Shoot first, ask questions later?

Shoot first, ask questions later, eh? Note to self, don't wear a jacket in a public place...especially if I get a suntan. No wonder British Muslims are worried, between getting blown up and shot in the head by the cops. I was stunned when I read this. Your thoughts?

My thought is that you and a bunch of other people missed a "very" important note. The police identified themselves as police and told the suspect to "STOP"! He did not. Case closed.

"Note to self, don't wear a jacket in a public place...especially if I get a suntan."

Prefix that with "Stop when the police tell me to stop, instead of dashing into a crowded subway the day after an attempted bombing." and it would be more accurate.

It's funny, we had people in the US after 9-11 screaming why these people were roaming around, what was done to fish them out, etc. The funny part is those same people are the first ones to cry havoc when anyone is "racially profiled" or "harrassed by the police".

Goes to show what a thankless job it is to protect a population that looks for any excuse to vilify those they rely upon. You have absolutely no sense of balance, do you? A monkey could see the police's perspective on this situation. A guy comes out of a surveiled house suspected of harboring terrorists, and then makes for the subway. When confronted, he bolts.

Ask yourself what people just like you in London would have been saying had they chose not to shoot him and he blew himself up on the train, killing all those witnesses.

This guy was completely innocent, yet he is dead - shot five times in the head by plain clothes police. Kind of ironic, when the whole point of operations such as this is supposedly to prevent the loss of innocent life.

Even the police are describing it as a 'tragedy', yet drmiler proclaims 'Case closed'. So does he think the police are infallible, or just above the law? At the very least, there should be an independent enquiry.

Bakerstreet says that the police have a 'thankless job'. I pity more the poor bastards whose lot it is to be suspects.

Inquiry into what? A guy comes out of a building that is being surveiled in a terrorism investigation. He's got on a bulky coat and heads to a subway. He was confronted, at which time he jumped a turnstile and ran into the subway.

This is a day after a SECOND terrorist attack on London subways. Are you people really this thickheaded, or do you just have no shame when it comes to making your silly, anti-everything points. Had he been wearing a bomb and had they NOT shot him, then your mirrors at the other end would be ranting the opposite.

I guess it is just your good luck that you have found a side-issue amid all this without having to cut into the victims of the recent attacks. This way, you can be your usual insipid selves and not have to play terrorist apologist. You'll be feeding on the cops and this guy's corpse for weeks, I bet...

and for what? To make the same droning, inconsequential noise you've been making since the first bomb was dropped on Iraq. Kudos. It's telling that the people who get energized when innoncent people die are the peaceniks. They're your bread and butter. Without them, what would you do?

' Inquiry into what?' / 'I guess it is just your good luck that you have found a side-issue ...'
This is not a side-issue but fundamental. If the aim is to prevent the death of innocents, yet you're going to hold an innocent victim responsible for his own death rather than the authorities who killed him, then any pretence to a consistency of ethical position you may have attempted to adopt goes up in smoke.

'Are you people really this thickheaded' / 'your usual insipid selves' / 'do you just have no shame when it comes to making your silly, anti-everything points' / 'You'll be feeding on the cops and this guy's corpse for weeks, I bet...'
You can hurl all the insults you like, Bakerstreet - nothing is better at illuminating a redundant argument.

police identify themselves and shout "halt" stop or any command, you better listen, it is against the law to direguard police lawfull commands.

sad for the death of the man, but the terrorist set him up, how about heaping some responsibility on them.

If the aim is to prevent the death of innocents

That's what the police were trying to do.

you're going to hold an innocent victim responsible for his own death rather than the authorities who killed him

Use some common sense, for Christ's sake. Every mistake the man made has already been mentioned here, so I won't mention them again.

All the articles I've seen said that they were plainclothes policemen. So he ran away from some guys wearing normal clothes that were pointing guns at him.

Another question is why the police were watching the house if he had nothing to do with the bombings. Did they suspect him or someone else living there?

And case closed? The Brazilian government is still demanding answers.

I gotta praise Brit cops for kicking some ass! Straight to the goddam head five fucking times!!!

Damn, even our cops in Texas wouldn't get away with that.

Being a police officer myself for 24+ years and a firearms instructor, I would shoot the person. I would try to aim for a head shot so as not to set off the explosives I think he may be carrying. But head shots are hard to do, close quarter contact shot may be the only way. If I find out afterwards that he did not have any explosives on him, then I would feel sorry for him, but not for myself.

You see there comes a time when people must take responsability for their own actions. This person must have known, if he was not living under a rock, or in solitary confinement, what had been going on. Therefore subsequently he must have known what his actions would cause. His own brother said he spoke english fluently so he understood the commands he was given. Maybe thats just what he wanted? To die and cause the police to look bad and therefore allow someone else who is wired to make it without being shot? This person brought the actions of the police on himself. Had he not run, or disobyed the commands, he may have been questioned for a few minutes, patted down, and then sent on his merry way. Action/ Reaction.

People need to wake up and realize what is going on in this world, and if you are not willing to do anything about it to stop it or help combat it, then you need to get out of the way of those that are. I now carry my off duty firearm everywhere I go, even theme parks and to church. And God help the terrorist that tries to harm my family or fellow countrymen and I am able to do something about it. They think they are willing to die for their cause? I will gladly help them in that endeavor. Or die trying myself. I will stand in front of the sheep to prevent the wolves from attacking. I have done so before and would gladly do so again.

If ever confronted with the situation the London cops were I would have done the very same thing. Just maybe the next idiot will think twice about running from the UK Police now.

I don't know about this situation. It might be a case of 'he should have stopped' or a case of 'men in plain clothes saying they are police but they have guns pointing at you'.

You have split seconds to think about what your going to do. Either listen to someone who claims they are police, or run because someone is pointing a gun at you.

As someone who has been stopped by police on a number of occasions, I can tell you that sometimes you either try to figure out whether your being sticked up, kidnapped for whatever reason, or that they are real police.


Sorry guys, but this is not just a case closed. Its not simple at all. Plain clothes police officers pointing gus at you can be anyone. Let see what the investigation comes up with instead of saying that the man was stupid to keep running or the police did something wrong.


I hope this shows to people that, reguardless of the reasons why he was shot, that profiling only works up until a point. The reason why everyone get searched is because a terrorits can BE anyone for any reason.

"You can hurl all the insults you like, Bakerstreet - nothing is better at illuminating a redundant argument.

Just spotlighting the fact that you "peaceniks" are the ones waiting for the blood and suffering of innocents with your fork and knife ready. This just gives you a nice little side issue to be outraged about, so you won't have to keep saying the people in London had it coming to them...

Inquiry into what?' / 'I guess it is just your good luck that you have found a side-issue ...' This is not a side-issue but fundamental. If the aim is to prevent the death of innocents, yet you're going to hold an innocent victim responsible for his own death rather than the authorities who killed him, then any pretence to a consistency of ethical position you may have attempted to adopt goes up in smoke.

"If" as you say he was so all-fired innocent, then "why" did he not stop when the police identified themselves and told him to stop. It's been my experience that "innocent" people tend to stop when told to by police. He was coming from a "known" terrorist house and was wearing an unseasonably bulky/warm coat and would not stop when the police "identified" themselves and told him to halt. Just what do you expect the police to do....let him go on his merry way?

"Just what do you expect the police to do....let him go on his merry way?"

Chase him in to a crowd of people and wrestle him to the ground while praying he isn't holding the button in his hand. Then, they'd be right back here complaining about how inept the police were to allow this to happen.

Hell, then latour would have written about the heinous act of wrestling an oppresed minority to the ground.

The situation isn't the point, validating their perpetual outrage at the expense of the victims is the point. After all, had this been a successful bombing latour would just be back tomorrow saying how we all asked for it by being a "coalition".

Plain clothes police officers pointing gus at you can be anyone.

Why would they have said they were police if they weren't?

" Plain clothes police officers pointing gus at you can be anyone."

So, we should be under no authority from someone who isn't wearing a uniform. What uniform, then? If we are going to decide according to their dress, it better damn well be standardized the world over. I don't want to go to London and have some shmuck in a costume fool me.

Heavens, anyone IN a uniform could be anyone. He could be a member of the Village People. That pretty much rules out unmarked cars, plainclothes policmen, undercover policemen, marked cars, uniformed policemen...

...or we could be sensible, and realize that if several men in full public view in front of witnesses are holding guns on you, and telling you to stop or they'll shoot, maybe it is sensible to go on and stop. Granted, maybe they WILL be skeery spies from Kraplakistan, but if they shoot you in the head their eventual identity isn't going to matter much.

As a British ex-pat and a former London resident I have followed this story intensely and a number of things have struck me.

As soon as it became clear that the Jean Charles de Menezes had nothing to do with the most recent bombings the Metropolitan police said so. The temptation to fudge this must have been strong. The professionalism of the police in being honest, and realising that this is the most appropriate policy, is to be admired. A clumsy attempt at a cover-up would certainly have been counter-productive. The lack of it has done something to persuade this outside observer that the police deserve some benefit of the doubt before the results of the internal and external inquiries, instantly agreed to, are known.

It's easy to argue in the abstract about these issues, possibly to score political points one way or the other, but I went on-line to the BBC website and was able to 'see' real human beings through the video reports there.

I saw the distraught family back in Brazil and was greatly moved by their grief and distress. Not an easy thing to watch.

I saw the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair offering his apology and explanation for the event and saw a decent and civilised human being wrestling with a difficult dilemma.

I saw Chief Constable Ken Jones, described as the 'architect of the shoot to kill policy' explaining the 'moral and legal duty' to "...take life to save life. That's a dreadful thing to say and we hoped, post 9/11 that it would never come to our shores, but we are now aware that it is here". I saw a decent and civilised human being, not the trigger happy caricature that some of the posts above have irresponsibly portrayed.

So go here Linkand watch the real human beings involved, then perhaps you can add your two cents worth.

'Just spotlighting the fact that you "peaceniks" are the ones waiting for the blood and suffering of innocents with your fork and knife ready. This just gives you a nice little side issue to be outraged about, so you won't have to keep saying the people in London had it coming to them...'
While YOU wait with your own 'fork and knife ready' to stick it to the "peaceniks". Moral high ground? Hardly. As for 'you won't have to keep saying the people of London had it coming to them', shame on you, BakerStreet - I never said anything of the sort. Still, you carry on ... after all, the more insults and unfounded allegations you hurl, the more you make my case for me.

It was a bad situation. That's the most we can say about it really. The guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time and made a bad call and as a result of that call combined with the current climate, he's dead as a result. Some here argue that it was a plain clothes cop and therefore their authority isn't clear, that for all intents and purposes it looked like a regular guy pointing a gun at the victim. There may be some validity to that argument, the panic of seeing a gun pointed at you by what looks like a regular person may prompt you to run. The other side of the coin is that if someone pointed a gun at me and yelled "Freeze!" or anything like that, I'd damn well freeze... probably drop to the ground too for good measure. I know I can't out-run a bullet.

The shoot-to-kill policy is an unfortunate, but necessary one, especially in light of the last several weeks in London. The fact that the metro police came forth and admitted the mistake as soon as they realized it shows that they weren't just shooting people on a lark, that what happened was an honest and regretable mistake that they wish they could go back and correct. TO those cops, this was a suspicious looking person running from officers at a time where everyone was high-strung.

A combination of a bad decision, bad timing and just being in the wrong place led to this death. This was not a malicious or targeted incident. It was an error, and everyone has been very up-front and honest about it from the get-go.

I think Chakgogka and ShadowWar said it best.  It was unfortunate, but the police are not to blame.  The blame lays squarely with the Brazilian and the terrorists.  They went for the head shot hoping not to set off any explosives he may have had on him.

And finally, like Zoomba, someone points a gun at me and yells freeze, I am not going to wonder if he is a terrorist or cop, but I am going to stop and drop and hope he is after someone else!

I have had a gun pulled on me a couple of times before. In both instances I was out late at night skating. A car rolled up next to me and somebody yelled stop while waving a gun. In both cases I stopped on a dime. I made no attempt to run until I was sure of the situation. Neither of the criminals was willing to chase me, however I can only wonder what might have happened if I ran. If they were cops I might have been shot, if they weren't ... well ... I might have been shot. This guy made a bad decision which forced the officers to make a tough decision.

I guess some of just hoped that merely not realising that the call of Stop was directed to us, or we didn't hear it would not lead to our death. Arrest, sure. But blown to smithereens? A little overreaction I reaction.