Specialist Firearms Command

Specialist Firearms Command

Specialist Crime and Operations Specialist Firearms Command (SCO19) (previously known as SO19 and then CO19) is a Central Operations branch within Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service. The Command is responsible for providing a firearms-response capability, assisting the rest of the service, which is normally unarmed. Within the media it is occasionally compared to the SWAT units of the United States, being seen as London's equivalent. The unit is based at Leman Street Police Station in Whitechapel, Central London.

On occasion, they have been referred to as the "blue berets", as they used to wear these. Today they are more likely to wear either baseball caps or combat helmets (of PASGT type).

Read more about Specialist Firearms Command:  Historical Use of Firearms, Formation

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