I'm unclear how the police are meant to be reassuring people and discussing the incident, when presumably the police are not at liberty to further reveal any information, until after the investigation.

Generally, in the run up to the olympics, I'd like to know if there have been any significant changes in how armed officers are asked to deal with incidents like this. But that is not information that will be revealed for years.

A hard clamp down will no doubt make many small time villains think again. But the more determined will think that if it is going to end up in a shoot out, they should come armed themselves in the first place, even for car-theft.

With the information we have, this looks to be a very worrying development, in my opinion.