Shoot-To-Kill Policy Deployed in London

[catbirdseat]

Today UK Police used a Taser on one of the real bombers.

 

I suppose they figured the info he had on the rest of the cell was too valuable to blow away with 7 headshots.

A stun gun is all well and good unless the bomber happens to be wearing an explosive vest with an electronic detonator mechanism.

 

Stunning

Edited July 27, 2005 by catbirdseat

[archenemy]

Blows me away just thinking about it.

 

What if he's wearing a mesh shirt underneath?

[cj001f]

LONDON, Aug. 16 -- A Brazilian man mistakenly shot by British police last month did not vault over a subway turnstile or run away and was being restrained by one officer when another shot him eight times, ITV News reported Tuesday, citing leaked police documents, witness statements and photographs.

 

Further, the television channel reported, Jean Charles de Menezes was not wearing a padded jacket that police have said led them to believe he could be concealing a bomb. A photograph of Menezes broadcast by ITV News on Tuesday night showed him lying in a pool of blood, wearing jeans and what appeared to be a shirt or jacket. According to a witness statement, he had been wearing a light denim jacket.

 

 

Scotland Yard said Tuesday that it would not be proper to comment on the report until a full account on the killing had been prepared.

 

The ITV report said police surveillance indicated Mendez had taken a bus from his apartment to the Stockwell subway station, where he calmly picked up a newspaper and walked through the turnstiles.

 

Differing with versions provided by police, ITV News said Menezes only ran as a train approached, as did others around him. Once on the train, according to what the channel said was a leaked police statement aired Tuesday night, a police officer pinned Menezes down when another officer shot him. A coroner's report said he was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

 

Scotland Yard officials have said repeatedly that the incident occurred in the highly charged atmosphere one day after the failed July 21 bombings, and two weeks after four bombs involving a bus and three subway lines killed 56 people, including the presumed bombers, and injured 700.

 

Family members have said Menezes, 27, was an innocent bystander who happened to live on a block where police were monitoring the apartment of a suspected bomber.

[Cobra_Commander]

he was trying to distribute poisoned fish'n chips. you can see the incriminating grease marks on his jeans (between the huge pools of blood)

[archenemy]

How does one avoid getting shot while the person they have pinned to the ground is shot eight times?

Even if the shooter was standing right over the body, he would not shoot directly into the ground, especially after the head has turned to pulp from the previous six bullets, for fear of ricochet.

Come on, get real.

[cj001f]

Come on, get real.

You first

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1739222,00.html

[archenemy]

"Another member of the surveillance team grabs him and holds him down in his seat. "I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side. I then pushed him back on to the seat where he had been previously sitting ... I then heard a gun shot very close to my left ear and was dragged away on to the floor of the carriage."

 

is different from the more inflamatory

 

"Differing with versions provided by police, ITV News said Menezes only ran as a train approached, as did others around him. Once on the train, according to what the channel said was a leaked police statement aired Tuesday night, a police officer pinned Menezes down when another officer shot him."

 

Look, I'm not ok with people shooting each other. I just grow a bit weary by the dramatic escalation of every incident.

[cj001f]

"I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side. I then pushed him back on to the seat where he had been previously sitting ... I then heard a gun shot very close to my left ear and was dragged away on to the floor of the carriage."

 

" a police officer pinned Menezes down when another officer shot him."

 

Look, I'm not ok with people shooting each other. I just grow a bit weary by the dramatic escalation of every incident.

 

Since when is a summary a dramatic escalation?

[archenemy]

Certainly you can see the difference between the summary and the media portrayal?

[cj001f]

Certainly you can see the difference between the summary and the media portrayal?

Both are factually correct, one has detail. Still trying to explain away

Good. Seriously. Good.

?

[j_b]

wow! can you believe this shit? looks like cold blooded murder to me.

[archenemy]

Or a mistake.

[Cobra_Commander]

I wonder if a free coldplay concert in Hyde Park would chill those guys out

[cj001f]

I wonder if a free coldplay concert in Hyde Park would chill those guys out

Or focus their rage?

[archenemy]

It would kill them

[j_b]

Or a mistake.

 

you have got to be joking ... shooting a normal bystander 8 times or whatever in the head is a mistake? obviously, the terrorists have won!

[archenemy]

The day before the shooting, four attempted bomb attacks were carried out at three locations on the Underground and on a bus in Bethnal Green. A fifth unexploded device was later discovered in some bushes just north of White City and Shepherd's Bush. As the perpetrators had not died in the failed suicide bombing, a large-scale police investigation began immediately, with the aim of tracking them down. A written address reportedly had been identified from materials found inside the unexploded bags used by the bombers, located within a three-storey block of flats (containing 9 separate flats) in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill.

 

At around 10:00 a.m., officers observing the address saw a man, Menezes, emerge from the communal entrance of the block. The officers were watching three men who they claimed were Somali or Ethiopian in appearance. Menezes, an electrician, lived in one of the flats with two cousins, and had just received a call to fix a broken fire alarm in Kilburn.

[mec]

yes it is obvious, coldplay sucks

[Ireneo_Funes]

People just don't get worked up over mistakes these days. Innocent people getting shot in the head by cops, countries getting invaded on the basis of faulty or phony intelligence, whatever. Mistakes happen.

 

Oh, and yeah, the terrorists have won:

 

No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

[j_b]

A written address reportedly had been identified from materials found inside the unexploded bags used by the bombers, located within a three-storey block of flats (containing 9 separate flats) in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill.

 

At around 10:00 a.m., officers observing the address saw a man, Menezes, emerge from the communal entrance of the block. The officers were watching three men who they claimed were Somali or Ethiopian in appearance. Menezes, an electrician, lived in one of the flats with two cousins, and had just received a call to fix a broken fire alarm in Kilburn.

 

"makes sense, lots of brown people lived there."

[archenemy]

Inner conflict, part 1:

 

If someone suspicious enters my house and frightens/threatens me, I shoot him.

However,

I hold cops and politics to a higher standard, even though they are human beings in an incredibly stressful job during a stressful time.

And

Both of these beliefs have to somehow coincide with my belief that it is fundamentally wrong to kill another human being no matter what the circumstance.

 

Certainly there are many others who can't fully reckon everything they believe in?

[Dru]

many lynchings occurred because the perpetrators of crime, who were often part of the lynching party, found the lynching victims to be useful scapegoats. EG, you rape some woman, then you gather up a posse and hang a black man for the crime of the rape. Then you can take the black man's farm too.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually comes out that something similar went on here. Menezes has affair with cop's wife - cop shoots Menezes as terrorist?

[Recycled]

The scary thing is the not-so-subtle shift in the perceived "rules of engagement". We should all be very nervous when police shift from an orientation of respecting due process (arrest them and let the courts decide) to more of a battlefield orientation where elimination of perceived threats is accepted. This is a bright line that I believe we simply can not cross.

 

The response to this is that the life of a busload of people is worth more than the occasional mistaken execution. I'm not so sure. Better to deal with the root causes of terrorism than to slide down that slope.

[Dru]

Maybe Menezes bought Coldplay tickets for the cop's wife.

[archenemy]

The scary thing is the not-so-subtle shift in the perceived "rules of engagement". We should all be very nervous when police shift from an orientation of respecting due process (arrest them and let the courts decide) to more of a battlefield orientation where elimination of perceived threats is accepted. This is a bright line that I believe we simply can not cross.

 

The response to this is that the life of a busload of people is worth more than the occasional mistaken execution. I'm not so sure. Better to deal with the root causes of terrorism than to slide down that slope.

 

I believe that shift was initiated by people who decided to strap bombs to themselves and blow civilians up.

 

And the death of one to save the many is at the basis of many of peoples' values (Albeit, this death was wrong, but so were the deaths of many other people in history. Their deaths usually are not in vain--people's outrage eventually catches up.)

 

Getting to the root cause of terrorism is a pretty big action item on the world's to do list. Meanwhile, people are trying to avoid getting blown up while getting to work. This does not condone more violence, but fear is an understandable side effect of feeling like a target.