And in a separate incident on Sunday afternoon, a man was wrestled to the ground near Charing Cross and informally questioned but no arrest was made.
Highlands College student Ross Barker said he was left stunned when three officers wielding heavy weaponry and one with a police dog stopped his vehicle late on Sunday night.
The 23-year-old said his red Subaru became surrounded by the specially-trained officers at around 9.15 pm as he drove towards his friend’s estate near La Moye Prison in St Brelade.
However, it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity as Mr Barker’s car fitted the description of another vehicle that police were searching for.
It came hours after a man in his 30s was arrested and interviewed in connection with a threat to the lives of police officers in Jersey. Armed police were deployed throughout Sunday and the inquiry desk at the force’s headquarters at Rouge Bouillon was closed.
In a short statement, the police said: ‘We can confirm that on Sunday as part of our inquiries, we stopped and spoke to a number of people throughout the day, including a male at Charing Cross.’
Speaking to the JEP, Mr Barker claimed that three officers, two wielding semi-automatic MP5 rifles and another holding a Glock pistol, leapt out of their vehicles shouting ‘armed police’ before demanding Mr Barker put his hands in the air.
The former Victoria College Student said he was frozen with fear and had a feeling he was being tracked from Red Houses by an unmarked car, which then swooped in front of his vehicle blocking the entrance to the estate near Le Clos d’Avoine. A marked Landrover Discovery then pulled up behind the stunned Islander penning him in.
‘I was running through everything I might have done wrong; I thought, “I’ve been well behaved”. It all happened so quick. I was just cruising through the 30 mph zone so I thought it couldn’t have been anything driving related,’ he said.
The student said he was frozen with fear during the incident but commended police for taking a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach.
‘After it calmed down they told me they were stopping me because my car matched the description of another that they thought gunshots had been fired from. I knocked at the door and my friend’s mum answered. She saw the police and when I told her what happened she was shocked,’ he said.
‘While it was scary I would rather they did these things and be safe – these are all highly-trained officers. Afterwards they asked if I was okay and they were really nice guys and we had a chat for a bit too.’
POLICE officers in Jersey will be armed with Tasers within weeks of finishing their training, it was announced by the force last year.
Seven of the Island’s firearms officers completed a three-day training course last July, and three others had already received the training, which was led by the City of London Police.
The introduction of Tasers was approved by the States in 2013 following an in-depth review by a Scrutiny panel.
Sergeant Dean Machin, head of the States Police firearms department, said that the devices would provide a link for officers as they ‘bridge the gap between the baton and the bullet’.
‘It gives us the opportunity to fully establish our firearms strategy, which is to minimise risk to the public, the subject and even the target, and to maximise safety for the subject. The Taser is the last piece of the jigsaw,’ he said.
PC Simon Ashton, a firearms officer from the City of London who led the course at the TA Centre at Mount Bingham, said: ‘The options currently available limit the officers’ response, which means that they are more likely to use a gun against an assailant with a knife. No officer goes to work and wants to pull the trigger on a gun – it’s a life-changing decision.’
