A man has been arrested in connection with a hit-and-run incident in which a police officer attending a domestic dispute was “left for dead”.
The 51-year-old male was detained on suspicion of assault at an address in the Birchills area of Walsall, West Midlands, on Sunday, West Midlands police said. He is in custody and being questioned by police about the incident, which happened on Thursday.
A female officer, 50, was left lying in the road with a serious head injury, a punctured lung and broken ribs after being run over by a car. She was still in hospital recovering from the injuries on Monday.
Last week, the West Midlands Police Federation said the levels of violence against officers was “reaching crisis levels”, after six of the force’s officers were injured in one 36-hour period. A further five were hurt this weekend in two separate incidents.
Hours before the hit-and-run, another officer was hurt when his police car was rammed by a van as he pursued a suspected shop robber. He was left with neck and back injuries.
The federation called for policymakers and police leaders to make sure officers have the right equipment and sufficient staffing levels to do their job.
Richard Cooke, the branch chairman, said he knew of at least 10 incidents this year where he believed officers could have been killed. “We had an incident where we had an officer run over and left for dead, and another officer left with a broken leg after a firearms pursuit,” he said.
“The fact is there are more serious injuries of officers and when there are more serious injuries, there’s more chance of someone getting killed.”
Cooke said a shortage of officers and equipment left police “more exposed than ever before”. He added that that only about 850 of the 3,300 frontline officers on the force were armed with Tasers – with 1,400 planned by next year.
West Midlands police have lost more than 2,000 officers since 2010. At the same time, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed there had been a 13% rise in crime and an 18% rise in incidents of violence against the person in the year to March.
