London Underground under attack? [merged thread]

Sparks

Sparks wrote:

Yes, held down and shot five times by police.

Shot 5 times while being held down?

Villain

It seems he was trying to get onto a train and an eyewitness says 3 plain clothes cops bundled him over and shot him 5 times, perhaps he had his finger on the trigger?

Villain

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'."

Sparks

That's what the reports are saying Earthman.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/07/22/story212895.html

Sparks

Sparks wrote:

That's what the reports are saying Earthman.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/07/22/story212895.html

Yeah I'm reading them.
I've also read reports that he had a bomb belt with wires attached.
In which case the police has to fully disable him or they and loads of others might have gone up in smoke.
I shall await the full picture as it emerges though.

Sparks

I've also read reports that he had a bomb belt with wires attached.
In which case the police has to fully disable him or they and loads of others might have gone up in smoke.

Not so sure that shooting at it is the right way to do that sort of thing. Plastique might well be stable and inert, but there's no such property about the detonators or the circuit...

Sparks

Sparks wrote:

Not so sure that shooting at it is the right way to do that sort of thing. Plastique might well be stable and inert, but there's no such property about the detonators or the circuit...

Yeah Sky news is on here and they are talking about officers being trained to aim for the head in case theres a bomb.
They are also saying that the guy was followed by police from his home, ie he was under surveilance.
Police news conference in the next few minutes

civdef

The number of shots isn't out of the ordinary for suspected suicide bombers, they don't want someone triggering a device whilst bleeding to death.

As for shooting not being the best way, well I'm really struggling to come up with an alternative.

tomMK1

Earthman wrote:

Shot 5 times while being held down?

held down and shot whilst wearing explosives apaprently.

that doesnt make sense though

ReefBreak

TodayFM news have just reported that Police are stating that the man that was shot was linked to the terrorist attacks yesterday. Seriously, well done to the London Police, hopefully they'll nail a few more bombers in time as well.

SkepticOne

The ideal thing would have been to restrain him in such a way that he couldn't possibly detonate his suspected bomb. Then he could have provided valuable information through questioning.

Understandable if the police didn't want to take the risk though. At least they had the presence of mind to hold him down before discharging their weapons and did not try to shoot while he was running.

Johnny_the_fox

ReefBreak wrote:

TodayFM news have just reported that Police are stating that the man that was shot was linked to the terrorist attacks yesterday. Seriously, well done to the London Police, hopefully they'll nail a few more bombers in time as well.

They say he was shot five times in the head - a witness states.

"They pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him" - Witness Mark Whitby

the police panicked.

mike65

Someone just arrested in Stockwell.

Mike.

tomMK1

ReefBreak wrote:

TodayFM news have just reported that Police are stating that the man that was shot was linked to the terrorist attacks yesterday. Seriously, well done to the London Police, hopefully they'll nail a few more bombers in time as well.

strange, todayfm news i heard on the way home (6pm i think it was) said the person wasnt one of the four they were looking for but might have links.

tomMK1

tomMK1 wrote:

strange, todayfm news i heard on the way home (6pm i think it was) said the person wasnt one of the four they were looking for but might have links.

The press conference said he had links.
I'm taking my brief form a combination of Sky and BBC news 24.
They followed him from his house apparently,he became aware of their persuit at the station and was running away-A strange thing to do if you are innocent in a heightened terrorist alert with armed police presumably capable of firing running after you...
If he had Hands up in the air standing still and if he threw off the baggy coat he was wearing in temperatures of 24c plus , he might be still alive...

Wheely

Have the police determined whether or not he actually had a bomb yet?

mike65

The shot man had come from a house which was under surveillance after yesterdays attacks according to the Beeb. Someone in Brum is under arrest and the bomb squad are examining his briefcase at a railway station.

Mike.

oscarBravo

Johnny_the_fox wrote:

the police panicked.

You're right: the appropriate action would have been to shout a warning, and if he detonated the bomb, then shoot him.

tomMK1

I'll be happier once i know for sure they got the right man. 6 degrees of separation - you can link anyone to anything if you try hard enough. I hope to god they didnt kill an innocent civilian who may have ran from the cops for a multitude of reasons.

Earthman wrote:

The press conference said he had links.
I'm taking my brief form a combination of Sky and BBC news 24.
They followed him from his house apparently,he became aware of their persuit at the station and was running away-A strange thing to do if you are innocent in a heightened terrorist alert with armed police presumably capable of firing running after you...
If he had Hands up in the air standing still and if he threw off the baggy coat he was wearing in temperatures of 24c plus , he might be still alive...

OscarBravo wrote:

You're right: the appropriate action would have been to shout a warning, and if he detonated the bomb, then shoot him.

shoot to kill without warning isnt a smart thing to do at any time. to do as you suggest, they could have got him in an area where there were little or no people, get close, give a warning and point a gun at his head - much like most specialised cops are trained to do in situations where their target could be of harm to others when getting arrested. If thats true about being shot whilst being held down it makes a mockery of the idea of the guy having a bomb for a start (since they wouldnt risk shooting) and it begs questions about why you hold a man on the ground then shoot him 5 times.

I'll just wait I think til more information comes out.

Sand

shoot to kill without warning isnt a smart thing to do at any time. to do as you suggest, they could have got him in an area where there were little or no people, get close, give a warning and point a gun at his head - much like most specialised cops are trained to do in situations where their target could be of harm to others when getting arrested. If thats true about being shot whilst being held down it makes a mockery of the idea of the guy having a bomb for a start (since they wouldnt risk shooting) and it begs questions about why you hold a man on the ground then shoot him 5 times.

Expertise like this is wasted on an internet forum. Scotland Yard need to get in touch.
Seriously, theres always an ideal, textbook, hurlers on the ditch version of what should have been done. What we have to recognise is that real life is never text book....it sounds like what was a surveillance operation suddenly developed into a pursuit and an attempt to stop a suspected terrorist from attacking an underground train. Personally, Im willing to trust the jusdgement of the police who were on the scene and more trained than you or I to deal with it. On top of which, from what Ive seen, London cops arent obliged to shout any warning, they can simply shoot someone because its recognised under their guidelines that the absolute primary mission is to prevent a suicide bomber triggering his bomb.

I'm dissapointed they werent able to take him alive, and Im concerned over why they had to shoot him after its claimed they had knocked him over, but we have to bear in mind this guy could be carrying a bomb and be more than willing to detonate it, killing himself and bystanders.

There is simply too little information at this stage to start a post mortem quite yet.

I hope to god they didnt kill an innocent civilian who may have ran from the cops for a multitude of reasons.

A good tip for innocent civillians when pursued by armed cops who are tasked with stopping suicidal terrorists is not to run.....

pork99

Johnny_the_fox wrote:

They say he was shot five times in the head - a witness states.

the police panicked.

They certainly did not.

They did the correct thing by shooting him in the head - shooting him in the body risked setting off any explosives he may have been carrying. It's not a shoplifter that they are trying to arrest - this is a walking bomb - or someone they have reasonable suspicion to believe is a walking bomb.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=150321520&p=y5x3zzzz6

I think that the cop(s) who got those shots in was/were extremely brave - this wretch could have blown himself and everyone around him to pieces at any second.

The moral of this story (and of the one in Lusk) is if an armed cop tells you to do anything you do it - very promptly.

murphaph

This is completely different than Lusk. I'm no bleedin' heart as anyone on here will know but committing an armed robbery and pointing a firearm at an armed officer is monumentally stupid. There's no question in that case-the officer's life is under threat and he has every right to open fire.

This is a very different case until we get some facts. Being Pakistani and running from police officers does no warrant being shot dead for, they have to have more than that. I hope to God they genuinely find explosives on him otherwise it'll be very hard to justify killing him.

We simply don't know what the police know or knew right now. We'll have to wait and see what they say.

I'm not mourning his loss or anything. I just hope the cops were in the right but it's too early to say.

One of the rag tabloids described it as an 'execution'. :rolleyes:

pete

From The Guardian:

The shooting yesterday at Stockwell tube station was the first time police used special tactics developed to tackle the threat of suicide bombers. Under Operation Kratos a senior officer is on standby 24 hours a day to authorise the deployment of special armed squads, who will track and if needs be, shoot dead suspected suicide bombers.

One of the most senior officers involved in protecting London confirmed there were special teams of armed officers ready to be deployed.

A senior Metropolitan police source with knowledge of firearms procedures said of the shooting at Stockwell: "This was an intelligence led operation, within the parameters of Kratos." Officially the Met will not talk about Kratos, but the tactics have been in place for a year and were developed after British officers learnt from their Israeli counterparts how best to tackle suicide bombers.

The moderate Muslim Council of Britain was deeply concerned. Its spokesman, Inayat Bunglawala, said: "From his press conference Ian Blair seemed to imply that the man shot dead was not one of the four attempted suicide bombers. That increases the urgency of the question of why this man was shot dead as opposed to being disabled or arrested. There may be good reason, but the police need to explain what their reasons are. There has been a marked increase of nervousness among Muslims today"

Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission said: "We have raised concerns about the Met sending officers to learn from the Israelis about suicide bombers. They have a policy of assassinating people - why should our police learn these tactics and these values?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1534750,00.html

Wheely

Excellent- the Metropolitan Police are taking lessons fron the Israelis on how to "combat" suicide bombers....this should stop any trouble in London given its huge succes in Gaza and the West Bank....i dint think they've had a suicide bomber in...oh...about ten minutes! If there's anthing thats gonna stir up Muslims its letting them know that the London police are taking lessons from security forces that have murdered, assassinated and brutalized their people for 60 years. That shuold calm everybody down alright

Wheely

Wheely wrote:

If there's anthing thats gonna stir up Muslims its letting them know that the London police are taking lessons from security forces that have murdered, assassinated and brutalized their people for 60 years. That shuold calm everybody down alright

Might it not be better if you postponed that kind of judgement untill we have the facts.
One fact is certain people tried to again kill dozens of innocent people on the London underground and someone decided to run onto a train while chased by armed police.
Now it seems to me that theres an instant decision to be made there,stop him from any possiblility of killing and maiming dozens more or take the chance that he will.
In the latter criticism would be loud and justified if there was a bomb.

As regards the guy thats dead, its regrettable, but it is ultimately his own fault, he could have surrendered.
A positive thing to consider here is that the message has got through that the Met mean business and that those who threaten the lives of innocent people will be stopped dead in their tracks where necessary if its a case of preventing a much bigger tragedy.
Thats a choice a terrorist has to make-they either obey the law of the land or face the consequences.

murphaph

Earthman wrote:

Thats a choice a terrorist has to make-they either obey the law of the land or face the consequences.

I don't think they particularly care about the consequences though. They're prepared to die. I know one thing, I would not want to join that armed reponse unit who have to make those kinds of snap decisions. Man that must be a horrible responsibility. It's much easier if the bloke is pointing a gun at your head, but when he may or may not have a bomb in his bag.......not pleasant.

Wheely

While iv disagreed with murphaph before i have to say i agree with him whole-heartedly here. These are suicide bombers are they not. While achieving their objective is their top priority, staying alive is not. I dont think that htey're particularly afraid of death. I kinda thought it was a bit weird that all the eye-witnesses said that they guy killed yesterday was scared s**tless while being chased also. Not jumping to conclusions though....we'll wait for the facts. And i wasn't disputing what the Met did yesterday Earthman, the facts aren't out yet. Im just saying that IF they're taking training from Israeli security forces its a bad thing..............period................imo!

Sand

Im just saying that IF they're taking training from Israeli security forces its a bad thing..............period................imo!

Yes, they should be taking tips on how to deal with suicide bombers from the Gardai, as opposed to the police force which is daily preventing suicide attacks.

You might have an issue with the Israeli political *strategy* in the middle east, but it would be sheer madness not to learn from their police forces *tactical* expertise.

BuffyBot

They're prepared to die

Yes, but in a certain way and having completed their mission. Not like this - so it does make it somewhat harder for them.

pete

murphaph wrote:

I don't think they particularly care about the consequences though. They're prepared to die.

Assuming of course that the individual chased and shot yesterday was a suicide bomber. All we know at this stage is that he was under surveillance.

I know one thing, I would not want to join that armed reponse unit who have to make those kinds of snap decisions.

They don't. They are in constant radio contact with a senior officer who makes the decision for them based on the available information / intelligence / circumstances.