A man allegedly armed with a knife and making threats to a number of people inside a house was arrested at gunpoint by Armed Police in Shanklin yesterday evening (Friday).
Officers from both sides of the Solent were deployed to the seaside town at around 17:00.
Reports had been received of a man outside an address in Oaklyn Gardens – off Green Lane – who was armed with a knife and making threats towards the people inside the address.
With a suspect identified, armed officers took up position in the area of Marine Cross Road and Regent Street before making their move.
Hampshire Constabulary has confirmed that a 34-year-old man from Shanklin has been arrested on suspicion of using threatening/abusive/insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment/alarm/distress.
He is currently in police custody at Newport Police Station.
Specialist firearms officers from the mainland returned to Ryde Pier and were transported back across the Solent shortly before 19:00.
Why are armed police officers being brought across the Solent, there are armed officers stationed and on duty here already isn’t there?
A Taser could be used to drop this fool, handcuff him then arrest him and whisk him off to Newport Custody Suite. More expense bringing them over from the mainland.
Looks a bit OTT for a knife …
The thought of the average isle of wight plod with a gun is terrifying.
.. Dave “Rambo” Stewart?
We don’t need armed police to deal with the low life scum, we need the return of the old DIY and 4X2 deterent stick. Always used to work and will work again, AND it don’t cost a grand a time.
It’s becoming a joke. Armed response units and riot vans were called to two drunk youths chucking a couple of bricks off a roof in Ventnor back in the summer. Instead of waiting for them to sober up, get bored and hungry and slope off home, the over-reaction provoked a couple of drunk youths to play up the crowd who had brought garden chairs and boxes of beer out on to the pavement to watch the show.
I do wonder if the police use these incidents as training exercises? How many armed police from the mainland and the Island were deployed to arrest one idiot with a knife? As someone else said, they could have simply used a taser or pepper spray to take him down and it would have only have needed a squad car with a couple of police officers. An ‘old fashioned’ cop would probably have done it single-handed. Still, I guess it makes everyone feel important – the chap making the threats and the police.