Man running from police shot dead in London

BuffyBot · 25-07-2005 04:15PM

What is wrong, is a bunch of "police" running at a guy

What exactly are they supposed to do when trying to stop him? Walk briskly?

-at the time cornered-

Well not all that cornered seem as he could run away.

not in uniform

Undercover surveillance rarely works when the officers dress in uniform.

with guns in hand

A good reason not to move, especially when the people with the guns are shouting "Stop Police" in a tube station which had just the day before been the site of an attempted terrorist attack.

after having followed him all the way from his house without apprehending him.

If they shot him coming out of the house, would that make it any better? They suspected that he may have been a terrorist. They could have decided that it was a good idea to follow him to see would he meet with other terrorists (remember, 4 of them were on the run at the time, and there is a likelyhood that the Stockwell bomber could be still in the area, being hidden by others). He got on a bus - would you rather they shot him on a busy bus? He got off the bus and approached the tube station - and this is where the police then had to make a desicion. Is this suspect going to carry out the attack which failed just the day before? What are his intentions. They decide to apprehend him, he jumps the barriers and make a dash for the train. Snap second desicion for the police to make - shoot suspect, or let suspicious man who has just tried to escape them and my have a bomb proceed. So what desicion do you make?

Some of the wailing and gnashing of teeth about this is enough to drive anyone mad.

ambro25 · 25-07-2005 04:25PM

Desperate times make for desperate measures...
You can't make an omelette with out breaking some eggs..
etc, etc... you get the drift.

I am astounded that any right-thinking person would challenge or worse, villipend, a judgment call made by a trained professional in the heat of the action, all circumstances (that we know of) considered, particularly that of the fact the guy could have been one of the bombers in question

So far as I am concerned, the (very unfortunate, but still...) guy was living in London, was aware of 07/07 and 22/07 and should have either (i) complied immediately with any challenge issued or (ii) coped on in the absence of any challenge and just stood ramrod straight, arms out or up, presenting no outward threat.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist, never mind a street sweeper, to know that, particularly with the amount of ARVs & armed foot patrols that must be everywhere in London at the moment.

Any further extrapolation, particularly the kind proferred by the overly liberal, civil rights-enraged brigade, is pretty moot I think. Those same opinionated people who would clamour and berate at what the government is doing if they or they loved ones, God forbid, were victims of any such terrorism acts.

And by now I would have expected some of the UK muslim population to cop on some and start shopping a few bad apples to try to stop what is undoubtedly going to grow into quite a venomous cohabitation nationwide. And I deplore that above all, because silence in this case is only going to compound the problem, as tacit approval.

WhiteWashMan · 25-07-2005 04:26PM

Gurgle wrote:

The information they had at the time:
'Keep an eye on that block of flats, theres foreigners in there'
The situation they were in:
Plain Clothes policemen toting guns around an area where terrorists had struck recently.

If they suspected him, why follow him to the tube station, why not grab him out in the open when they had the chance ?

The police don't go out for a wander to see whats going on. They have very precise orders and they are required to make decisions within certain clear parameters.

They fucked up badly.

This guy didn't die in an accident or a terrorist attack.

He was executed by the police. No judge, no jury, an ordinary grunt in a uniform took it upon himself to shoot an unarmed suspect five times in the face.

Will this cop get away with murder ?
Almost definitely!

ah, i see you are privy to information the rest of us are not.

you even know what they said when they started to keep survaillance on the house.

im surprised you are still postin on these baords, and have not turned in your valuable information to the Sun for a substantial cash pay off.

they could use such accurate and insightful information as yours.

you may also be called upon to give evidence at any enquiry or trial.

oh hold on. youre talking through your arse arent you?!

JackKelly · 25-07-2005 04:27PM

BuffyBot wrote:

What exactly are they supposed to do when trying to stop him? Walk briskly?

How abot this. As he walks out of his flat, they surround him, produce a badge, prevent him from going anywhere and search him[/QUOTE]

BuffyBot wrote:

Well not all that cornered seem as he could run away.

No, your right, i was talking literally.

BuffyBot wrote:

Undercover surveillance rarely works when the officers dress in uniform.

Hilarious. It really worked well this time though. Because of confusion, he's now dead.

BuffyBot wrote:

A good reason not to move, especially when the people with the guns are shouting "Stop Police" in a tube station which had just the day before been the site of an attempted terrorist attack.

I could walk into a tube station with a gun and shout stop police. I wouldn't be the police though.

BuffyBot wrote:

If they shot him coming out of the house, would that make it any better?

They wouldn't have been in situation to have to shoot him there.

AdMMM · 25-07-2005 04:29PM

TimAy wrote:

He was still a suspected terrorist when he left his house walking. Why not challenge him there. It's not like there wouldn't be evidence-he'd have a suicide belt around him. It can't be said they risked getting blown up, as they didn't have a problem tackling him to the ground and unloading 5 bullets into his head
tbh, not to go down the race road, but a normal white guy in a heavy jacket wouldn't have been looked twice upon. There was no formal policing, just paranoid men with guns.

You didn't read my post in full. I was trying to give a reason why they didnt apprehend him and that was because they maybe didnt suspect him of carrying explosives at the time of him leaving the house in the anticipation that he may have been off to meet other suspects. It was when they saw him enter the tube station that they became worried and when he started running, they panicked and tackled him and shot him!

JackKelly · 25-07-2005 04:34PM

|.Murderer.| wrote:

You didn't read my post in full. I was trying to give a reason why they didnt apprehend him and that was because they maybe didnt suspect him of carrying explosives at the time of him leaving the house in the anticipation that he may have been off to meet other suspects. It was when they saw him enter the tube station that they became worried and when he started running, they panicked and tackled him and shot him!

Say im playing a football match. I don't let a player run the pitch, with the idea "maybe he won't score" and then realise when he's near the goal, "crap i better take him down".

If he was a suspected terrorist they couldn't take the chance of assuming he wasn't carrying explosive.

I'm not to sure of the intelligence they were given and maybe someone knows, but how exactly can someone be targeted as a suspected terrorist and then turnout to have no terrorist links what so ever?

Redleslie2 · 25-07-2005 04:51PM

I don't understand how 20 odd cops were unable to surround him to prevent him running anywhere, especially if he was supposed to be a walking bomb. And why let him get on a bus beforehand? Have to wait for inquiry I suppose.

Gurgle · 25-07-2005 04:56PM

WhiteWashMan wrote:

ah, i see you are blah blah blah blah blah!

gfys

Redleslie2 wrote:

I don't understand how 20 odd cops were unable to surround him to prevent him running anywhere, especially if he was supposed to be a walking bomb. And why let him get on a bus beforehand? Have to wait for inquiry I suppose.

Was any reason given why they thought he was a terrorist ?
He probably had a couple of ounces of Charlie in the backpack.

Brittish inquiries always end the same way.
'We're very very sorry it happened that way but we didn't do anything wrong'

JackKelly · 25-07-2005 04:59PM

Was just reading about it there.

A piece of paper was found in the rucksack that had been previously found from the 4 failed bombings, and on it was the address he lived at. Thing is, the building had multiple flats in it so it seems, he was a suspected terrorist because he lived in the building. That was their "intelligence".

Trojan · 25-07-2005 05:12PM

So far what we know[1] is that following 2 attacks, by dark skinned suicide bombers on London's transport systems, a dark skinned guy wearing bulky clothes leaves the building containing the known residence of numerous suicide bombers, travels by bus to a tube station (where a previous attack took place), and then runs from armed police onto a crowded train, ignoring their pleas for him to stop.

1. In the loosest possible sense.

Lemming · 25-07-2005 05:18PM

Trojan wrote:

So far what we know[1] is that following 2 attacks, by dark skinned suicide bombers on London's transport systems, a dark skinned guy wearing bulky clothes leaves the building containing the known residence of numerous suicide bombers, travels by bus to a tube station, and then runs from armed police onto a crowded train, ignoring their pleas for him to stop.

1. In the loosest possible sense.

What if it had been a block of apartments he came out of as opposed to a house with seperate flats? The intelligence (oxymoron taht it is) supplied to the military guys in plain clothes (lets not pretend they were police ok - police don't carry those weapons) was woefully inadequate. I'd start there before any more major propoganda coups are handed to terrorists.

Why did they allow him to not only get on a bus, but then not only enter a tube station, but didn't challenge him until after he had vaulted the turnstiles?

Nuttzz · 25-07-2005 05:29PM

Lemming wrote:

the military guys in plain clothes (lets not pretend they were police ok - police don't carry those weapons) was woefully inadequate.

I was in liverpool 2 weeks ago

all the cops in the airport were armed with one of these how do you know they were military?

Trojan · 25-07-2005 05:33PM

Looking at BBC News, he may have been running from them because his visa had expired, and it's known that London police check visa's in tube stations from time to time.

--

Lemming, I said that it was a "building containing the known residence", not that he came out of their flat. A not very subtle difference

As for the "military guys" bit, well I'm up for a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but what are you saying? They were just back from gunning down civilans in Iraq, and wanted some practice at home? I think they were trained armed police, because that's who would you stake out terrorists with.

Finally, from what I've read it appears that they challenged him outside the turnstiles, whereupon he turned and vaulted them, running down towards the train.

I think there's hysteria on both sides of the equation here. I feel sorry for the guy & his family, but also for the cops who had to make a terrible decision. There's not really much choice they had.

Lemming · 25-07-2005 05:41PM

Nuttzz wrote:

I was in liverpool 2 weeks ago

all the cops in the airport were armed with one of these how do you know they were military?

The pics I saw weren't of guys carrying H&K smgs ...... what I saw was a collapsed assault rifle, which, well ... police don't get issued quite frankly. Ever.

Nuttzz · 25-07-2005 05:49PM

where did you see the pictures? Are they on line? Any eye witness accounts I read talked about handguns

Redleslie2 · 25-07-2005 05:51PM

Trojan wrote:

a dark skinned guy wearing bulky clothes .

I have darker skin than him ffs!

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41336000/jpg/_41336581_victim203.jpg

Lemming · 25-07-2005 05:51PM

Nuttzz wrote:

where did you see the pictures? Are they on line?

It was in the Daily Record (scottish paper), front page picture from yesterday if I recall. If it's still at home I'll scan it and post it.

WhiteWashMan · 25-07-2005 06:30PM

Gurgle wrote:

gfys

as much as i would like to 'go and **** myself, i cant. im too busy banning you from AH for personal insults.

JackKelly · 25-07-2005 06:50PM

lol. Bad move gurgle

BuffyBot · 25-07-2005 07:20PM

As he walks out of his flat, they surround him, produce a badge, prevent him from going anywhere and search him

You seem to have (conveniently) missed my point about the police opting to follow him to see if he would lead them to something/somewhere important...

JackKelly · 25-07-2005 07:32PM

BuffyBot wrote:

You seem to have (conveniently) missed my point about the police opting to follow him to see if he would lead them to something/somewhere important...

Actually i didn't think that needed a reply.

If they were treating him as a potential Terrorist, they must have been treating him as a potential suicide bomber. How could they let someone they thought had a bomb walk the streets of London? and even get on a bus. They didn't have enough intelligencene and it ended up with this. If he was so suspected, he should have been stopped earlier. Plain and simple.

4Xcut · 25-07-2005 07:36PM

What i can't understand is why they shot him in the head 5 times not enen once or twice but 5 seperate shots. Unless he was an incredibly unusuall person surely one or two shots to the torso would have been enough to bring him down.

Although this would have most certainly have killled him it is not as likely and also there would have been smaller chance of missed shots hitting another innocent who was at the time uninvolved. Althought that didn't happen it could have.

TBH if I was in london and several big men in plain clothes came running at me with guns i'd leg it.

BloodBath · 25-07-2005 07:47PM

If they were 100% sure he was a suicide bomber then they should have apprehended him before he got anywhere. If he was just a suspect they should have apprehended before he got anywhere. Questioning could have led to the source just as much as following him.

Nothing gave them the right to shoot the man 5 times in the face after they had him on the ground. It's disturbing to say the least.

As for all the arguements about him running, who knows if he even heard or saw them in a busy subway station? Maybe he was just genuinely running for the train. Seeing as he ran on to it suggests it was already there which wouldn't have left him much time to catch it if he had been walking. None of you know the facts so stop debating and using the fact that he ran as an excuse for shooting the man in the face 5 times AFTER they caught him. Not while he was running.

**** ups happen and this was a major one. Anyone that thinks the met did their job properly here though is a complete idiot.

AdMMM · 25-07-2005 08:15PM

Aye, there really is no getting past that this was a major fùck up on The Metropolitan Police behalf. They used excessive force in order to kill a totally innocent guy. I think there were faults on both sides though and it's just not fair to point the finger at the police!

It's all very well saying what should have happened and what you would have done, but the fact of the matter is that you weren't there. You didnt have to make the split second decision over whether or not to shoot a man, a fellow human being. There are no if or buts about it, but the policeman/men who fired those bullets will have to live with the fact that they murdered a perfectly innocent man!

Trojan · 25-07-2005 08:19PM

I forgot to renew my subscription to Soldier of Fortune

so I'm not quite up to speed on which collapsible assault rifles the police can and can't be issued according to British legislation.

Redleslie2 · 25-07-2005 08:27PM

BloodBath wrote:

Nothing gave them the right to shoot the man 5 times in the face after they had him on the ground.

7 in the face and 1 in the shoulder apparently.

Mercury_Tilt · 25-07-2005 08:52PM

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BloodBath · 25-07-2005 09:04PM

And not that of the guy doing the shooting. Fair play to him. Five shots into the head in those close circumstances requires a bit of skill.

What it takes skill to shoot someone in the head 5-7 times while a group of you have him pinned to the ground and the gun is inches from his face?

JackKelly · 25-07-2005 09:08PM

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Um, are you serious?

Mercury_Tilt · 25-07-2005 09:19PM

This post has been deleted.

Man running from police shot dead in London

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