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Mark Whitby: "I saw them push him to the ground, then one guy with a handgun shot him FIVE times, while he was on the ground." !!!! (BBC1 NEWS 22.07.05 15.15)
Yes. One witness said that. Other witnesses say different things. That's how eyewitnesses work.
Speaking as one who has not "got it" yet - and oh how very easy it is to assume that anyone who doesn't think as you do has not "got it", I wiill say again that I don't see exactly how shooting somebody five times differs much from shooting somebody once. If they are not about to take an action which will cause them to explode, ending their own life and those of others, it is a bad thing, and if they are it is probably a good thing.
Now, we have very little information on exactly what happpened. When we have more, we can decide what could have been done better and who was at fault. You, at the moment, are jumping to conclusions and then inventing facts that will justify your gut reaction:
Afterall, it's a call they've been overly prepared for, and I imagine, if this had been a training exercise, they'd have failed.
Really? Is that what you imagine? Do you have any evidence to suggest that your imagination is related to reality in any way? Do you have any knowledge of the layout of Stockwell tube station? Do you know when the police began their pursuit? Do you, in short, have anything to back up the claims you are making here, or are you getting carried away by the excitement?
This is a fundamental shift in policy and one which has happened without our consent (as have many other bits of legislation).
Police procedure is not legislation. It's professional conduct. You might not be happy with it, but it is not something that you would expect to be debated in Parliament. The "shoot-to-kill" policy in Northern Ireland was illegal because it was being used to circumvent due process. "If you believe that a suspect is about to do something that will lead to loss of life, and the only way to be sure of preventing it is to use your weapon in such a way that he or she is unable to take that action" - not so much. I'd suggest doing a bit of thinking before making statements like this.
Right now, you seem intent on using somebody's death to assert your impeccable left-wing credentials rather than actually waiting until the facts are made available. Once they are, we can make judgements about whether the Police acted correctly, and get angry if we feel they did not but they are cleared by the inquiry. Until then, if you want to talk about civil liberties, come up with something more convincing than "five shots is excessive". As Fridgemagnet says above, you want to worry about civil liberties before people get shot in the head even once. |
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