Morton wrote:

CO19 should be SO19 I believe.

The Force Firearms Unit was moved from Specialist Operations to the new
Central Operations a few months ago. Specialist Operations units have
'SO' designations (like SO16 Diplomatic Protection Group and SO18
Aviation Security) while Central Operations units have 'CO'
designations (like CO13 Mounted Branch and CO15 Traffic). Thus SO19
became CO19.

I believe the change was made because CO units are meant to be central
units supporting officers elsewhere in the Met, while SO units are
meant to deal with specialist types of crime. The Force Firearms Unit
is clearly the former rather than the latter because it doesn't
investigate a specialist type of crime (i.e. gun crime), it assists
other units in dealing with a range of firearms and violence related
problems (for example, it helps out the SO13 Anti-Terrorist Branch
dealing with terrorism, SCD8 Trident/Trafalgar dealing with gun crime,
SCD1 Homicide dealing with gun murders and so on).

Other Central Operations units include: Traffic and Transport Branch,
Air Support Unit, Dog Support Unit, Marine Support Unit, Public Order
and the Mounted Branch. Central Operations does not yet have a public
website, and the MPS website still makes numerous references to the
system as it worked before the changes.

Remaining Specialist Operations units include: SO12 Special Branch,
SO13 Anti-Terrorist Branch, SO14 Royalty Protection, SO16 Diplomatic
Protection Group, SO17 Palace of Westminster Division, SO18 Aviation
Security. All the other numbers are no longer in use because the units
they referred to were moved, either to the Specialist Crime Directorate
(SCD) or to Central Operations.

Just to keep this slightly on topic, the Transport Operational Command
Unit which deals with buses, taxis and minicabs is part of the Traffic
and Transport Branch within Central Operations.


Matt Ashby
www.mattashby.com