Harry Maurice Roberts is an English career criminal and murderer who in 1966 instigated the Shepherd's Bush murders, in which three police officers were shot dead in London. The murders took place after plainclothes officers approached a Standard Vanguard estate car, in which Roberts and two other men were sitting in Braybrook Street near Wormwood Scrubs prison in London. Roberts feared the officers would discover firearms his gang were planning to use in a robbery. He killed two, while one of his accomplices shot dead the third.
James Francis Hurley is an English convicted murderer and long-term fugitive from justice.
PC Sharon Beshenivsky was a West Yorkshire Police constable shot and killed by a criminal gang during a robbery in Bradford on 18 November 2005, becoming the seventh female police officer in Great Britain to be killed on duty. Her colleague, PC Teresa Milburn, was seriously injured in the same incident. Milburn had joined the force less than two years earlier; Beshenivsky had served only nine months as a Constable in the force at the time of her death, having been a Community Support Officer before.
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed.
William Joseph Quinn, known as Liam Quinn, is an American former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army who shot dead Stephen Tibble, an off-duty police officer, in London on 26 February 1975.
Donald Neilson, alias the "Black Panther," was an English armed robber, kidnapper and murderer. From 1971, he committed a series of robberies of sub-post offices; in 1974, Neilson killed three men during these robberies. In 1975, he kidnapped Lesley Whittle, an heiress from Highley, Shropshire, who died in his captivity. He was arrested later that year, convicted of four counts of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment in July 1976. Neilson remained in prison until his death in 2011.
Paul "Dingus" Magee is a former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who escaped during his 1981 trial for killing a member of the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1980. After serving a prison sentence in the Republic of Ireland, Magee fled to England where he was imprisoned after killing a policeman in 1992. He was repatriated to the Republic of Ireland as part of the Northern Ireland peace process before being released from prison in 1999, and subsequently avoided extradition back to Northern Ireland to serve his sentence for killing the member of the SAS.
The murders of Adam Lloyd and Vanessa Arscott in the Thai town of Kanchanaburi on 9 September 2004, were blamed on Somchai Wisetsingh, a decorated Thai police officer. After confessing, then recanting his story, Wisetsingh was convicted of the crime.
Christopher Adam Gregg is a former Detective Chief Superintendent and was head of West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET). Gregg joined the force in 1974 and as a constable was put on front-line duties in the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry in the Helen Rytka murder incident room. He left the force in 2008 to take up a senior position as an adviser to a forensic service provider company, LGC Forensics. In 2010 Gregg, together with Lord Stevens and Dr Angela Gallop, founded Axiom International Limited. He is married to Yorkshire Television 'Calendar' regional news presenter, Christine Talbot, with whom he has a daughter, Beth.
On November 29, 2009, four police officers of Lakewood, Washington were fatally shot at the Forza Coffee shop, located at 11401 Steele Street #108 South in the Parkland unincorporated area of Pierce County, Washington, near Tacoma. A gunman, later identified as Maurice Clemmons, entered the shop, shot the officers while they worked on laptops, and fled the scene with a single gunshot wound in his torso. After a massive two-day manhunt that spanned several nearby cities, an officer recognized Clemmons near a stalled car in south Seattle. When he refused orders to stop, he was shot and killed by a Seattle Police Department officer.
Events from 2003 in England
Regina v Armel Gnango[2011] UKSC 59 is the leading English criminal law case on the interaction of joint enterprise, transferred malice, and exemption from criminal liability where a party to what would normally be a crime is the victim of it. The Supreme Court held, restoring Gnango's conviction for the murder of Magda Pniewska, that he was guilty of murder notwithstanding the fact that he had not fired the shot which killed Pniewska during the shoot out which led to her death, and that the fatal shot had been fired by his opponent in an attempt to kill him. The judgment of the Supreme Court has been criticised over the alleged extent to which it was designed to mollify public opinion, and in the context of debates over the nature of the doctrine of joint enterprise.
The death of Sammy Yatim occurred early in the morning of July 27, 2013, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Yatim, an 18-year-old Toronto male armed with a switchblade knife, was shot at nine times, and was hit by eight of the shots fired by 30-year-old Toronto Police Service (TPS) officer James Forcillo. After being shot, while lying on the floor of the streetcar he was tasered. He later died from the injuries. The incident occurred after Yatim, brandishing a 12 cm (4.7 in) switchblade knife in a Toronto streetcar, advanced on a passenger, threatened other passengers, and exposed himself. The confrontation between Yatim and the police was recorded and footage of it was released publicly, prompting strong reactions across Canada.
Richard William Matt was an American murderer known for several prison escapes, most notably the 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape.
Matthew Dennis Hunt was a New Zealand Police constable who was killed in Massey during a traffic stop on 19 June 2020. Eli Epiha, a 24-year-old man, pleaded guilty to his murder while a 30-year-old woman, Natalie Bracken, was found guilty to being an accessory after the fact. Hunt's death marked the first police fatality in the line of duty in New Zealand since 2009.
Mark Fellows (5 September 1980) is an English hitman convicted of the murders of John Kinsella and Paul Massey, rival enforcers to the Anti A Team criminal network. At the time of his conviction he was one of only 70 prisoners sentenced to a whole life term.
Daniel Joe Hittle was an American serial killer, spree killer, and mass murderer who shot and killed five people, including a police officer, during a rampage in Dallas and Garland, Texas, in 1989. At the time, he was on parole for the 1973 murders of his adoptive parents in Motley, Minnesota. For his latter crimes, Hittle was sentenced to death and subsequently executed in 2000.
Richard Frederick Dixon is an American criminal principally known for hijacking Eastern Airlines Flight 953 from Detroit to Cuba in October 1971 and for the second-degree murder of South Haven police officer, Michael McAllister, in January 1976. He was convicted on these charges after his capture in 1976. He was sentenced in Michigan state court to life in prison on the murder charge and in federal court to an additional 40 years on federal charges of air piracy and kidnapping.
On 15 February 1989, Mirza Abdul Halim bin Mirza Abdul Majid, a 23-year-old Singaporean and police constable (PC), was shot in the head by a suspected burglar who stabbed him in the neck and snatched his service revolver before using it to shoot PC Abdul Halim. PC Abdul Halim, who was later promoted to Corporal during his hospitalization, went into a coma and died 33 hours later. The killer Ong Yeow Tian, who was an ex-convict and one of the two suspects involved in a prior housebreaking case, was subsequently engaged in a shoot-out with several other policemen but was finally arrested. Ong's accomplice was also caught and later sentenced to incarceration and caning for the burglary.
