Police Snipers Shot London Barrister in Unusual Armed Response
Neighbors of London barrister Mark Saunders reportedly ran for cover Tuesday night as they realized he was firing a shotgun from his $4.5 million home and some 30 responding law enforcement officers began taking positions from which they could return fire.
Saunders, who was killed after a five-hour standoff, was shot at least five times by police marksmen positioned outside his building, after they determined he was a threat to human life, reports the London Times today, as further details emerged about Saunders’ death in a shootout with police at his $4.5 million home in the expensive Chelsea neighborhood of London.
“Nine marksmen returned fire at the gunman, Mark Saunders, in three separate bursts on Tuesday night,” from roofs, terraces and windows of neighboring buildings, after efforts by a negotiator to coax him out of the home failed, writes the Telegraph. “They cut open the front door of novelist Jenny Haddon’s house, having failed to get an answer on the doorbell, and used her terrace to gain a vantage point.”
Saunders, 32, was reportedly dead from at least five gunshots when officers entered his home. It is believed that the fatal round was fired at about 9:30 p.m. Efforts by police to provide life-saving treatment were unsuccessful.
A charming and successful family law practitioner who had been educated at Oxford University, Saunders apparently suffered from a severe alcohol problem, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, and depression. As a result, he reportedly had been having difficulties in his marriage to another highly successful family law barrister, Elizabeth Clarke, 40.
Both worked in the Queen Elizabeth Building chambers in the Temple, and reportedly together earned as much as $2 million annually, the Times reported in a separate story. “They had been married for two years but had become estranged. It is said his behavior had become increasingly drunken and erratic,” the Times writes.
Saunders’ mother says Clarke wasn’t home at the time of the shooting, the Guardian reports. However, the Evening Standard says she was standing, distraught, in the street during the siege.
A standard investigation of the police shooting is under way. It is very unusual for authorities to shoot a suspect in London, and the last killing of a suspect by police reportedly occurred in 2005. The Telegraph describes the Saunders shooting as “the biggest spontaneous armed operation in a decade.”
Additional coverage:
The Guardian: “A huge row, then he opened fire: the barrister shot dead by police”
This is London (Evening Standard): “Siege gunman: The golden barrister couple who seemed to have it all but whose private lives were falling apart”
Michael White (Guardian): “Why the rush to end the Chelsea siege?”
