Luke Pollard, Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, has called for a “thorough investigation” into the Keyham mass shooting.
He told BBC Breakfast: “I think people’s emotions have changed from shock and disbelief into now feeling that profound loss of the five people who were killed.
“But also a sense of anger. Wanting to know the questions as to how was this allowed to happen, why did this happen, and were there opportunities to stop this happening that were not taken?
“We need to get to the answers of those and that will take some time, and police need to be able to have the space to do it. But we need to make sure the community gets those proper answers because they deserve them.
“That means they need to be thorough, detailed and accurate, and not speculative, and that will take some time sadly.”
Mr Pollard continued: “I think it’s clear there needs to be a thorough investigation into the systems we’ve got.
“The questions the local people in Plymouth have are two-count. Firstly, were the processes that exist now followed properly? Then, are these the right processes, which is a separate and different question.
“Both of them need to be answered.
“The first one needs to be answered by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the police watchdog, and we need those answers shared with the community soon.
“Then we need to get into a sense of is this right? Because what I worry about is the idea that there’s suddenly a knee-jerk reaction – politicians in Government looking to do something quickly.
“We need them potentially to do something correctly. And that may take time for us to get the right answer.”
The MP added that he did not want to see what happened in Plymouth happening to any other community.
Mr Pollard said: “If that is to be our clear objective, to ensure there’s no more pain, no more loss like we’re suffering, then the stuff that’s implemented has to be the right things.
“So we do need that national discussion about it, we need the politicians to look carefully at the processes we’ve got, but we need the right lessons to be learned from this hideous tragedy that we’ve had in Plymouth.”
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