Leading article: The police still have questions to answer

Tribute where tribute is due: by no means everything went wrong with the police operation to bring Raoul Moat to justice. After the three shootings, which included the murder of his ex-girlfriend's partner, there were no more casualties except for the gunman himself – and this, despite, as is now known, Moat's threat to target the wider public over what he saw as inaccurate media coverage. Nor, in the end, was Moat killed by the police. If his ambition, as some hazarded, was to commit "suicide by cop", he failed. The police showed exemplary patience in seeking to contain him and trying to persuade him to surrender. It is hard to imagine any other force in the world trying so desperately to bring in their man alive.

And if there are questions to be asked, then they also need to be asked of the media. The minute-by-minute reporting of Moat's final hours, albeit from a distance, can only be described as voyeuristic. When Moat's brother termed what happened "a public execution", he was not entirely wrong. It is hard to see how this live television coverage, complete with commentary by specialists in negotiation and survival, served the public interest in any way.

When all is said and done, however, the handling of this case poses some very big questions, and it is to the police that they have mainly to be addressed. Some are essentially small-scale, about the response of the Northumbria force; others relate to police practice and structures more generally.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is to examine two specific points, both of which need detailed answers. The first concerns the warning reportedly passed to police from Durham Prison that Moat risked causing "serious harm" to his ex-girlfriend. The investigation must establish how the warning was issued, by whom and to whom and why, it appears, no precautions were taken in response. It may turn out that many warnings of this kind are passed on about many prisoners, and that the police have come to see them as something that is usually safe to ignore. If so, that might be a mitigating factor. If, however, such a warning was unusual and Moat's history suggested that violence was a real possibility, the question about why no action was taken looks much more serious.

The second IPCC investigation concerns the precise circumstances of Moat's death. The most pressing issue here would appear to be whether police use of Tasers could have been avoided and whether, in fact, it precipitated his death. And if it did, whether the Taser shots somehow convinced Moat that suicide was the only option or whether they prompted a reflex that led him to fire involuntarily. Police Tasers and the rules governing their use will rightly come under scrutiny.

But there are questions that are not – as yet – subject to investigation but which still cry out for answers. One is why it took so long to track Moat down, especially given the help he seems to have received from friends and associates who were quickly apprehended. Others relate to the scale and the character of the police operation. And while praise may be due for the impressive way in which other forces contributed to the overall effort, the sheer number of officers and quantity of equipment should be an issue in themselves.

At a time when senior police officers are warning of a decline in frontline policing if budgets are cut, people in areas plagued by anti-social behaviour might feel justified in asking whether the police are really that strapped for cash and whether taxpayers' money has always been used to best effect.

The death of Raoul Moat might, in the end, have been inevitable. But we have to ask whether the near-paramilitary force mobilised to corner him is what British policing should be about and whether the police, as an institution, have their priorities right.