Man running from police shot dead in London

Lemming · 22-07-2005 12:51PM

Trojan wrote:

Absolutely. That's why I believe those cops thought they had damned good reason to do that.

I read it differently Al. Someone panicked. And near-emptied a magazine. I don't know about now, but a few years ago the use of firearms in the UK was very strictly controlled. You couldn't simply just use whatever force you deemed necessary. You HAD to have authorisation to shoot (I draw the distinction between authorisation & license). I remember a relative in Scotland (strathclyde area) explaining the procedure to me. So this strikes me as being in complete contravention to that.

seamus · 22-07-2005 12:51PM

Kingsize wrote:

he might have been just running for a train reports say he jumped a barrier & ran along the platform .
Ive seen this happen at dart stations

Ah yes, and the group of armed officers who just happened to be standing there at the time decided that he must be running because he's a suicide bomber :rolleyes:

Nuttzz · 22-07-2005 12:52PM

Macros42 wrote:

his execution is.

:rolleyes:

cormie · 22-07-2005 12:55PM

Undercover police remember, what if he thought it was just a racial attack? Maybe if they were uniformed police he would have stopped for a routine check.

Zaphod B · 22-07-2005 12:55PM

steviec wrote:

It amazes me how people are willing to clutch at straws trying to prove this guys innocence so they have something to complain about the police for. He might have been innocent, we don't know yet, but it seems more likely that the police saved the lives of dozens of people based on current reports.

I'm not convinced. I know they like to keep us waiting before they give out any information - maybe to build the dramatic tension, maybe they're just having lunch, I don't know - but I would have thought if he had a bomb they would have let us know by now. I really hope the guy was a bomber. If not, I guess congratulations are due to yesterday's attempted bombers for causing panic which got an innocent man shot. Maybe he'll turn out to be Muslim, in which case the bombers can talk about how the English murdered their brother... and round we go.

seamus · 22-07-2005 12:56PM

Lemming wrote:

I read it differently Al. Someone panicked. And near-emptied a magazine. I don't know about now, but a few years ago the use of firearms in the UK was very strictly controlled. You couldn't simply just use whatever force you deemed necessary. You HAD to have authorisation to shoot (I draw the distinction between authorisation & license). I remember a relative in Scotland (strathclyde area) explaining the procedure to me. So this strikes me as being in complete contravention to that.

I also definitely read it as a sudden (perhaps not panicked, but quite possibly panicked) reaction to something that the officer(s) saw or thought they saw just before they opened fire. Five reflex shots, if you will.

Everything here I think is pretty much speculation. No doubt there will be a police statement about it later, and an investigation by the police ombudsman to clear up the rumour.

Dinner · 22-07-2005 12:56PM

Lemming wrote:

I read it differently Al. Someone panicked. And near-emptied a magazine. I don't know about now, but a few years ago the use of firearms in the UK was very strictly controlled. You couldn't simply just use whatever force you deemed necessary. You HAD to have authorisation to shoot (I draw the distinction between authorisation & license). I remember a relative in Scotland (strathclyde area) explaining the procedure to me. So this strikes me as being in complete contravention to that.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I havent seen any reports saying that it was 1 officer who put 5 shots into him. The eye witness says They pushed him to the ground and shot him 5 times. There was 10 officers, so 5 of them could have shot rather than 1 emptying the clip.

Also, the police were issued with orders to shoot to kill a suspected bomber, thats what they did.

EDIT: For 10 officers to gather together in the chase it must have been going on a for a while. They dont patrol in packs of 10 so a call went out and they responded.

Peteee · 22-07-2005 12:56PM

Lemming wrote:

lets assume for one second that he's robbed a bag. Do you think he's thinking clearly? Other than to go "oh f8ck oh f*ck the law are after me ... better run"?

People are often not rational under stress.

Well I sure as hell wouldn't run down a tube station cluctching a bag after what happened yesterday and 2 weeks ago.

Lemming wrote:

The day we abandon that maxim, is the day that we as a society do not deserve to exist.

Remember, every man is a potential rapist and every citizen is a potential terrorist. Every adult is a potential paedophile and every citizen is a potential mugger. Lets live in a society like that eh?

I trust my point has been made (and I'm sorry for going off-tangent guys)

Me too.

But clearly all the evidence points to him being guilty does it not?

Didn't see the arab guy (assuming there was) sitting on the tube get shot aswell as yer man did we?

I'n not for 'shoot first, ask questions later' because for the most part it dosent work, but 'extreme times call for extreme measures'

Megatron · 22-07-2005 01:03PM

bullrunner wrote:

Its not controlled...its murder...regardless of what the (suspected)suicide bomer intended!

murder is when you have a plan in place to kill some one. at best it would be manslaughter ... and i dont' think it's even that.

as for the comment about the unloading of the gun as it's 5 shots... seeing as it was 5 officers , i honestly don't think it was just 1 gun discharged.

while thinking of that, it could of happened that 1 gun discharged by acciedent, and the other gun(s) went off in response to that...

Either way , you dont' run from guys with guns ... if you do there is a very high chance that you will be shot .. unless of course your Neo

Peteee · 22-07-2005 01:03PM

Lemming wrote:

You HAD to have authorisation to shoot (I draw the distinction between authorisation & license).

Control Center : Go ahead bob
Cop : We have a potential suicide bomber, who looks like hes about to hit teh switch, do we ahve authorisation to shoot, over
Control Center : Wait till I bump it upstairs, bob
Control Center : Hey bill, you reckon its okay if I give

*STATIC ON RADIO*

Control Center : oh.....

:rolleyes:

bullrunner · 22-07-2005 01:04PM

Macros42 wrote:

I'm going to keep saying this until someone listens. His innocence or guilt is not in question here. The method of his execution is.

i agree...especially with the way you worded it as 'execution' (i dont mean that in a sarcastic way)

The Gnome · 22-07-2005 01:07PM

Where's Judge Dredd when you need him eh?

seamus · 22-07-2005 01:09PM

bullrunner wrote:

i agree...especially with the way you worded it as 'execution' (i dont mean that in a sarcastic way)

Yes, but we all have the same information, which right now is very little. It's an execution, but, eh, that's about it. We have no further information to ask the right questions or to draw conclusions.

roberteboot · 22-07-2005 01:12PM

I have to say reading the reports that are coming out now it seems like he had plenty of opportunity to detonate a bomb.But didnt.And they shot him.Its a little worrying.

"As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox.

"He looked absolutely petrified.

"He half-tripped, was half-pushed to the floor.

"One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He's dead, five shots, he's dead."

I mean from that it DOES seem like if he was going to detonate a bomb he could have.

Zaphod B · 22-07-2005 01:12PM

bullrunner wrote:

Its not controlled...its murder...regardless of what the (suspected)suicide bomer intended!

Right, never mind the actual events of this case, since we don't know them all yet. Let's just focus on the theory. You consider it murder "regardless of what the (suspected) suicide bomber intended"? So even if he genuinely intended to blow up a carriage full of commuters, to shoot him dead is murder? Well damn, in that case maybe we need more murderers in the police force...

cormie · 22-07-2005 01:12PM

cormie wrote:

Undercover police remember, what if he thought it was just a racial attack? Maybe if they were uniformed police he would have stopped for a routine check.

I also wonder had they of shouted "Stop, Police" or mentioned Police somewhere, would he have kept going. Who knows if they did or not. I think they took the necessary action for a situation where somebody is hurdling and running onto a busy tube train though.

Devious · 22-07-2005 01:15PM

The Gnome wrote:

Where's Judge Dredd when you need him eh?

EXACTLY what i was thinking gnome! A complete overhaul of the justice system whereby one man is bestowed with the power of judge, jury and executor would eliminate the need for debate on events like this.

Dinner · 22-07-2005 01:15PM

cormie wrote:

I also wonder had they of shouted "Stop, Police" or mentioned Police somewhere, would he have kept going. Who knows if they did or not. I think they took the necessary action for a situation where somebody is hurdling and running onto a busy tube train though.

It'd be standard to shout Stop Police or something to hat effect. They couldnt have told the passengers in the station to evacuate without mentioning somewhere that they were the police.

bullrunner · 22-07-2005 01:23PM

Zaphod B wrote:

Right, never mind the actual events of this case, since we don't know them all yet. Let's just focus on the theory. You consider it murder "regardless of what the (suspected) suicide bomber intended"? So even if he genuinely intended to blow up a carriage full of commuters, to shoot him dead is murder? Well damn, in that case maybe we need more murderers in the police force...

who polices the police? dont they have to adhere to the same laws as everybody else? what happened to innocent until proven guilty.

In my opinion the only way they would be justified in killing this guy is if they could prove (beyond all reasonable doubts) that the only way to stop this guy blowing himself up was to shoot him dead! There are ways of incapacitating people without killing them...thats why the stun gun was developed!

Villain · 22-07-2005 01:26PM

from SkyNews:

Eyewitnesses have told of their face-to-face encounter with the suspected suicide bomber.

Mark Whitby said he was sitting on the Tube at Stockwell when the man ran in to the carriage.

He described suddenly hearing people shouting "get down, get down".

Mr Whitby said: "An Asian guy ran on to the train. As he ran, he was hotly pursued by what I knew to be three plain-clothes police officers.

"As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox.

"He looked absolutely petrified.

"He half-tripped, was half-pushed to the floor.

"One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He's dead, five shots, he's dead."

"I'm totally distraught," he added. "It was no more than five yards away from where I was sitting as I saw it with my own eyes."

Mr Whitby said the suspected bomber "looked like a Pakistani" and was wearing a baseball cap and a thick coat.

He added: "He was quite large, big built, quite a sort of chubby guy."

Teri Godly, who was also in the carriage when the suspected bomber boarded, said: "A tall Asian man with a beard and a rucksack got on after me.

"Then about eight or nine police with shotguns boarded after him and started shouting to us all 'get out, get out of the station'.

"People started screaming and we all started running quite calmly up the stairs. There were six or seven gun shots behind us. It was very surreal. No one was pushing or shoving. We were in a state of shock.

"It was only afterwards that I realised how lucky we had been."

Chris Wells, a 28-year-old company manager, said he was travelling on the Victoria Line towards Vauxhall when he left the train at Stockwell.

He saw about 20 police officers, some of them armed, rushing into the station before a man jumped over the barriers with police giving chase.

He said: "There were at least 20 officers and they were carrying big black guns.

"The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting 'get out, get out'."

seamus · 22-07-2005 01:27PM

bullrunner wrote:

In my opinion the only way they would be justified in killing this guy is if they could prove (beyond all reasonable doubts) that the only way to stop this guy blowing himself up was to shoot him dead! There are ways of incapacitating people without killing them...thats why the stun gun was developed!

There are no non-lethal weapons that could guarantee that you will prevent someone from activating a detonator. Death will in fact guarantee that.
There will be an ombudsman's investigation into this, you can be sure of that. That's who polices the police. Innocent until proven guilty is all nice and fluffy until that incident where you haven't really got time or opportunity to haul someone in front of a judge.
If, in a trained officer's judgement, someone is posing an immediate, intentional mortal risk to members of the public, he has every right to disable him by whatever means necessary. In this case, death is the only way of disabling him.

BizzyC · 22-07-2005 01:32PM

In fairness, what did you expect them to do? a guy who's suspected in being part of yesterdays bomb attempts is running away from them, with a bag on his back, to get on a train full of people?
Where they supposed to sit back and go "Let's see how this plays out......bang(bomb)"

They had to act there and then, they expected him of being a bomber, he was trying to run away from them, to an area he's suspected of trying to bomb a day earlier, that's full of innocent people he might have killed............

Nuttzz · 22-07-2005 01:32PM

Mr Whitby said the suspected bomber "looked like a Pakistani" and was wearing a baseball cap and a thick coat.

its 22 degrees celsius in london, and the tube is even warmer, i wonder what was under the thick coat?

patzer117 · 22-07-2005 01:36PM

BBC News reported that security forces did everything possible to revive the suspected suicide bomber... After unloading 5 bullets into his head

Dinner · 22-07-2005 01:38PM

Mr Whitby said: "An Asian guy ran on to the train. As he ran, he was hotly pursued by what I knew to be three plain-clothes police officers.

Teri Godly, who was also in the carriage when the suspected bomber boarded, said: "A tall Asian man with a beard and a rucksack got on after me.

"Then about eight or nine police with shotguns boarded after him and started shouting to us all 'get out, get out of the station'.

Thats not right....

Zaphod B · 22-07-2005 01:40PM

bullrunner wrote:

who polices the police? dont they have to adhere to the same laws as everybody else? what happened to innocent until proven guilty.

In my opinion the only way they would be justified in killing this guy is if they could prove (beyond all reasonable doubts) that the only way to stop this guy blowing himself up was to shoot him dead! There are ways of incapacitating people without killing them...thats why the stun gun was developed!

Innocent until proven guilty is entirely irrelevant to what you said in that post - you said "regardless of [the dead guy's] intention", meaning you considered it murder even if he was a suicide bomber.

Personally I think it depends on what they knew. If they saw an object which was almost certainly a bomb, then I don't think the same rules apply - I think they should have stopped him in any way possible, including shooting him dead, before he managed to detonate said bomb among a large concentration of people. If on the other hand all they knew was that he had a rucksack, padded jacket or something which 'could be' a bomb, then I agree with you. My problem was with the "regardless of his intentions" part - if the police knew with absolute certainty (which looks very unlikely in this case, but we're talking hypothetically here) that the suspect really had a bomb and really intended to use it, then I don't think for a second they should be considering the different ways to incapacitate him - he'd want to blow himself up in any case, so why bother messing about with stun guns!?

Shabadu · 22-07-2005 01:43PM

Arabel wrote:

Thats not right....

I didn't thinkpolice would use shotguns around civilians either, no range and too widespread area of damage. Probably a couple of police with semi-automatic rifles.

Dinner · 22-07-2005 01:45PM

Shabadu wrote:

I didn't thinkpolice would use shotguns around civilians either, no range and too widespread area of damage. Probably a couple of police with semi-automatic rifles.

Well yeah thats not right either. But I found it strange that one witness said 3 men boarded and another said 8 or 9.

*Page* · 22-07-2005 01:47PM

AIM WAS TO ARREST MAN

Specialist officers had been tailing the man shot at Stockwell Tube station from his home, says Sky News Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt.

Police believed the Asian man was responsible for an attempted attack on the nearby Oval Tube on Thursday and had set up surveillance on him.

Brunt said officers had followed the man from his home and that the initial plan was to arrest him.

But from his home to Stockwell Tube, events overtook police and marksmen were forced to shoot.

Despite temperatures of around 22C (72F), officers and witnesses said the man was wearing a heavy coat under which it was feared may have been a bomb.

Brunt said: "Intelligence officers had suggested he was the bomber from Thursday.

"Officers were confronted with the very real possibility that this man did have a bomb."

Initial examinations though, said Brunt, did not discover any explosives on the suspect.

seamus · 22-07-2005 01:48PM

And already, as we can see, we have "eye-witness" accounts beginning to contradict eachother. Quite often in situation such as these, witnesses who were right beside the incident are known to get basic facts about it completely wrong, and other witnesses will subconsciously make up things to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. You'll hear people say "I saw at least twenty police officers" when there may have only been five, or "I saw them all shoot", when in fact the witness wasn't even looking in that direction at the time of shooting.

Eyewitness reports immediately following any incident like this is sketchy at best.

Man running from police shot dead in London

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