Well... the "good" news is that a lot of things had to go precisely wrong for that to happen.
Clearly, the mess-up re: identification was the key problem, but it happened several times - the observation team made a lot of mistakes, but they stated several times it wasn't the guy, and they were ignored.
And the fact that there was an actual honest-to-God shoot-to-kill policy in place shocked me.
And we don't know how many other near-misses happen all the time. Apparently
Which is quite scary when you think about it.Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, indicated that there were nearly 250 incidents between July 7, 2005 and July 22, 2005 where Kratos policies were implemented, 7 of which were serious enough that the "shoot-to-kill" policy was nearly utilized.
Muslims are the new Northern Irish Catholics, it seems.
To paraphrase an old joke:
So, after the JCDM cockup, Blair is on the phone to Bush:
Blair: I'd like to commit forces to Iraq, but I've got a political crisis here at home. We had a Brazilian killed by police on the Tube yesterday.
Bush: My god, that's terrible! What a disaster. The whole country must be devastated. Why, that's the worst thing I've ever heard.
... pause ...
Bush: Exactly how many is a Brazilian, anyhow?
Interesting debate ... I think ... but at the end of all the rumours, speculation, allegations etc .... considering the danger still presented by a sizeble amount of Muslim extremists in the UK ..... do you still want the armed officers carrying out operations or do you think the Health & Safety issues are more important?
Why's it an "either-or" question? It reminds me of the old dumb "They can send a man to the Moon, but they can't cure the cold / end poverty / stop war" kind of statement.
It's a false assumption that they can't do both. I'd like to be not bombed, and not shot - am I being unreasonable?
That has never been the issue. The police admitting (or being TOLD of, sadly, in this case) a mistake of gigantic proportions is the issue*. If they feel they need to shoot someone to protect the public in the future, maybe now that they have had their fingers rapped, they will be a little more organised about it and not shoot the very public they are supposed to be protecting.
*and if you don't think "gigantic proportions" is justified - just imagine that JCDM had been your son/brother/father
Well, a shoot-to-kill policy is at least arguably justifiable in the circumstances. That's what makes it so important to pin the blame for the ****-up in the right place. Questioning, intervew, arrest, interrogation, charge, prosecution, trial - lots and lost of opportunity to realise a mistake's been made. 7 dum-dum shots in the brain are a tad less forgiving.
Fair comment ... wasn't trying to make it that type of choice ... but if you have got under-pressure human beings running around trying to make split second decisions there ARE going to be mistakes made. Having said that, from I thinkpeople are saying, there were some serious communications and protocol issues to be addressed which maybe the under-pressure circumstances don't excuse. Having said that, if the cop with the gun has to make a split-second decision, I wouldn't want him to have to start thinking about Health & safety issues .... I'd want him to be focusing just on the immediate target environment and taking as read that the briefing he has had is accurate. Sometimes hesitation is fatal
It is never more important to ensure that safety procedures are in place than when you have policemen running around London, scared (quite rightly) witless and carrying guns with kill-at-once-bullets in them.
Why should we accept - as per your post written while I wrote the first version of this post - that mistakes ARE going to be made? The point is precisely that the more dangerous the circumstances, the more exacting the procedures need to be.
Maybe its semantics .... I don't give a monkeys about H&S regs that cover a multitude of things ... I want specific rules of engagement and preceding intel/ops/comms to be well thought out, trained in and followed. Its a war situation ... forget 'nice to have' legislation dreamt up by some over-paid bureaucrats ... lets have practical and effective processes in place that protect the public ... thats what the police are trying to do .... in spite of the bleeding heart liberals like Amnesty who show more compassion for the rights of the terrorist that of the poor sods who get blown to bits...
Rant Over ... I think
Looking at the timeline DS linked to, it seems very clear that had JCDM been carrying a bomb-carrying terrorist, he had ample opportunity to set it off in extremely damaging locations - so it seems to me that the police failed on both counts - firstly, they failed to protect the public from a suspected bomb-carrying terrorist, and then they shot an innocent man. By that reckoning, it looks like it's not so much a case of 'either-or' - rather that we get both bombed and shot, even though it seems a bit like overkill...
So yes. It would seem you're being unreasonable.
Just had a not pleasant thought.
You are one of the officers chasing this chap down. You believe he's a terrorist and you know its gone horribly wrong. You get the go, grab him and one of your team then puts 7 rounds into his cranium with you a foot or so away. Ever thought of the impact that would have on all the officers there. Its unlikely any of them has killed before. I would imagine that 7 rounds of that type at that range would turn the head from something recognisable to a bloody pulp. That MUST be an extremely distressing sight. I can't see how you can train for that ..... and then, when they're washing off all the bits of matter that used to be a human being, they find out they've slaughtered an innocent man.
Those guys were only trying to save Joe Public, now they have to deal with that. Not sure that I would be able to cope
I've thought of the impact on the policemen involved, as well as the other people in the carriage. There is bravery involved in going into a tube station believing there may be a suicide bomber on the platform, and going into a train thinking there's a suicide bomber in one of the seats. One can only imagine their feelings.
One can, however, imagine them quite well and that's only one of the factors that seems not to have been in anyone's mind when working out how to conduct these sorts of operations.
Oh, and health and safety rules.
Pop into a big library one day, one that has the law reports, and read about the dreadful things that happened to people when employers and the like had no statutory obligation to look after the health and safety of the people in their premises.
If the met hadn't turned cartwheels to try and avoid taking any blame for the Menezes blunder, perhaps the prosecution wouldn't have had to rely on H&S laws.
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
Listening to Ken Livingstone a couple of days ago, he was defending Blair's decision not to resign - one of his arguments was that the Met commissioner at the time didn't quite because of the shootings of Stephen Waldorf and Harry Stanley.
But that's a silly argument - the "we've always done it this way, so why change?" line.
The fact that, when those deaths took place, there was no MPA, no IPCC, and no London Assembly to scrutinise and critique police operations seems to have completely escaped him. And comparing conditions in 2005 to conditions in 1983 is just pointless...
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