HERO copper Ashley Walker tackled a wild pistol-wielding gunman who threatened a colleague at point-blank range.
CCTV footage, played at Snaresbrook Crown Court last Wednesday, showed how PC Walker disarmed hotel worker Carlos Santos as he held a gun to PC Gary Scarth in Kentish Town Road in December last year.
Carlos, 21, was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to assaulting his girlfriend Claudia Cirillo and six counts of possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
He had gone on a drunken rampage along Prince of Wales Road and then Kentish Town Road, attempting to carjack three vehicles with a realistic replica 1950s pistol after an argument with Ms Cirillo.
PC Walker, of Albany Street police station is still on probation, having only joined the service in October 2003 aged 24. He was in a passing van with a squad of officers.
Along with five colleagues he leapt from the van and tackled Carlos on the corner of Church Avenue. He told the New Journal: “We had heard that he was attacking a young woman but none of us knew he had a gun. As we went around the corner I saw that he was pointing a pistol at Gary.
“I only had an instant to react and I did what any copper would do when his colleague could have his face blown off – I hit his hand with my truncheon and he dropped the gun.”
It was the second time in a matter of months that PC Walker (below) had tackled an armed and dangerous criminal – he also arrested a mentally ill-man who had stabbed and hit three victims with an iron bar in Regent’s Park last summer.
DI John Marriott, who led the investigation in to the Carlos case, said: “What all of those officers did showed extreme bravery – it’s lucky for all of us it was an imitation gun, even an expert could not have told the difference.”