And even the typical cop in Germany has 3 years of on the job training before becoming a rookie… so training levels are not even close to comparable in the first place. That being said: these kinds of situations are exceedingly rare and as such can trigger a truely staggering amount of police response. The amok situation in Munich in 2016 for example literally pulled most of the on duty force of Bavaria to Munich (and was resolved before most of those arrived). The total response was iirc something like 3k police officers. So I wouldn’t call the response more limited https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Munich_shooting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Munich_shooting
  - realityking 5y ago
    While GSG9 is called for cases of suspected terrorism there are also state-level, SWAt-style teams called SEK [0]. Besides providing a faster response time than the GSG9, they do deal with smaller hostage situations, high-risk warrants, etc. Customs also has a similar unit called ZUZ [1] focused more on warrants and arrests than counter-terrorism. 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEK_(Germany) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEK_(Germany) 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentrale_Unterstützungsgruppe_Zoll https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentrale_Unterstützungsgrupp...
pas 5y ago
We don't know. There is just not enough data to say. I'd say these things simply don't happen, but that would be naivety, but we don't know the base rate, all we know are the few publicized instances. That said the militarization of police is less drastic here, though since the ramming and knifing attacks police presence has increased. For example in Hungary dear leader Viktor deployed the military to (folks with rifles) to help the police maintain COVID rules like curfew. But mostly all we got out of it are a few photos: https://www.budapesttimes.hu/hungary/soldiers-helping-police-work-in-public-areas-from-monday/ https://www.budapesttimes.hu/hungary/soldiers-helping-police... https://dailynewshungary.com/news_to_go/this-is-how-the-night-curfew-looks-in-budapest-photos/ https://dailynewshungary.com/news_to_go/this-is-how-the-nigh... The usual use of a SWAT-like group happens when the tax authority raids folks and they want to make it quick so they can collect evidence: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rOnMkaWDS0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rOnMkaWDS0
jillesvangurp 5y ago
Swatting is not really a thing in Europe AFAIK. I believe it's exclusively a US problem. Few countries have militarized their police to the extent that the US has. And of course the gun ownership is so common there that they'd pretty much have to assume the worst when a call comes in. Cities like Chicago have casualty rates measured in the thousands per year. Many active war zones are more peaceful than that. So, it's understandable that there are incidents and that police are biased to protect themselves when they need to respond to calls like this. Of course police do show up in Europe if you call them and most larger cities have swat teams as well to respond to e.g. terrorist threats. I live in Berlin, and of course we have situations where that kind of response is needed fairly regularly. Same with other cities across Europe. But they wouldn't show up in full force for what appears to be domestic violence based on a single anonymous call. Usually when something is actually going on, they'd be getting many calls and it would be clear pretty quickly what is needed.
- jahller 5y ago
  Also in Germany police will never show up with a gun already in hand. I don't know the exact code of conduct they have but there are probably a few steps of deescalation before a gun is even drawn.

vages 5y ago

I can’t answer for Europe as a whole, because European police is not federalised or centralised in any way. There is a multilateral Europol. My guess is that in countries with a recent history of war but now a more stable state (some Eastern European countries) you would probably get a quicker response. In Western European countries, there would probably be a long response time. In Norway we have had two terrorist attacks for the last ten years (both by right wingers, one aimed at the Social Democratic Party youth convention and the second at a mosque), and in both cases police were too slow to respond. This is based on nothing other than my gut feeling.

srcreigh 5y ago

This was shared 5 hours ago aka ~1:30–3:30am in Europe

londgine 5y ago

this is the first example that I can think of > At 12.03 p.m., a 112-distress call reached Halle fire-emergency HQ; one minute later, police were informed.[24] At 2.40 p.m., federal police quick responders BFE+ arrived in the city of Halle.[25][26] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halle_synagogue_shooting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halle_synagogue_shooting So it took about 2 and a half hours for the BFE to arrive in the city.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hnaccount_rng 5y ago
They are not the only tactical response force though. But in general I feel like, at least for Germany the response scenario for big events (like Halle) is more: 1) secure the situation, ie make it stationary and have a secured cordon 2) call in the pros (typically GSG9 out of Bonn) 3) take the time to establish communication and deescalate in the mean time And similar things for situation that don’t warrant escalation to GSG9. Ie the typical street cop will not be the one going in swat style. And even the typical cop in Germany has 3 years of on the job training before becoming a rookie… so training levels are not even close to comparable in the first place. That being said: these kinds of situations are exceedingly rare and as such can trigger a truely staggering amount of police response. The amok situation in Munich in 2016 for example literally pulled most of the on duty force of Bavaria to Munich (and was resolved before most of those arrived). The total response was iirc something like 3k police officers. So I wouldn’t call the response more limited https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Munich_shooting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Munich_shooting
- realityking 5y ago
  While GSG9 is called for cases of suspected terrorism there are also state-level, SWAt-style teams called SEK [0]. Besides providing a faster response time than the GSG9, they do deal with smaller hostage situations, high-risk warrants, etc. Customs also has a similar unit called ZUZ [1] focused more on warrants and arrests than counter-terrorism. 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEK_(Germany) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEK_(Germany) 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentrale_Unterstützungsgruppe_Zoll https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentrale_Unterstützungsgrupp...

pas 5y ago

We don't know. There is just not enough data to say. I'd say these things simply don't happen, but that would be naivety, but we don't know the base rate, all we know are the few publicized instances. That said the militarization of police is less drastic here, though since the ramming and knifing attacks police presence has increased. For example in Hungary dear leader Viktor deployed the military to (folks with rifles) to help the police maintain COVID rules like curfew. But mostly all we got out of it are a few photos: https://www.budapesttimes.hu/hungary/soldiers-helping-police-work-in-public-areas-from-monday/ https://www.budapesttimes.hu/hungary/soldiers-helping-police... https://dailynewshungary.com/news_to_go/this-is-how-the-night-curfew-looks-in-budapest-photos/ https://dailynewshungary.com/news_to_go/this-is-how-the-nigh... The usual use of a SWAT-like group happens when the tax authority raids folks and they want to make it quick so they can collect evidence: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rOnMkaWDS0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rOnMkaWDS0

jillesvangurp 5y ago

Swatting is not really a thing in Europe AFAIK. I believe it's exclusively a US problem. Few countries have militarized their police to the extent that the US has. And of course the gun ownership is so common there that they'd pretty much have to assume the worst when a call comes in. Cities like Chicago have casualty rates measured in the thousands per year. Many active war zones are more peaceful than that. So, it's understandable that there are incidents and that police are biased to protect themselves when they need to respond to calls like this. Of course police do show up in Europe if you call them and most larger cities have swat teams as well to respond to e.g. terrorist threats. I live in Berlin, and of course we have situations where that kind of response is needed fairly regularly. Same with other cities across Europe. But they wouldn't show up in full force for what appears to be domestic violence based on a single anonymous call. Usually when something is actually going on, they'd be getting many calls and it would be clear pretty quickly what is needed.

jahller 5y ago
Also in Germany police will never show up with a gun already in hand. I don't know the exact code of conduct they have but there are probably a few steps of deescalation before a gun is even drawn.