Somethings amiss in London again...

yup.

I don't believe that report at all. If you already have the guy apprehended, you don't pump him full of lead. This is London, not Hollywood

The police have a hard job. I salute them for their actions today in London.

If those reports are in any way accurate and there isn't some incredibly good reason why they took that action AFTER he was apprehended, I'd want them prosecuted, not praised. They may have a hard job, but it's still no excuse to kill someone you have already taken down.

By your previous posts I thought you questioned the veracity of the reports based on eyewitness accounts soon after the hysteria.

Anyway, I agree there is no evident excuse for shooting the man after he was apprehended. The key word is EVIDENT.

As of right now, I choose to praise the police for their work. If evidence shows they acted in a substantially abusive manner (killed him without cause) then....well, I still can't criticize them too harshly, but the law should be enforced appropriately.

Another day, another alert. Is this going to be the norm now?

If so thank you Mr Blair for making our country a safer place. With various sources pointing at up to a possible 100.000 civilian deaths in Iraq and the threat to our country from weapons of mass destruction never having exsisted (this is the reason Britain went to war NOT regime change), it all seems very worth it.

They are trying to create Mass Hysteria, it appears they are half succeeding.

Police are believed to be under orders to shoot to kill if they believe someone is about to detonate a bomb. This seems to be post Iraq London.

That's all well and good, but what about innocents with backpacks, or someone that just 'looks dodgy', what are they going to do then.

The Austrailian PM praised us for how well we were handling all this, I don't call this handling it all too well.

If it turns out he was there to do no good, I won't be mourning the loss, BUT, I don't believe that killing him was the way to go about things, do you?

Nope. Any man or woman of Asian 'appearance' carrying a backpack can be a target if they start acting 'suspiciously'. Terrible situation.


You only have to look at the case of the Irish man who was shot by police when carrying a wrapped up shotgun last year. He was a Scottish joiner and was carrying a table leg.

Yup.

*sighs*

Yes, I share Willow's anxieties. If we start reacting with hysteria we are lost. I do hope it turns out that the man concerned was carrying a bomb, because if not then none of us is safe.

Yes, but would he still have been able to detonate a bomb after having been flattened by three policemen? and in the happy situation that a potential bomber was flattened by three policemen, wouldn't it then be a case of, like, arresting him? I don't think the shoot to kill order said 'and once you successfully apprehend the suspect, shoot the fucker dead'

Update on this, the guy was an innocent and him being shot 5 times in the head was called by the police a 'tragedy'

Innocent people do not run from the police.

David,

<<Innocent people do not run from the police.>>

They do if they are pursued by a shouting gang of men, some in civilian clothing, carrying sub-machine-guns. Do we know whether the man could speak English? Do we know whether he was deaf?

A witness who saw him moments before his death said that he looked 'utterly terrified'.

*sigh*

They only had moments to decide, they didn't know if he was carrying a bomb or not, it was a hard choice, turns out it was the wrong one. Deep down they thought they were doing it for the greater good.

*sigh*

Crap. For all the reasons Selador said.

This kind of statement winds me up almost as much as the one everyone is using re the ID card bill atm - if you object to it you must have something to hide.

Everything is so fucking black and white for some people. So glad your lives are that simple.

I'd rather that than a mirror image of palestine. Apache helicopters overhead. Taking out anyone they suspect by missile, no trial, nothing. No port. No airport. Just a big prison camp. Religious maniacs stealing anybody's land any time (with support from the army and the law), and then importing settlers to put on it and giving them guns - the very same guns no palestinian is allowed to own. And all funded by billions of dollars a year from the humane freedom-loving US taxpayer. One year recently it was 11 billion dollars.

Yes. I had a hunch that'd turn out to be the case. So now the already twitchy Londoners can feel extra safe and assured knowing that they have the protection of our wonderful armed police; though they might just get blown away because the police didn't like the look of them. And God help anyone who doesn't look definitively British atm.

But still, I'm sure they had good reasons...

Policeman 1: "But he was DEFINITELY foreign looking! Like, dark skin, hair - everything."
Policeman 2: "And he had a rucksack! And he was running!"
Policeman 3: "Yah! So we shot him in the head five times. Naturally"

The police have announced details of their "shoot to kill" policy.
The objective is to prevent the suspect triggering a bomb, which in principle can be done even by moving one finger. Their instructions are to shoot into the mouth, because this instantly smashes the spinal cord, thus disconnecting any attempt the brain may make to send a command to the rest of the body. The claim is that the body is thus instantly paralysed, and that nothing else can do this quickly enough.

Presumably it is on this basis that they smash your spinal cord even when they are holding you down on the ground. Bit unfortunate if you are innocent.

The victim was brazilian, dark skinned for a brazilian, wearing a padded jacket in hot weather, and he was an electrician. Whether he had a bag with wires hanging out we do not know. His address had been watched (and him followed from it) because it was found written in one of the bomb rucksacks. It is claimed his english was good, though that of his best friend (as interviewed) was not. It seems he was chased by perhaps more than ten policeman, and it is possible that none were wearing uniform. He leapt the ticket barrier to escape them, ran onto a tube train, and grabbed hold of a passenger.

Will we ever know why he ran ? Maybe he had violent enemies. Or was just very frightened and his language skills left him. Or maybe the police were out of puff and didn't shout loud enough. Or the multiple echoes and train noise scrambled their warnings - sound can be very garbled in these hard-walled underground stations. Almost like echo chambers.

It's a very tragic situation all round. Sadly, his behaviour seems to have been exactly what a real bomber would probably have done, and would indeed have been reaching for the trigger just as they killed him.
______________________________

Edit : Just in - he only had a student visa, shouldn't have been working, and it had expired. Maybe explains why he ran. Didn't want to go back to Brazil.

I have to agree that it is a very unfortunate and tragic error on the part of the London Police.

I also have to state that this incident does not make the Police "terrorists", nor does it mean that their policies are unnecessary or misguided.

Hmmm... guess I ought to correct what I said before, in the light of new info on the death of the innocent Brazilian.

No real authentic details yet, but the police seem now to have admitted that he was NOT wearing a bulky garment, and did NOT vault the barrier, but used a ticket. The pursuing police were in plain clothes. Must disturbing of all, it now seems likely that they issued no warning, and never identified themselves as police before holdiong him down and shooting him dead.

The text of the currently applicable police regulation has been released. It specifically instructs that if there is sufficient reason to believe a person may be carrying a bomb, he is to be shot dead in the head. No warning should be given, nor opportunity to surrender, nor need the police identify themselves as such, in case it alerts him to trigger the bomb. Provided of course that the oficers believe that this action will prevent or reduce loss of innocent life.

If those were the police instructions, it seems they obeyed them, and so were only doing their job.

Don't know what to say really............
But that, it seems, is the situation in the UK at present.