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Shooting on the tube

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21:30 / 22.07.05

And yeah, like Ender said and probably a good few others, there's always the possibility that this was a total fuck up. It seems over the top what happened, but like it's also been said, we can't really judge when we have no idea what intelligence they had to go and do that. The annoying thing is that we'll probably never know exactly what evidence they were going on.

Dances with Gophers

21:42 / 22.07.05

On the 5 rounds fired.
Ok these people may be trained that does not mean they are machines they are human beings and as such are subject to the effects of the hormone adrenaline. Yes he probably was scared, no amount of training is going to stop this, and all you can do is train to cope with it. Adrenaline floods the body, you get tunnel vision, parts of the brain switch off, I can't believe that the Policeman made a conscious decision as to the amount of bullets he fired.
In that sort of situation it is quite simple there is a threat (or perceived threat) you fire until there is no longer a threat, the fight or flight effect takes over.

I’m not making a judgement until I know more.
Remember the guy who fired will have to live with it for a long time.

22:44 / 22.07.05

it is rather difficult to tail someone from in front of them.

it is.
it is still a fairly common tactic, though.
ive tried it with mates for the giggles (life as spy school, innit)and would say it was really difficult without the customary earpiece.

but the suggestion that the Police are SUPPOSED to work for us is irrefutable, isn't it?

i disagree.
time and time again it has been claimed, in some cases by fairly high ranking cops, that the purpose of the police is not the often stated protect and serve, but the protection of property and the maintenance of social control.
they work for you if you have a vested interest in those two things, but otherwise your cause being served is a byproduct.
IMHO, of course, but also in that of a fair few others.

Tryphena Absent

22:46 / 22.07.05

it is.
it is still a fairly common tactic, though.

Well I really meant waiting along a route rather than walking in front.

23:20 / 22.07.05

fair enough, nina.
normal procedure for military intelligence surveillance is to have a few teams positioned all over the area.
one team will be moving rapidly to the target's supposed destination(which may keep changing) while another two teams keep close.
this means that in reality no one operative is tailing the guy for long, let alone one team, and you do often have operatives waiting for them to walk past.
this is miltary, mind, and i have no idea who trained these dudes.
there should have been someone in each of the local tube stations, ideally.
perhaps they didnt have the manpower, or maybe he was tricky enough to put them on the wrong track.
so to speak.

Remember the guy who fired will have to live with it for a long time.
hm.
yeah.
i wonder if the conditioning one gets put throgh is perhaps sufficient to dull that pain.
the SAS guys who stormed the iranian embassy seem almost gleeful about doing their job in interview, and i have a friend who was going to get a tattoo to commemorate his first confirmed kill.
he was special forces, but still.
the thought of the bad guys (as they are often called by soldiers; a telling point i feel) being human and having wives and mothers, etc was not large in his thoughts.
his thoughts were of success and his feelings were mostly pride in that success.

--

00:37 / 23.07.05

All I have to say is, when these things happen in real life, it goes by so fast you don't even know what's happening. Have you ever been in a car acident? I have... One second you're driving, the next... WHAM. Barely any time to react at all. There was this book I read once where a cop says that you can have the most boring shift in the entire world, and in the very last five minutes or so something can happen that can turn it into a nightmare. I used to think all cops were beasts until I met the one who helped me out during the car accident... He was a nice guy, very calm and he could tell I was under a lot of distress. I certainly don't think they're all gun-toting loonies like some people on the far Left picture them to be, though there are some really bad cops out there. But any profession has it's fair share of assholes and fuck-ups.

01:02 / 23.07.05

i guess the thing with armed cops is that their mistakes are more likely to end up in the morgue.
more so than computer game designers or writers or web presences, for example.

Tryphena Absent

01:58 / 23.07.05

I know two policemen, both of them are very nice, quite bright and sensible. I don't have much faith in the police force as an institution but I do think it's very important and central to any fair society. I think this sentence is particularly important, the purpose of the police is not the often stated protect and serve, but the protection of property and the maintenance of social control, primarily because I think the world would be a very difficult place to live in without any social control. I mean, look at the chaos that people bring to barbelith when they attack each other. I think a certain degree of social control does work for us.

Sometimes the police screw up as a group but all of the individuals I've met whether as friends and acquaintances, when my home has been burgled, when my purse was stolen and even at protests when I've been locked into an area by them, have been kind and informative. That's not to say that every member of the police force is good, I've also seen undue violence but I doubt there was any joy in the actions that were taken today, it takes a certain psychosis to shoot someone and enjoy it and I very much hope that they wouldn't allow someone like that to handle a weapon.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:28 / 23.07.05

Jake "The Say-Hey Kid" Gnosis FOX news is calling these guys a "Tackle and Kill Team." They think we need this sort of unit in the U.S. I'm assuming that the British police don't actually have official Tackle and Kill Teams.

Sounds suspiciously fictional to me. We need to reform the Sweeney to deal with these hoodlums.

toksik Remember the guy who fired will have to live with it for a long time.
hm. yeah. i wonder if the conditioning one gets put throgh is perhaps sufficient to dull that pain.

Well, if it isn't, there's plenty of small villages with steeples where he can go crazy and shoot people randomly from.

Anywaaaaaaay, if a terrorist was wearing a vest of explosives and they were set off by a hand-device rather than a timer, is a clear headshot more or less likely to cause the kind of muscle spasms which might be enough to trigger it? This guy was taken down next to a crowded train, if they'd misjudged there would have still been considerable injury to people on the train.

Disco is My Class War

07:34 / 23.07.05

I think my kneejerk reaction that there may not have been 'proven' evidence linking him to the bombings can be explained by the fact that, as Sylph says, all police in Australia carry guns. There have been waaaaay too many stupid unnecessary shootings by police here as a result. I tend to just assume, nowadays, that any police shooting anywhere is for the wrong reasons. Having a gun in your hand makes you more liable to use it.

Also, it's not about whether police are nice or friendly or mean and horrible. Police officers are given orders about strategy: this includes killing people. Their job is to carry out state-sanctioned violence. The far 'Left' is as clear about this as the far 'Right'. Liberalism will not help you here.

07:44 / 23.07.05

Two articles from this morning's press that leave rather different impressions of how controlled this incident might have been:

Tube driver had gun pointed at head

Seconds to decide if suspect is suicide threat

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:15 / 23.07.05

Anywaaaaaaay, if a terrorist was wearing a vest of explosives and they were set off by a hand-device rather than a timer, is a clear headshot more or less likely to cause the kind of muscle spasms which might be enough to trigger it?

The idea of headshots, I believe, is that they shut down the nervous system - that is, that the risk of voluntary or involuntary triggering is minimised.

09:15 / 23.07.05

In a parallel world right now we are all discussing the tragic deaths of the commuters and why the armed police didn't take down the suicide bomber they were chasing sooner.

I'm sure in the wake of recent events the policemen had a dread of the possible headlines 'Copper Hesitates- 35 People Die'. At least in the back of their minds. That's not likely to reduce the pressure on them and lead to a calm considered lets-give-the-guy-the-benefit-of-the-doubt attitude.

09:20 / 23.07.05

i've yet to hear anything to persuade me that this was anything other than a hasty execution, on a par with the professionalism of the "crap" suicide bombers the day before.

but hey, as the sun says - "one down, three to go"

wankers.

09:40 / 23.07.05

The idea of headshots, I believe, is that they shut down the nervous system - that is, that the risk of voluntary or involuntary triggering is minimised.

That's what the IDF say anyway, who have a policy of headshots for suspected suicide bombers. Also, you reduce the risk of a bullet setting off any bomb.

Harrison Ford, in a battle suit, wheels for feet, knives and guns

09:52 / 23.07.05

Just found this on The Sun's website in thier FOUR FACES OF HATRED article; it refers to the suspected suicide bomber captured on cctv at Oval tube:

He wore a black sweatshirt emblazoned with the words New York — a mocking reference to the horrific September 11 attacks.

Thankyou The Sun, journalism from the arse as usual.

Cunts.

10:05 / 23.07.05

What exactly is to be gained by a hasty execution?

10:19 / 23.07.05

What exactly is to be gained by a hasty execution?

that's one for brian paddick to answer, isn't it?

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:35 / 23.07.05

Well, your tricky word here is excecution. It's a rather flavoursome term, suggesting as it does the termination of a life after a process of trial and sentencing. So, in this context, it is intended to throw into sharp relief the absence of formalities before the death of this person. However, while I'm certainly able to entertain the possibility that this shooting was a ghastly error, or rather a series of ghastly errors, I'm not sure how one can really decide either way, right now.

Execution also suggests intention - that is, that the intention of the Police was always to kill him, and they decided that the best place to do this would be in a public place, surrounded by eyewitnesses, not least our very own Mark Whitley. I'm afraid I can't come up with a theory that makes that a sensible decision.

10:36 / 23.07.05

Only if you're operating under the assumption that this is an execution.

10:41 / 23.07.05

Saves time?

I was reading the paper this morning, and saw the line about 'worrying about police employing shoot to kill tactics' and some part of my brain ranted - good, it shouted, they've employed kill to kill tactics, fuck em, this is war, blah blah, but while we're at it, let's not stop there, let's call race attacks like the one in Leeds, white yoofs setting fire to a mosque (on the next page of paper) terrorist activities, shoot those little fuckers as well, five in the head, or one and a reverb or something, yeah! Rattles daily Mail, thinks about eating the flesh of enemies, strokes white cat etc

I really shouldn't drink coffee anymore.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:44 / 23.07.05

Probably not...

We're not really talking about shooting to kill, here. We're talking about shooting in the head. One question is whether this is a sufficiently siignificant change in the application of Police procedure to justify further inquiry. It looks like the Police see it as an application of existing rules on firearms usage...

10:45 / 23.07.05

Execution also suggests intention

aye, that it does. but how long is a respectable premeditation in this regard?

i would suggest it takes just five seconds

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:49 / 23.07.05

Ah.. so, when you say execution, what you actually mean is that the police followed him not intending to kill him, then when he entered the tube station did not intend to kill him, then when chasing him did not intend to kill him, and only decided to kill him pretty much immediately before he was actually killed?

I wouldn't call that an execution, myself. In fact, I'd probably think of "execution" as an obfuscatory term...

11:03 / 23.07.05

Stop start , stop start, stop start.

10 points well done.

Someone mentioned to me this morning that there was a posiibility that the guns were equipped with silencers! Does anyone have any 'factual' info to substantiate this rumour at all? Not that it makes a massive difference to the event, just curious for various reasons.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:07 / 23.07.05

One of the witnesses said that it sounded like shots were fired from a "silencer gun". Since not many people in the UK have heard a silenced pistol being fired IRL, I'd say that was probably speculation. It would be very unusual for the Police (if they were Police) to carry silenced handguns, though...

11:12 / 23.07.05

Seth:
Jesus, though: can you imagine being the poor guy who fired the shots, regardless of the right and wrongs? I have no reason to believe his reaction would be any different to mine, and I find that heartbreaking. As I do that one person, guilty or not, is dead.

This occurred to me too. I once treated an ex-cop who was involved in a situation in which someone died, and he'd become depressed/post-traumatic to the extent that he'd quit the force. This sort of thing isn't easy for anybody.

11:13 / 23.07.05

equipped with silencers!

just curious for various reasons.

are any of them masturbatory?

11:26 / 23.07.05

Yeah, that's what i figured. I'm starting to get the impression that the unit resposible for the shooting aren't your average metropolitan armed response unit, but i'm sure it'll become more clear as investigations unfold. Well i hope so anyway!
Makes me feel a little edgy to know that there may be plain clothed armed police out and about in London in a highly stressed state viewing all as possible suspects. Not saying they shouldn't be or should be, just a fucking horrible state of affairs considering on the one hand that you may die or get maimed at the hands of a suicide bomber/planted device or be shot down or strongarmed by the police for running up the tube platform or 'innocently' acting suspiciously.
Feeling extremely sorry for the UK Muslim community at the moment and for once the Police as well.

11:29 / 23.07.05

No Pornotaki they aren't.

11:38 / 23.07.05

This sort of thing isn't easy for anybody.

i would have to disagree. the people i have spoken to that have killed others have had a range of reactions, up to and including being completely comfortable with it.
some do take it badly, and i would be ready to believe that those who are in the british police force may be more likely to be among those, as they are required to do it less and therefore are not as psychologically prepared.

11:38 / 23.07.05

strongarmed by the police for running up the tube platform

oh, at the very least. this is worth quoting:

Tube driver had gun pointed at head

The driver of the London Underground train involved in the latest terrorist scare was chased by armed police and had a gun held to his head as he tried to escape the scene of today's shooting, union officials have claimed.

The driver started running along an underground tunnel as passengers were fleeing from Stockwell Tube station following the shooting of a suspect.

He was followed by police who briefly held a gun to his head, according to officials from the train drivers' union Aslef.

and they want more powers now, too?

11:44 / 23.07.05

After rereading this and thinking about it, I think there was an alternative to tackle and kill. If he was running in an open area on his way to the tube, and I believed he wasn't going to surrender, and I believed he planned to detonate a bomb, I would have shot him repeatedly in the back while he was running in an open area. This thread would be about why officers had to shoot a guy 500 times in the back, but hey. I think if there was a fuck up with the explosives I'd rather the fuck up happened in a big open space.

Harrison Ford, in a battle suit, wheels for feet, knives and guns

11:54 / 23.07.05

Jack, surely that's asuming that A) At the point when the suspect was in open space, police where confident that he was in possestion of a bomb. (Even though it turned out he wasn't and asuming that that is the reason he was shot). B) If the police were aware that they was no danger to civillians in the area if the explosions, caused by the shots in the supects back, went off.
C) That they were close enough in the pursuit to get a clear shot.

Otherwise I imagine that you would have about as much idea and expertise about what to do in the circumstances as I have. None!

Harrison Ford, in a battle suit, wheels for feet, knives and guns

11:57 / 23.07.05

Sorry Jack scrap point A). You've already accounted for that in your post.

Apologies.

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