Evening Standard/London

Scotland Yard is set to train hundreds more officers as a reserve firearms unit to deal with a possible terrorist gun attack on London.
Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said the force was reviewing the number of armed officers in the wake of the Paris outrages.
He admitted the number of police marksmen had fallen in recent years and said one option was to train members of the Territorial Support Group as a firearms reserve.
He also revealed that police were in discussions with media firms to restrict live coverage of terror events. Referring to broadcasts of the Paris police operations, he said: “We want to ensure our ability to respond is not restricted by live coverage.”
Sir Bernard said the Met had deployed more armed officers on London’s streets to protect key sites. He added that there are ongoing discussions with the Government over more funding for counter-terror operations. Police need “tens of millions” of pounds more, he said.
He told the Police and Crime Committee at  City Hall today that the terror threat remained “severe”, meaning an attack was highly likely — though there was no intelligence of an imminent threat.
Bernard said counter-terrorism officers were dealing with a “real and present” threat of an attack. He added: “We believe we are coping with the threat at the moment. We are looking to increase our resources but it is an imperfect science.
“If you have multiple suspects, we can’t follow all of them all the time.”
He said there had been “really good support” from the London community since the Paris attacks. More parents of children at risk of being influenced to travel to Syria were coming forward to police, Sir Bernard revealed.
Deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh repeated a call for an extra £20mn  of home office money to fund city counter-terror operations.
Currently, 2,700 officers are authorised to carry guns in London.
On the broadcasting problem, Met officials are now talking to TV stations amid fears that live coverage of police raids could compromise operations.
In Paris there was live TV coverage as officers engaged in near-simultaneous raids on two terror hostage sites.
Sir Bernard said the number of armed officers was cut in recent years because often these were trained for events they never attended. Specialist armed officers in London now had more and better fire-power to deal with gun attacks than Paris counterparts, he said.
 Commuters are being issued with a checklist on how to spot potential terrorists at stations in London.
Passengers have been handed leaflets in which they are warned to look out for people using lots of mobile phones or being vague about where they are going.
The fliers were reportedly handed out to commuters at Waterloo during yesterday’s morning rush hour.
They advise Londoners to call a confidential anti-terror hotline if they see suspicious behaviour, adding: “Don’t rely on others. If you suspect it, report it.”
It comes as London remains on alert for possible lone wolf attacks in the wake of the Paris killings.
The six point checklist for things to look out for is: someone noticeable behaving differently for no obvious reason; someone with a large number of mobile phones for no obvious reason; someone with passports or other documents in different names for no obvious reason; someone who travels for long periods of time but is vague about where they’re going; someone buying or storing large amounts of chemicals for no obvious reason; someone taking an interest in security, like CCTV cameras, for no obvious reason.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said the leaflets are part of an ongoing effort to interact with the public and do not represent a change in approach.






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