Shooting of Stephen Waldorf

Stephen Waldorf was a 26-year-old man who was shot and seriously injured by police officers in London on 14 January 1983 after they mistook him for David Martin, an escaped criminal. The shooting caused a public outcry and led to a series of reforms to the training and authorisation of armed police officers in the United Kingdom. Martin was a cross-dressing thief and fraudster who was known to carry firearms and had previously shot a police officer. He escaped from custody in December 1982 and the police placed his girlfriend under surveillance. On the day of the shooting, they followed her as she travelled in a car whose front-seat passenger (Waldorf) resembled Martin. When the car stopped in traffic, Detective Constable Finch—the only officer present who had met Martin—was sent forward on foot to confirm the passenger's identity.

Finch, an armed officer, incorrectly believed that Waldorf was Martin and that he had been recognised. He fired all six rounds from his revolver, first at the vehicle's tyres and then at the passenger. Another officer, believing that Finch was being shot at, fired through the rear windscreen. As the passenger slumped across the seats and out of the driver's door, a third officer, Detective Constable Jardine, opened fire. Finch, having run out of ammunition, began pistol-whipping the man. Only after he lost consciousness did the officers realise that the man was not Martin. Waldorf suffered five bullet wounds (from fourteen shots fired) and a fractured skull. Finch and Jardine were charged with attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm. They were acquitted in October 1983 and later reinstated, though their firearms authorisations were revoked. Waldorf recovered and received compensation from the Metropolitan Police. Martin was captured two weeks after the shooting following a chase which ended in a London Underground tunnel. The incident became the subject of several documentaries and was dramatised for a television film, Open Fire, in 1994.

Two months after the shooting, new guidelines on the use of firearms were issued for all British police forces; these significantly increased the rank of an officer who could authorise the issuing of weapons. The Dear Report, published in November 1983, recommended psychological assessment and increased training of armed officers. Several academics and commentators believed these reforms exemplified an event-driven approach to policymaking and that the British police lacked a coherent strategy for developing firearms policy. Several other mistaken police shootings in the 1980s led to further reforms, which standardised procedures across forces and placed greater emphasis on firearms operations being conducted by a smaller number of better-trained officers, to be known as authorised firearms officers, and in particular by dedicated teams within police forces.