Armed police are required twice a day on Merseyside, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

The Liverpool Echo report:

ARMED police are called to deal with criminals on Merseyside nearly twice a day, the ECHO can reveal.

Specially trained officers armed with Glock pistols were called to action 706 times in 2011-12 – and just under 5,000 times in the last seven years.

The number of times when armed officers took to the streets was up nearly 10% on the 12 months from 2010-11, according to an ECHO Freedom of Information request.

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I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.