Talk:City of London Police

Untitled

Does anyone have any definite evidence about the rank badge of a City of London Assistant Commissioner? I changed it to a crown above the crossed tipstaves, but someone's changed it back to a pip. However, this webpage clearly shows it as a crown. Is this an old badge or is it still a crown? Anyone? -- Necrothesp 13:18, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Since nobody responded, I have changed back to version shown on website. -- Necrothesp 17:05, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

66.108.103.59, please give an explanation of your change to the AC's rank badge. -- Necrothesp 18:59, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Assistant Commissioner mike bowronnotice he has a pip over the crossed tipstaves thats why i changed it.

Fair enough. They must have changed the insignia since then. -- Necrothesp 00:18, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Unique?

Spyfly has added a line on 13/2/06 stating that the City force is partly funded by the Corporation of London making it unique. As i understand it this just the same as every other Home Office force which receives part of its funding from the local governement of its particular area. In the City's case this is the Corporation. Therefore this is not a particularily unique feature. I tempted to delete this. Any thoughts? Dibble999 17:39, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how it works elsewhere, but I get charged a precept directly by Leicestershire Constabulary that appears on my Council Tax bill, but doesn't go into Leicester City Council's budget. Whereas this seems to be talking about a 'giving the police force' money item in the Corporation's budget. I don't know how this works for non-joint police authorities, though. Morwen - Talk 19:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The whole point of British police independence is surely that they are separate from the local authority. As Morwen says, we pay for them through the Council Tax, but that has nothing to do with the local authority apart from as a collector. -- Necrothesp 23:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you but I think your missing the point of my query. Spyfly added (which I deleted) that the City force is unique because it gets part funding from the Corporation of London. As I understand it the Corporation is the local government of the City so its just like Leicester City Council or Warwickshire County Council gathering and part funding Leicestershire Constabulary and Warwickshire Police. So I imagine a resident of the City has a precept on his/her council tax bill for the City of London Police. The City force is unique for other reasons (red markings, tiny area etc) but not for the this reason...I think. I will be gladly be corrected if someone can suggest otherwise! Regards. Dibble999 11:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

But the resident population of the Square Mile is only about 5,000, I believe. You wouldn't get much in the way of precepts from that, so I would suspect the Corporation has to fund the force. -- Necrothesp 19:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Business, commercial property and industry must also pay 'council tax' with police precepts which would also fund the force, not just the (granted) small population. Plenty of them in the square mile (rich too). I would also imagine the non-residential 'council tax' will be very high. Its worth keeping in mind that most of the Home Office police force funding comes through central government via the Home Office. I'm still not convinced it is any different from other Home Office force. Dibble999 23:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

They don't pay council tax, but uniform non-domestic rates, with a special City weighting, which then goes into the coffers of the City. There's no evidence either way whether the City of London Police precepts or just bills the Corporation - so I'm just explaining how it would be possible for the factlet to be true - not trying to argue that it is. I shall look into how city rates work more - also will find the Corporation's budget. Morwen - Talk 19:02, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Morwen. I would be very interested to find out what the situation is with the funding. On another point, although London forces are not in the current proposed mergers across the country, you'd have thought this forces days are numbered too. Especially taking into consideration the reasons for the proposed mergers. Dibble999 10:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Logic and constitency would indicate that, but the City and Corporation of London has never been bound by those. It has indeed been openly discussed Ken suggesting it back in 2004, and even Ian Blair saying it is under review in 2005. This is probably worth putting it in the article - if we can find more recent stuff that would be good. Morwen - Talk 22:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok. The Corporation of London includes in its accounts for FY 2004/2005, a sum of £82 million for police. It also includes in its accounts a credit for the Police Support Grant from central government, of £32 million. The non-domestic business rate for the city is 45.9p, which is 0.3p above the rate elsewhere, and raise about half a billion from that. They raise about £5 million from Council Tax. There doesn't seem to be a separate police rate any more. Morwen - Talk 10:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Good resarch Morwen. I suppose that does make the CoLP a bit different, in terms of funding, compared with every other Home Office force? Its a bit of a historical, political throughback that one square mile has its own force, but money talks I suppose! They have an excellent fraud squad though. Further to my last point above, a colleague in BTP has told me that the Metropolitan Police is pushing to have BTP functions within the M25 merged into its own force. In effect BTP would not exist in London with rail and underground policing falling to the Met. The governement is allegedly looking into this especially with 2012 coming up. Its worth noting that if BTP lose London, BTP would struggle to justify its existence in the rest of the country. (Thats from an operational viewpoint). These possible changes may also play a huge part in the future of the CoLP. So, a knock on from all these changes may be that the CoLP and BTP may be looking at moves to abolish. I would need to find some basis for all the above before adding to any article. Its all been passed to me by colleagues and it may just be a faulty grape vine! Regards Dibble999 13:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Are there police 'trade' newspapers/magazines that would cover this sort of thing? Morwen - Talk 18:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Population

We say the City's resident population is 8,043 (which seems far too precise, but never mind), but the City Police's website claims it's "about 6,000". That's a pretty big difference. The City of London article itself makes an even higher claim — 8,600. The only figure I can find on the Corporation's website is 7,185, but that was in 2001. Is there a definitive source anywhere? Proteus (Talk) 12:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Impossible to say as many of the flats in the Barbican, the City's main residential area, are occupied Monday night to Thursday night by non-Britons who tend to spend the other three nights of the week outside of the UK for fiscal or family reasons. I would hazard that many of these people don't count in population figures anywhere in the world. The best bet would be to say that the lower figures apply to the weekends and the higher to weekdays! Nonetheless the semi-residents still need police protection and cover for their property. Saga City 04:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The most recent estimate (2005) from the Office of National Statistics (page 18) is 4,900 males and 4,300 females - 9,200 in total. Nick Cooper 12:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The 2011 Census put the population at 7,400 so I have changed all of mentions of population to 7,400 - [1] (Anonposeidon (talk) 21:41, 30 November 2013 (UTC))

Leeds

The City of London Police operate in Leeds too, due to the location of the Bank of England there. It is only minor operations in policing that, and escorting cash transfers to and from King Street, but as it is an operation of the City of London Police, should it be mentioned in this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.14.188.233 (talk) 22:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

If you can find a reference for it, then by all means yes. Smartse (talk) 22:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

History of policing in the City

"Policing in the City of London has existed since Roman times. Wood Street Police Station the current headquarters of the City Police, is built on part of the site of a Roman fortress, which may have housed some of the first police in the City." This statement comes from the force's website. However, it's a ridiculous claim. I have a fair amount of professional expertise in this area. There is no justification for claiming that 'policing in the City of London has existed since Roman times'. The current headquarters might be located on the site of a Roman fort, but the Romans did not have police (Police#Roman Empire).

I propose that the paragraph either be deleted, or edited as follows: "Wood Street Police Station is the current headquarters of the City Police, and is built on part of the site of a Roman fortress."
Unless someone can find a reliable reference for a Roman police force in Britain.--Ceiteag (talk) 23:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the statement is silly. EVEN IF the Romans had a police force the break between the Roman empire and the next established police force would itself make the statement untrue.

Montalban (talk) 22:46, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

In Literature Section

The book STAB PROOF SCARECROWS is a self published memoir by an ex City of London Police officer (Special Constable). While book itself is author's opinions on state of modern policing the chapters on July 7th 2005 and July 21st 2005 are factual accounts of what happened those 2 days re: terrorist attacks, giving facts about what happened and how the City police reacted to these atrocities re: manpower and utilisation of resources.

It also gives facts such as COLP Specials winning the annual Ferrers cup for their efforts on July 7th and the fact that officers up to rank of Chief Superintendent were doing foot patrol in the days following, for public reassurance.

I resent the fact that my efforts to publicise this book via the City Wiki' page are constantly taken down.

I am NOT the author, despite assumptions from previous editors.

I simply want people to know that COLP's efforts were recognised. If I post the unusual information without mentioning the book then we are back at square 1 as you will want to know the reference for the information.

JB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.130.7.124 (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

"my efforts to publicise this book via the City Wiki'" see WP:PROMO - wikipedia is not a vehicle to promote anything, whether you are the author or not. For it to be used as a reference it needs to say something factutal about the COLP, rather than opinion and not just about the events of July 2005, which would be better mentioned in the 7/7 and Charles de Menezez articles. Smartse (talk) 20:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact the book is self-published doesn't do much for its credibility, either. Nick Cooper (talk) 21:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Re: Nick Cooper. You clearly know nothing about Self Publishing and are apparently confusing it with Vanity Publishing. Do not insult this genre with ignorant opinions lacking factual knowledge. Fair enough, I will put the same info on the 7/7 page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.69.93.34 (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Where I have also removed it. I suppose it might be possible to include an in literature section but to avoid undue weight issues it would reallly include only seriously well known authors and books.©Geni 15:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

If Wikipedia is to have any credibility then promotions such as this must be excised.S a g a C i t y (talk) 17:15, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

94.69.93.34, I am not "confusing" anything. Try reading Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources before you accuse anyone else of "ignorance." Nick Cooper (talk) 18:42, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Scientology

So the CoS is making efforts to befriend the police. This is not worth mentioning unless there is some reason to believe that the police have been corrupted by it. The implication that there is a link to the action against the protestor is an original synthesis which is not contained within either source. – Smyth\^talk 11:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Awards

Rather than edit war can we discuss whether the awards received by the Special Constabulary deserve a mention in the article? Personally I don't think they should be included unless a secondary source such as a newspaper reported on them. SmartSE (talk) 13:02, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with Smartse. Award is given annually and ref (13) provided by Brookesward simply links to press office page of NPIA with at least 10 other trophy winners mentioned. This is not relevant for COLP despite how proud winner is on getting the award. 2006 para is notable as it was first time an entire Special force got the award and involves July 7th atrocity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cziltang mexico (talk • contribs) 23:31, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

City Specials Rank Structure

As a former cop with City of London I can tell you that it is NOT possible to jump ranks in the Regulars. Paid, full time officers can only Act Up or become Temporary by one rank (eg. a Chief Inspector may become an Acting Superintendent). An exception would be where one force does not have a rank that another holds (e.g. Mike Bowron, former Commissioner of COLP went from a Superintendent to an Assistant Chief Constable with Kent Police as, at that time, Kent did not have the Chief Superintendent rank).

Specials, while having to be experienced are judged more on merit, hence the rather unique situation of Ian Miller being a Special Constable and being promoted to the Commandant.

Further, due to its unique status the City of London Police only patrol ONE square mile and the Specials work both independently and amongst the Regulars. The Specials of the two active stations with cell areas (Snow Hill and Bishopsgate) are classed as a separate BCU and on some occasions take over the running of their Areas for a shift or an entire day (a "takeover day"). Wood Street is another BCU, specialising in other areas such as Fraud and Traffic.

Traditionally the Special Constabulary have only grades not ranks. However a Special Constable is obliged to call anyone over the "rank" of Special Sergeant Sir or Ma'am unless that particular officer specifically waives this requirement (the former DO of Bishopsgate insisted on being addressed as "Sir" while his successor does not). In the City they have more responsibility and autonomy and for this reason I have included the BCU Commanders. --Cziltang mexico (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

However, there are several problems with how you had placed the rank structure information into the article. It was misplaced at the top of the section: it should either have been lower in the Special Constabulary section, or else the bulk of the section should have had its own subheader. It used a non-standard subheading style. It was unsourced. Finally, it looked over specific: it didn't look like a rank structure so much as a list of division (BCU) commanders. —C.Fred (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

My apologies over layout. I'm new to this. --Cziltang mexico (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

A few points. It has no relevance that you were a City officer. I am serving officer elsewhere but that doesn't make me or you more qualified to edit here. Re regular rank 'jumping', I've had a quick scan at police regulations (2003) and it does mention promotion to Sgt & Insp ranks and the requirements, however no mention is made of higher ranks (apart from Chief Officer level) thus making it POSSIBLE for ranks to be jumped in theory. It is very rare but I'm sure I recall it happening (I think it was Insp to Supt for a high flyer).

Also you are a completely wrong regarding your assertion around only being able to 'act up' one rank. Picking a force at random I've found the Hampshire Police policy where it clearly states:

"3.1.7 Only in very exceptional circumstances should it be necessary for an officer to perform acting duty in a rank more than one above his or her own. Approval for such an appointment must be obtained from the Deputy Chief Constable. Where approval is given in such a case there will be no requirement for a second qualifying period of acting duties in the higher rank prior to payment of a temporary salary allowance." http://www.hampshire.police.uk/nr/rdonlyres/e7f37f3f-89eb-4c9e-97a9-11b2589f8938/0/24017.pdf

So it is very possible to act up more than one rank although in practice rare.

Can you just clarify your statement above, because it would certainly be notable and needs citation. Are you saying Special supervisors are left in operational charge of part of the City i.e. supervising regulars? I find that incredibly hard to believe but if so, that needs a clear citation. Again you have made comments regarding autonomy/responsibility of Specials in the City compared to outside - this again needs citation, unless you know the inner workings of every force Special Constabulary in the country. Dibble999 (talk) 11:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You appear correct on the process of Acting Up. I was specifically told yo could only act up one rank but I concede this point. With regard to promotion, while you may have heard of someone jumping ONE rank I think you'll concur that going from bottom to top (SPC to Commandant) is unusual if not unique. As for the BCU takeovers. I cannot cite this, it's just from my own experiences with COLP that I know about it. The Specials didn't/ don't command Regulars, they run one half of the square mile for a shift while the Regulars do Custody and Traffic duties. In 2006 this was done at Snow Hill on a Sunday Early Turn (morning shift). When your "area" is one police station and half a mile AND the majority of the population aren't there as its's the weeekend, it'ìs kind of easy.--Cziltang mexico (talk) 17:20, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Bear in mind that Wikipedia is limited to what is verifiable, and that rules out some categories of first-hand knowledge (see WP:No original research). Accordingly, without a citation (at least to an externally-available COLP source, if not an independent one), it can't go in the article. —C.Fred (talk) 18:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Re the Commandant and his rapid rise. It is notable yes and should be part of the article, however technically he is still just a special constable due to there being no legal definition of differing ranks within Special Constabularies. Your either a Special Constable or your not in law. That was really my first point when I made my original edit. There is no rank structure merely a grading system to assist in organisation. This makes it far easier for someone to do what the Commandant did as he hasn't had to qualify for Sgt, Insp as the regulars do with exams and so on. Its only fairly recently that Special supervisors have begun to be called 'Special Sergeant', 'Special Inspector' and so on from the previous none regular names like 'section officer' and so on. There is some issues with this switch due to the powers/authorities that these ranks infer in the regular world but that specials don't have whatever there rank (such as authority for sec 18 PACE search). But I digress. I would be interested to know if the commandant was of high grade in his Scottish force, as if so, his rapid rise wouldn't be as spectacular. Dibble999 (talk) 10:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Ian Miller was only an SPC in Tayside before joining City but had over 20 years experience. There is no rank structure in the Scottish Special Constabulary. They interviewed 3 ranks for the Commandant position, Ian who was a Special Constable, a Divisional Officer (Special Super') and an SO (Special Sarge). They were apparently most impressed with Ian which is why he got it. Your previous paragraph sheds some light on the "leapfrogging" system and it's an interesting point about the s.18 powers as this would presumably have to be kicked back to at least an Inspector, regardless of the rank/grade of the Special that needed it. This world is explained in some detail, with some of the issues raised here, in the book Stab Proof Scarecrows by Lance Manley who was a Special with City during the 2005 terrorist attacks. Looking at this page's history the author or someone else appear to have tried to link to the book but it was taken out due to irrelevancy. Merseyside Specials have started using not only the same rank titles (Special Inspector etc.) but also the same shoulder insignia, which in my cynical mind is a crafty attempt to hide just how many cops we won't have over the next 4 years due to the spending cuts.--Cziltang mexico (talk) 19:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

tug of war

The article states that because the tug-of-war isn't in the Olympics ...

which means the City of London Police is still the reigning Olympic champion

Are they in fact the 'reigning Olympic champions'??? Did they represent themselves, or Great Britain at the Olympics. If they represented Great Britain then isn't it correct to say GB is the reigning champion, not the City of London Police?

Montalban (talk) 22:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Teams seem to have entered as clubs rather than countries. In 1908, for instance, Gold, Silver and Bronze all went to British clubs (all police clubs, in fact). Proteus (Talk) 16:48, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Internet censorship

The City of London Police have been doing a lot of Internet hacks in the past few years, including domain takeovers, ad injection, and intimidation. For example: http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-takes-down-proxy-service-over-piracy-concerns-140806/ Maybe we should have a section on that in the article. Meneth (talk) 08:56, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

You'll probably need more mainstream and unbiased sources for claims like that. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest adding such commentary into the specific subdivision page, thePIPCU Deku-shrub (talk) 12:00, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

City of London Police Act 1839

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/city_of_london_police_act_1839_2#comment-62068

Hatnote

Proteus (talk · contribs) cut down my hatnote claiming "edit patronising hatnote which assumes readers won't know what the City of London is".

Indeed, that *was* the assumption!- and no, I don't consider it "patronising". Does Proteus really think that most people worldwide *do* know what the "City of London" is, or rather, if they even realise that there's a difference between it and the city of "London"? I'd be willing to bet the vast majority don't!

The "City of London Police" are referenced (for example) in many press releases that ultimately appear on websites outside the UK. (Indeed, they're disproportionately prominent in this respect).

It's highly insular to expect someone not even living in the UK, let alone London, to be aware of Londoners' use of confusingly-similar nomenclature for very distinct entities. In fact, it's quite clear from comments on articles referencing them that most people *aren't* aware of the disinction between the forces (nor the geographic terms).

While this article- and hence the hatnote- is about the police force, rather than the City of London itself, the current wording:-

This article describes the police force for the City of London. For the police force for the rest of Greater London, see Metropolitan Police Service.

still rests on the assumption that the reader already knows that the "City of London" *isn't* the city of "London", and that "Greater London" means London proper.

I appreciate that my original hatnote was a little longwinded, but the requirement to clarify what the article refers to- without expecting the reader to have to read the article itself- is still a reasonable one.

Ubcule (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Stations

In the infobox, it had read that of three stations, one station was "fully operational" and two were "not fully operational". I checked the body of the article, as well as the linked pages for these two stations, (Snow Hill and Bishopgate), but there was no further info that could be found to explain what "not fully operational" means. Are these stations only staffed seasonally, or only during special events, or only during certain hours (eg: closed on nights and weekends) or only used by certain units, or only used administratively and not open to the public? Something else.. ?

For the number of stations in the infobox it should simply state "3" and not have any additional unsupported superfluous info. There shoud, however, be more info about the status of these stations somewhere in the body of the article. If anyone is able to provide more info, with refs, that would definitely be an improvement. - ^theWOLFchild 10:40, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

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Headquarters

I have modified this to the Guildhall, as per COLP's website, however other sources state that Wood St remains the hq. WisDom-UK (talk) 19:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

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Merger Proposal Special Constabulary

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Due to approval and no objections, the result of this discussion was to merge the pages. Terasail^[Talk] 16:51, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

---

I propose to merge City of London Special Constabulary (referred to as COLPSC) into City of London Police (referred to as COLP). I think that the content in the COLPSC would be best suited being placed within the section City of London Police#Special Constabulary, since there are only two main sections within the COLPSC, the main information and HAC info. Which would easily fit within the article without making it too "clunky", the insignia is already displayed on both pages already. No other polcie forces I can find have a seperate article for a special constabulary making it harder to locate information on the COLPSC compared to other articles. Overall I believe that having the two articles seperate adds unnecessary complication where there is no need for them to be seperate and should be merged. Terasail^[Talk] 16:01, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Legally speaking the COLPSC is part of the COLP and I'm not sure why a seperate page was started for a section of the COLP (i.e. the special constabulary). The Chief Officer of the COLP appoints the special constables of the COLP and they are under his command & control so, yes the COLPSC should be a section of COLP page. (See sec 27 of the Police Act 1996 for the legal position). Bowchaser (talk) 14:46, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Commissioner Vs Chief Constable

The City Police along with the Met are the only two UK forces to have the rank of Commissioner. The former because of the strategic and operational nature. It's always been my understanding that a Commissioner is higher than a Chief Constable because of their responsibilities not equivalent to, as the article states. Also both forces have the rank of Commander. Yes a Commissioner may be equal to a Chief Constable as they're both the head of their force but a commissioner does have more responsibility. Just a thought. I haven't edited the article, just floating it as an idea. Escaper27 (talk) 17:08, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're suggesting a change, and if so to what, but in law each of the 43 police forces are independent and none of the chief officers of each have any particular power, authority or precedence over another. A question of responsibility would be a subjective assessment, and it would be very much arguable that the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police has a considerable amount more responsibility that the Commissioner of the City of London Police. The London forces' use of the titles "Commissioner" and "Commander" (and their junior versions) allows them a greater depth in their rank structure, but the level of responsibility any particular senior officer in the UK might have is never going to be comparable to that of a similarly-titled officer in another force, because each force is different and organised differently. ninety:one 17:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Commissioner and Chief Constable are simply the most senior ranks within forces, with City Police and the Met using them, as already mentioned, to give greater depth to the rank structure. With only 2 forces utilising the rank, I feel it's a fair comparison to make with Chief Constable - as they both identify the individual leading said force. I can see an element of your argument for the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, because of the major national responsibilities (ie national security, royal protection – not merely fraud as in the City) the Met holds, but the CoLP Commissioner is rather insignificant. 07Alpha55 (talk) 19:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

As both previous replies have already pointed out, legally speaking a Chief Constable or a Commissioner (for the MPD and COLP) are the same thing. They are all the Chief Officer for their individual forces and none has any authority over the other. Each Chief Officer of each individual force has operational independence to police his/her police area as he wishes (within the law and policy guidelines etc). There is of course a sort of pecking order in terms of career progression and salary. A Chief Constable of a small force would not be carrying the same amounts of responsibilities, risks and so on as the Chief Constables or GMP, West Mids, West Yorks etc. The Met has some national responsibilities which mean is attracts the highest salary. But as already pointed out they are all independent operational leaders of their respective forces and a Chief Officer has no legal authority or precendece over another. As a small point, the reason the COLP has a commissioner and not a Chief Constable is largely down to historical reasons - there was significant kick back from the City authorities when it was muted in the 1830s that the Met should take over policing in the City. In response the City authorities introduced a private members bill to establish the City of London Police, largely based on the Met, in order to fend off any Met amalgamation. As it was based on the Met and they had Commissioners, so the City also had to have a Commissioner. It is certainly not for the same reason as the Met (depth of rank due to size). The COLP is the smallest territorial police force in the country and some might argue continues to be a bit of historical throwback. Bowchaser (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Allowing depth of rank may well be a benefit of the Met's current rank structure, but it cannot be the reason it has a Commissioner, since when the Met was created, none of (what we would now call) the chief officer ranks below Commissioner existed: Assistant Commissioners were added in 1856, Deputy Assistant Commissioners in 1919, the Deputy Commissioner in 1931 (informally in 1922) and Commanders in 1946. (There was also a rank of District Superintendent introduced in 1869, renamed Chief Constable in 1886, renamed Deputy Commander in 1946, and abolished in 1968.) Proteus (Talk) 22:27, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed re the depth argument being null at the time of inception of the MPS but it is why it is still in place now. Having thought about it, the rank of Commissioner was probably used, as uniquely for the MPS (and I think for COLP), the Commissioner was appointed as a magistrate (JP) and not as a constable. Therefore they could not be a 'Chief Constable' as they were not a constable. Back in the day new constables could be sworn in by the Commissioner and did not need to see a normal magistrate as now. This has all changed and somewhere in the early 1970s (from memory) the magistrate side of the Commissioner was changed by statue to that of a constable to bring it into line with all Chief Officers. So at that point they could have changed the designation to Chief Constable but by then the Met was of course massive so the depth was required and the rank structure remained as it is. Bowchaser (talk) 08:07, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Sci-Hub press release

My edit got removed, because "Reddit is not a realiable source".

While it is true that Reddit is not a reliable source, the problem is that we do not need to trust Reddit to verify that it is true:

The Reddit citation is after the claim "especially because when asked, the City of London Police refused to provide any evidence or technical details that would make such attacks plausible." If you don't trust that claim, you can reproduce it by asking the London Police the same question that the Redditor asked.

It isn't a great source, but it is reproducible -> It fulfills the condition that everything on Wikipedia needs to be verifiable.

Unless anyone with a CS background argues otherwise, I think that that section should re-appear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Volker Weißmann (talk • contribs) 15:44, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Your edit got reverted because it constituted original research and was poorly-sourced, with Reddit being one example of the poor sourcing. You also cited a primary source, the City of London Police website - we don't generally cite straight to a primary source (see WP:PSTS). Your logic re: Reddit is flawed - what you're saying is that the source is "Go ask the police yourself". There's plenty of normal, reliable sources writing about this - please find one, or two, and re-write the content using them as your sources. ninety:one 08:59, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a newspaper. As an ongoing and not hugely significant news story I don't think it (yet) meets criteria for inclusion in this article - even if it is notable enough for inclusion in the Sci-Hub article. --10mmsocket (talk) 11:49, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Photographs

Regarding section 3 Uniform the current photographs show officers killed on duty, instead of a clear view of a uniform. They could be moved to 1.2 Officers killed in the line of duty. After that they could be replaced with at least one other image from commons. --Dreddmoto (talk) 20:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Photographs as references

I'm not sure how they can be integrated as references, but there are plenty of photographs in news articles and on social media showing the rank insignia and badges. For example:

• [2] - two PCs
• [3] - a PS
• [4] - a superintendent
• [5] - an assistant commissioner
• [6] - the current commissioner
• [7] - two special constables
• [8] - a special constable and a special commander

Proteus (Talk) 11:21, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Numbers

There seems to be a divergence between the numbers for officers and staff between the text and the infobox, while [9] suggests a different address. Jackiespeel (talk) 19:53, 17 August 2024 (UTC)