Someone on the Tube needs their hand shaken...

[Purple Sparkler]

(Thanks to Dizzy for e-mailing this to me)

[Dizzy]

I take it you found the email mildly amusing then!!!

You shouldn't laugh really...........

[David Franklin]

Or you could try the new fashion craze...

[dee]

[stewart38]

Originally Posted by David Franklin

Or you could try the new fashion craze...

Although funny i guess that would help defuse what is a very serious situation.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by stewart38

Although funny i guess that would help defuse what is a very serious situation.

oh very droll

[bigdjiver]

It appears that one of our servants has shot an innocent man dead.

one of my songs goes:

In my name, in my name
Great God almighty
they do it in my name

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by bigdjiver

In my name, in my name
Great God almighty
they do it in my name

No they don't. It's just a substantially less sh1tty thing (providing it doesn't happen too often) than if one of our servants fails to shoot dead a guilty man, before he kills a much bigger bunch of innocent men dead.

I'm totally sick of all this bleeding heart stuff.

People want to live in this country in the current climate?

They need to learn the culture real quick...

These days, a policeman says stop - you DON'T run away into a tube train.

[frodo]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

No they don't. It's just a substantially less sh1tty thing (providing it doesn't happen too often) than if one of our servants fails to shoot dead a guilty man, before he kills a much bigger bunch of innocent men dead.

I'm totally sick of all this bleeding heart stuff.

People want to live in this country in the current climate?

They need to learn the culture real quick...

These days, a policeman says stop - you DON'T run away into a tube train.

Bleeding heart aside though, if he'd been a 100% known suicide bomber, on average more lives may well have been saved by making the attempt to capture him.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by frodo

Bleeding heart aside though, if he'd been a 100% known suicide bomber, on average more lives may well have been saved by making the attempt to capture him.

Yeah, possibly.

I'm not going to be amongst those castigating the officers who have to make those split-second decisions though.

And the 100% known suicide bomber? He stands very still, his hands totally visible?

I bet he lives.

[El Salsero Gringo]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

No they don't. It's just a substantially less sh1tty thing (providing it doesn't happen too often) than if one of our servants fails to shoot dead a guilty man, before he kills a much bigger bunch of innocent men dead.

I'm totally sick of all this bleeding heart stuff.

People want to live in this country in the current climate?

They need to learn the culture real quick...

These days, a policeman says stop - you DON'T run away into a tube train.

Is one automatically a bleeding-heart liberal if one takes a moment to think about the fact that an innocent man was shot dead, and (likely) a policeman's career was ruined?

One can only surmise, but perhaps if the man had known that he was being chased by three armed plain-clothes detectives and was under suspicion of carrying a bomb he would have stopped. Let's just say that if I were working in Brazil and had overstayed my visa - and was then chased by three beefy guys in suits, I'd probably make run for it too. The possibility that I might be rugby-tackled and then shot in the head would never occur to me.

I support the decision that it may be necessary to shoot-to-kill in certain circumstances - and I acknowledge that the decision the police took in this case might well have been the best they could have done under the circumstances. But it is still a tragedy and no one should be shy to admit it.

[bigdjiver]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

No they don't. It's just a substantially less sh1tty thing (providing it doesn't happen too often) than if one of our servants fails to shoot dead a guilty man, before he kills a much bigger bunch of innocent men dead.

I'm totally sick of all this bleeding heart stuff.

People want to live in this country in the current climate?

They need to learn the culture real quick...

These days, a policeman says stop - you DON'T run away into a tube train.

You were not there, I was not there, and he was not a guilty man. You do not know that he knew it was a policeman, you do not know that he comprehended what the guy chasing him with a gun was saying, you do not even know if he knew he was being chased. The first report said he vaulted the barriers and was wearing a bulky coat. The last report I heard claimed that he used his ticket to pass through the barriers normally, and had no such coat. My guess is that the policeman had to vault the barriers, and was bulked out by his body armour, and an eye-witness made a mistake. I thought our culture was that a man was innocent until proven guilty. I thought that our culture was that if the worst in our society had their legal rights respected the there was a good chance that all of our legal rights will be respected. People have died for that principle. Suspected serial killers have killed before the proof was found to arrest them, and the insane before their condition was established.

I have been stopped by police three times in my life, once for running with a bag, and twice for walking with one. I have heard tube trains coming into a station and ran for them. I have heard people shouting something behind me and thought it was nothing to do with me. I would probably run away from a man with a gun.

The terrorists are winning, we are scared. When we should be uniting as a society we are separating out people based upon their appearance. Cultural isolation, us against them, is the first step in making a bomber.

[Dance Demon]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

No they don't. It's just a substantially less sh1tty thing (providing it doesn't happen too often) than if one of our servants fails to shoot dead a guilty man, before he kills a much bigger bunch of innocent men dead.

I'm totally sick of all this bleeding heart stuff.

People want to live in this country in the current climate?

They need to learn the culture real quick...

These days, a policeman says stop - you DON'T run away into a tube train.

.........regardless of what the reason was for him running away, I doubt if there was anyone in London that wasn't aware of the carnage that was going on, and if someone shouts " POLICE!!! Stop"....you stop, or risk the chance that what happened to this guy might also happen to you..........

[ElaineB]

I'm sorry for this Guy and his family and I do not believe the Police thought - 'oh look, there is someone who we would like to shoot - he is no doubt innocent, but lets blow his brains out anyway!' The poor fellow must have been giving the wrong signals by whatever he did - and has been said, we do not know what was said, or who ran!

The point is that he and the Policemen who shot him are all the victims of Terrorism.


Elaine

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by bigdjiver

. You do not know that he knew it was a policeman, you do not know that he comprehended what the guy chasing him with a gun was saying, you do not even know if he knew he was being chased. The first report said he vaulted the barriers and was wearing a bulky coat. The last report I heard claimed that he used his ticket to pass through the barriers normally, and had no such coat. My guess is that the policeman had to vault the barriers, and was bulked out by his body armour, and an eye-witness made a mistake.

You say the policeman was wearing body armour, he no doubt had other identifying marks, yet the guy still ran? You also say he may not have been the aware the police were chasing him - are the police so thick they cant tell the difference between a man running for a train and a man running from them ? i'd doubt it. Also, Ive never heard any of these reports about the lack of coat and using a ticket, they cant have been very widely reported ! Im sure he knew enough English to understand 'STOP!'

Cultural isolation, us against them, is the first step in making a bomber.

Rubbish. In society theres always 'us against them' - suits versus shop workers , cyclists versus car drivers, black vs white , football fan vs football fan , label versus label - in some quarters this can get quite nasty, but bombers are hardly a common occurrence.

[El Salsero Gringo]

There's a lot of peering into the Retrospectoscope(TM) going on in this thread.

It's entirely possible for the policeman AND the man to have behaved perfectly reasonably in their own world-view - and still for the man to have been shot. That's what makes it a tragedy. It's not fair to say that the man should have heard a warning (what if one wasn't shouted? what if his English was poor and he didn't understand who was chasing him? It seems fairly clear that he didn't understand *why* he was being chased). I don't accept that he 'deserved' to be shot because he should have known he was a terrorist suspect. (Nor am I saying that some fault lies with the police.)

Originally Posted by DreadfulScathe

You say the policeman was wearing body armour, he no doubt had other identifying marks, yet the guy still ran? You also say he may not have been the aware the police were chasing him - are the police so thick they cant tell the difference between a man running for a train and a man running from them ? i'd doubt it. Also, Ive never heard any of these reports about the lack of coat and using a ticket, they cant have been very widely reported ! Im sure he knew enough English to understand 'STOP!'

DS, you're making some fairly substantial claims about something (as far as I know) you didn't witness. I don't know where you got all this information from - particularly about whether the police were identifiable (all plainclothes, I thought), whether a warning was shouted, or whether the man knew enough English to have understood it.

[ducasi]

I've got two observations...

1. I believe that unloading a gun into a man's head when he is pinned to the ground is the definition of over-kill.
2. It's a shame a post intended to lift people's spirits with a humorous picture has descended into bickering.

That's all I have to say.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo

Is one automatically a bleeding-heart liberal if one takes a moment to think about the fact that an innocent man was shot dead, and (likely) a policeman's career was ruined?

{snip}

But it is still a tragedy and no one should be shy to admit it.

Of course it's a tragedy; I never said it wasn't.

However, if the dead guy had turned out to be a terrorist, with bombs under his jacket, only moments away from killing twenty or more people in a packed tube carriage (and why not also take a moment to think about the prospect of that), we would all be applauding the copper in question for his bravery and fine judgement.

I can't imagine anyone would be regretting the fact that the bad guy hadn't been apprehended, convicted in a court of law, and imprisoned at your expense and mine for a few years.

So I conclude that the principle is right, but the implementation wrong on this occasion - it's a bugger and terrible for all involved, I know. Terrible times demand terrible measures sometimes.

Incidentally, while I'm on a politically incorrect roll, I'll say this too:

Originally Posted by bigD

When we should be uniting as a society we are separating out people based upon their appearance.

Not only should we (whoever 'we' are) be separating out people based on their appearance, so should the mainstream, peace-loving, well-integrated Muslim community, peace be upon them.

Like it or not, the profile of the bombers is mostly young, male, asian in appearance, likely to be carrying a rucksack, likely to be getting a bit agitated when on public transport.

Muslims and non-muslims alike should be on the lookout for people fitting the profile, and maybe that would increase the chances of spotting the next perpetrators before the next carnage.

This is nothing to do with racism. If the bombers were from a different culture, I, a white guy with a big nose, would be only too happy to be stopped and searched every day in the interests of catching the buggers.

I'd also be more than happy to get one of those transparent rucksack thingies too.

[MartinHarper]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

I can't imagine anyone would be regretting the fact that the bad guy hadn't been apprehended, convicted in a court of law, and imprisoned at your expense and mine for a few years.

I would. You get more information out of people who are alive, and that information might serve to prevent further attacks. Also, you avoid creating a martyr.