[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Kalfireth
You know, if terrorists were out to spread fear and panic, they may as well hang their bombs up on a coat hanger right now.

Like I said right after the failed bombing attempt:

Originally posted by Sandwich
You don't need to kill ANYone to be an effective terrorist. All you have to do is generate terror. And in that light, this second round of bombings - failed as it may have been - was more successful than the first round.

Originally posted by vyper
Look, guys, you can't argue with 5 shots to the head (of which apparently one in the mouth) was reasonable force. It defies reason.

Can we please see some evidence that the guy was shot to the head? I'm not even tryong to make a point either way, but all I see here are people making all these seemingly ridiculous claims about the guy being shot to the head, and now this, with one to the mouth, without ANY sort of evidence (a simple news item would do)! If all this is just assumptions, you guys should be ashamed of yourselves! The closest I've heard is this:

[q]"He half tripped... they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him," he told BBC News 24.

...and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand.

"He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him. [/q]

Originally posted by Kalfireth
Out of interest... has anyone thought about bomb/metal detectors built into the walls of major stations? Lets put it this way... on a busy day in London it'll take you at least a minute or two to get from the entrance to a subway station to the actual platform itself. That may not be plenty of time - but it's some time at least. It beats the notion of ununiformed armed police running around the place.

Can't work like that. I go through a metal detector every day going into the mall where I work. They don't have the range, they don't have the specificity, and they don't have the ability to differentiate between a bomb detonator and someone's cellphone/glasses case/pacemaker.

Originally posted by Styxx
If the cops were on plain clothes, he was right to run away - how can you know if they're actual cops?

Originally posted by Solatar
To the guy that got shot, probably looked like he was about to get gang-raped by a bunch of armed thugs...

This is what I've been thinking the whole time... that the guy simply saw armed men yelling at him, right after a couple of major terrorist incidents, and just panicked and ran. Bad choice, obviously, but certainly understandable.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by vyper
Which makes it more alarming. They're shooting anyone.

I have a feeling that we will be seeing a lot more of that in the years to come. I'm not quite sure which is worse: Suicide bombers or trigger happy cops. The way I see it, we're pretty much ****ed either way.

Out of interest... has anyone thought about bomb/metal detectors built into the walls of major stations?

It would not be efficient even if it did work because metal is in almost everything. My necklace is made out of sterling silver, I have metal rivets in my jeans, my belt buckle is steel of some sort, my glasses frames are also metal (I think), my watch has some metal in it, I think my shoes have a steel shank in them. And that is just what I'm wearing all the time, not the extra stuff I might be carrying around.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
So they were plain-cothes police officers?

If that's true, it absolves the guy of all blame and puts it squarely on the cops.  That's inexcusable.

He was doing exactly the right thing... get as far away as possible, into a crowd so they won't be able to find him.  He just had the misfortune to trip.

[karajorma]

Depnds on whether or not he started running because someone yelled out "Armed police. Stop or we'll shoot" or not.

[aldo_14]

Well, the issue of plain clothes is going to be a key thing in determining guilt / culpability.  On the other hand, there were 20 of them (sheer quantity would indicate officialdom) ; one eyewitness identifies there being both plain and uniformed officers present at the time.  I think plain clothes (armed) officers may also have to wear police caps when in active persuit.

[q]I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."[/q]

(NB: I think the 'bomb belt' is mostly likely to have been some sort of puffy jacket with the puller drawstrings sticking out)

[Kie99]

Originally posted by Styxx
A Brazilian, surprisingly enough. If the cops were on plain clothes, he was right to run away - how can you know if they're actual cops? I'd probably do the same, and end up getting shot for it too.

So if some people with guns shout at you "ARMED POLICE! STOP RIGHT NOW OR WE'LL SHOOT!" in a place that has been bombed 8 times in the last 15 days, where the presence of Plain Clothes Police Officers is well known, you would not stop?  If no then you probably would get killed just like this guy.

And they explained that they shot him in the head 5 times to destroy his brain, not solely to kill him.  If his brain is destroyed it can't send any random nerve signals to the hands or feet, which could, through random chance set off the bomb they thought he had.  And besides, 2 bullets vs. 5 bullets, doesn't make any difference to how dead he is.

[aldo_14]

I don't think any of the eyewitnesses so far have said they didn't think the persuing men were armed police.

[Kie99]

They wear those Caps with POLICE written on them.

[pyro-manic]

Latest is the guy was illegal, his student visa having expired some time in 2003. That would give him a reason to run.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm

[Styxx]

Originally posted by kietotheworld
So if some people with guns shout at you "ARMED POLICE! STOP RIGHT NOW OR WE'LL SHOOT!" in a place that has been bombed 8 times in the last 15 days, where the presence of Plain Clothes Police Officers is well known, you would not stop?  If no then you probably would get killed just like this guy.

So, did they shout that? Did they wear these caps? If yes, then you can say that the victim was in the wrong to run away, but we can't be sure of that. If the cops wanted to kill him and not leave a chance for him to detonate any explosives, shouting "POLICE!" sure wouldn't help, he could have detonated it then and there. Or stopped, agreed to be searched, and detonated it when the cops were close.

Still, I don't feel like being shouted at and searched in a public place. As far as I'm concerned, this shows that the terrorists are already winning on England.

[Kie99]

I consider it pretty obvious that they wouldn't have just pulled out their guns and shouted "stop!".  They'd have had to have given some kind of warning, they wouldn't have just started shooting at him.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Styxx


So, did they shout that? Did they wear these caps? If yes, then you can say that the victim was in the wrong to run away, but we can't be sure of that. If the cops wanted to kill him and not leave a chance for him to detonate any explosives, shouting "POLICE!" sure wouldn't help, he could have detonated it then and there. Or stopped, agreed to be searched, and detonated it when the cops were close.

AFAIK they did shout some form of warning to him, which prompted him to jump over the safety/entry barrier at the tube station.  But we don't know - and won't - until more facts emerge.

The police are allowed to shoot without warning if they believe the public is in immenent danger; I'm not sure if this was the case here, or what the specifics of 'immenent danger' would be.  Again, this is the sort of thing the inquiry will have to go over.

IIRC, If he had stopped, the police would order him to remove his top - slowly - before approaching.  Either that or order him to keep his hands up and visible whilst an officer moved in to check for a device. You could see this procedure when someone was arrested outside the MoD the day prior.

[aldo_14]

Update; it's been confirmed that the victim was shot 8 times, 7 in the head.  To me that's definately excessive force, and it does raise concerns over the legality of this, especially of the mentality of an armed officer who needs to fire 7 times.

(My honest expectation was that it would turn out to be 2 or 3 shots)

[vyper]

[q]Update; it's been confirmed that the victim was shot 8 times, 7 in the head.[/q]

Holy. ****.

[Deepblue]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Update; it's been confirmed that the victim was shot 8 times, 7 in the head.  To me that's definately excessive force, and it does raise concerns over the legality of this, especially of the mentality of an armed officer who needs to fire 7 times.

(My honest expectation was that it would turn out to be 2 or 3 shots)

British police don't normally carry firearms right? Perhaps the lack of experience contributed to the excessive force applied.

[karajorma]

The policemen who do carry weapons are supposed to be much more highly trained as a result of the fact that most cops don't carry guns.

They don't just simply give a gun to a bobby and tell him to get on with it you know

[Kie99]

I say again, what's the difference between shooting 8 times and shooting twice?  Why is it so excessive?  The guy's still just as dead.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by kietotheworld
I say again, what's the difference between shooting 8 times and shooting twice?  Why is it so excessive?  The guy's still just as dead.

Because 2 or 3 shots are all that are needed; any more would be simply unecessary and would seem as evidence of an emotional desire to kill.  In which case, it would raise concerns over the mental state of the officer, in the sense that an overly emotional (perhaps angry, wanting revenge) individual is less able to think rationally.

i.e. it's not the number of shots so much as the reason for that number.

Originally posted by Deepblue


British police don't normally carry firearms right? Perhaps the lack of experience contributed to the excessive force applied.

Armed officers are specially trained; these guys would probably be SO19, and they're pretty much the UK equivalent of SWAT in terms of expertise.  It's not a case of handing out guns to untrained officers.

[Kie99]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Because 2 or 3 shots are all that are needed; any more would be simply unecessary and would seem as evidence of an emotional desire to kill.  In which case, it would raise concerns over the mental state of the officer, in the sense that an overly emotional (perhaps angry, wanting revenge) individual is less able to think rationally.

According to some high ranking offcial who was on Talksport this morning, they would have shot him the amount of times they did to destroy his brain, so it couldn't send any random signals.

[aldo_14]

My understanding is that you only need about 2 direct shots to kill the brain with a pistol calibre weapon (due to the radial damage from shots; although one is surviveable).  Although it is hard to get exact details off the net on this (shots to head to kill).