London Underground under attack? [merged thread]

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esperanza

IMO there will be more victims of this shoot-and-kill policy. Police are becoming too paranoid.

In any case, you can't stop kamikazes doing what they want to do. A complete body search of every passenger would have to be carried out, but on the street and in other public places, total control is near impossible. Perhaps, it is time to call in the "thought police"??? The normal police will never solve the problem of terrorism.

pete

oscarBravo wrote:

It's interesting also how people's perception of events is coloured by hearsay: how many posts in this thread have made reference to his being held down and shot? It sounds quite brutal, but from the reportage I've seen, it doesn't seem to have happened.

A passenger has told how he saw armed police officers shoot a man dead on a Tube train at Stockwell.
Mark Whitby said: "I was sitting on the train... I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down'.

"I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun.

"He half tripped... they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him," he told BBC News 24.

"As [the suspect] got onto the train I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox.

"He looked absolutely petrified and then he sort of tripped, but they were hotly pursuing him, [they] couldn't have been any more than two or three feet behind him at this time and he half tripped and was half pushed to the floor and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand.

"He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him.

"He [the suspect] had a baseball cap on and quite a sort of thickish coat - it was a coat you'd wear in winter, sort of like a padded jacket.

"He might have had something concealed under there, I don't know. But it looked sort of out of place with the sort of weather we've been having, the sort of hot humid weather.

"He was largely built, he was quite a chubby sort of guy.

"I didn't see any guns or anything like that - I didn't see him carrying anything. I didn't even see a bag to be quite honest.

"I got into the ticket hall. I was approached by a policeman and London Underground staff asking me if I needed counselling.

"I was just basically saying I've just seen a man shot dead. I've seen a man shot dead. I was distraught, totally distraught. It was no less than five yards away from where I was sitting. I actually saw it with my own eyes."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm

bonkey

The article backs up what OB is saying: The witness did not say that they held him down and shoot him. What it does say (about the gun in the hand of one of the police)

"He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him.

Presumably, many read it as "He held down the guy, and unloaded five shots into him".

jc

Rock Climber

One of the funerals caused by these murderous bombers who probably are loving the controversy here if they are reading these pages.
Lets remember the 56 or so people whose lives they snuffed out in their warped view of Islam.

Bishop Alan Hopes, who led the service, talked about the "terrible tragedy" of Anthony's death and said terrorism was making everyone pay "a price too enormous to calculate".

Cardinal Murphy comforting Anthony's mother.

murphaph

murphaph wrote:

Bullsh!t I don't! The cops were keeping his flat complex under surveilance, yay or nay?
They thought he was a potential suicide bomber, yay or nay?
They LET him reach an Underground station BEFORE intervening, yay or nay?

You know nothing of the police operation unless you are on the force.You don't know their orders , you dont know their inteligence, you don't know their operational thinking in anyway Ergo you could not conclude anything as you had no facts.
I never disputed what was in the public domain.
I did however dispute what you were concluding without any of the operational details that the police were working on.

This is all in the public domain.

Short of telling us that the police were tracking him,it gives us no insight into what they were planning.

The cops fcuked this one up.

Yes they did.But I'm not going to jump up and down without access to whatever details that they have and say I know better...
Other than to say it ended up as being wrong.
It's how it ended up that way ie the operational details that we are both missing, yet you are extremely eager to draw much more far reaching conclusions than I am in the absence of these.

He should never have reached an Underground station. Earthman,

Why? You don't know what the police had planned.

you suggested earlier that the police were tailing him in case he met with 'accomplices'. That's not acceptable when they think he could be a walking bomb, which is why they shot him ultimately.

I was just conjecting one thing, there could be several and many reasons completely tied to the operation and to which we are not privy.
But fire ahead by all means with your conclusions in the absence of the full picture, thats your perogative, just don't expect me to do the same or stay quiet with what I regard as a more measured view for now.

tomMK1

according to the news - http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1190065,00.html - they guy shot 5 times in the head wasnt a bomber, nor had he a gun. its amazing what gets said to justify things.

danniemcq

Rock Climber wrote:

One of the funerals caused by these murderous bombers who probably are loving the controversy here if they are reading these pages.
Lets remember the 56 or so people whose lives they snuffed out in their warped view of Islam.

oh and don't forget tthose tens of thousands killed in the name of freedom

http://www.iraqbodycount.net wrote:

Who was killed?
24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years.
Women and children accounted for almost 20% of all civilian deaths.
Baghdad alone recorded almost half of all deaths.

When did they die?
30% of civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before 1 May 2003.
Post-invasion, the number of civilians killed was almost twice as high in year two (11,351) as in year one (6,215).

Who did the killing?
US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims.
Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims.
Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths.
Killings by anti-occupation forces, crime and unknown agents have shown a steady rise over the entire period.

What was the most lethal weaponry?
Over half (53%) of all civilian deaths involved explosive devices.
Air strikes caused most (64%) of the explosives deaths.
Children were disproportionately affected by all explosive devices but most severely by air strikes and unexploded ordnance (including cluster bomblets).

How many were injured?
At least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded.
The invasion phase caused 41% of all reported injuries.
Explosive weaponry caused a higher ratio of injuries to deaths than small arms.
The highest wounded-to-death ratio incidents occurred during the invasion phase.

Who provided the information?
Mortuary officials and medics were the most frequently cited witnesses.
Three press agencies provided over one third of the reports used.
Iraqi journalists are increasingly central to the reporting work.

and also those who died for a lie

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 1774
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) 1637
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 1307
Since Handover (6/29/04): 908
Since Election (1/31/05): 342
American Wounded Official
Total Wounded: 13438

Hobbes

lil bit of old news now. Whats a bit more worrying is Ian Blairs comments of there will probably be more innocent people shot.

tomMK1

I suppose its what happens when things are like they are over there

danniemcq

join in

Thread

rsynnott

As someone who frequently wears jackets in hot weather and gets nervous when confronted in public, this really, really terrifies me. Seriously.

murphaph

Ok Earthman,
You claim we don't know any of the facts yet you were willing to hypothesise that the police might have been tailing him in the hope he'd lead them to accomplices. Following on from your hypothesis, do you think this course of action is an acceptable one, given they were dealing with a suspected walking bomb?

danniemcq

danniemcq wrote:

oh and don't forget tthose tens of thousands killed in the name of freedom

Dannie , this thread is about the London Underground-Take that to another thread would you please.

murphaph wrote:

Ok Earthman,
You claim we don't know any of the facts

None of the operational facts.
You keep having issues with that, but it is the case.

yet you were willing to hypothesise that the police might have been tailing him in the hope he'd lead them to accomplices.

whats wrong with hypothesis in relation to what they might have been thinking?I gave you one the first one that came to my mind in response to your question as to why they let the man get as far as the station yet at the same time I accepted that it could be one of many things none of which we know as we are not privy to the inside of the operation.Indeed obviously they mightnt have had that in mind at all but one of many other things-who knows? At least I'm reserving full judgement untill I have more of the facts pertinent to the operation.This will be subject to an independent police investigations body.
I'll await that before concluding anything much other than it was an operation that went tragically wrong.

danniemcq

Earthman wrote:

Dannie , this thread is about the London Underground-Take that to another thread would you please.

sorry Earthman but that was a reply to rock climber

From what I can see Rock climber and pete mentioned those that had died as a consequense of the whole London suicide bomb situation to bring our thoughts back directly to them for a moment.
Neither made reference to Iraq, nor were they discussing it afaik, nor did I think from their posts either that they were deliberately ignoring the wider debate on the so called war on terror or whatever.
They simply seemed to me to be bringing up the human cost local to what we are discussing in this thread.

I dont want to see this thread being dragged away on tangents, but you're more than welcome to start a thread on the wider subject,You'd make my job as mod and that of the rest of the politics mods easier if you did.

Nuttzz

The BBC's correspondent in Brazil, Tom Gibb, said Mr Menezes had lived for a time in a slum district of Sao Paulo and that could explain why he had run from the police.

He said: "The murder rates in some of these slums are worse than in a lot of war zones and that could explain why, when plain clothes officers pulled a gun on him, he may have run away."

I could understand this if he only arrived in London, but he had been there 3 years.

it is a sad situation, I supposed an expired work permit or some petty criminal invlovement might be behind the fact he ran.

The cops were in a sticky situation, if he ran and exploded a bomb questions would be asked why they didnt shoot, they were damned if they did and damned if they didnt.

murphaph

Earthman,
If we're just going to wait until the police tell us the operational details (unlikely) then there's no thread. So I ask again with respect to the police tailing a man through city streets who is suspected of being a suicide bomber;

murphaph wrote:

...do you think this course of action is an acceptable one, given they were dealing with a suspected walking bomb?

Sparks

Nuttzz wrote:

I could understand this if he only arrived in London, but he had been there 3 years.

Long enough to see the stories over the past week from the UK (and the similar one from Athlone) about how BNP-style thugs were going to execute muslims (read, "darkies", given the average BNP supporter's IQ and education and world outlook), right?
And then he turns about, sees a bunch of white burly chaps with crewcuts and drawn pistols running at him?
I'd have been running just as fast in the same direction he went.

it is a sad situation

No, it is not a "sad situation", it is far, far, far more serious than that, it is a reprehensible crime for which someone needs to pay a penalty, both at the on-the-street level and at the policy decision-making level. "Sad situation"? This was an innocent man who was gunned down by those who were meant to protect him. In broad daylight. After having trailed him for some minutes at least.

I supposed an expired work permit or some petty criminal invlovement might be behind the fact he ran.

No, he was perfectly legal and innocent.

The cops were in a sticky situation, if he ran and exploded a bomb questions would be asked why they didnt shoot, they were damned if they did and damned if they didnt.

Bull****. They trailed him to the station, and allowed a suspected bomber into a tube station the day after a failed bombing attempt? That's negligence and/or incompetence right there. Then they shoot him in the head. That's excessive force even if he hadn't been innocent.

And if one more person says that the right thing to do to a suicide bomber is to shoot them in the head, I'm going to scream. People, he's wearing a home-made bomb of which you know no details. Does he have a dead-mans trigger of some design (not all require a physical switch to be held down)? Did he use some relatively expensive and hard-to-obtain plastic explosive which wouldn't go off if shot, or did he use some unstable homemade explosive? Do you know where the detonators are? The detonating circuit? Do you know what will happen if you shoot any of these components?

Shooting a suicide bomber in a public place is a stupid, stupid, stupid act, even on a purely pragmatic and tactical basis; shooting a suspected suicide bomber is purely reprehensible and frankly, sinister. I know if I wasn't white and english and I lived in London right now, I would not trust the police or any other state agency and I'd be looking to get the hell out as fast as possible. And that's not meant to be how a state treats it's citizens, or the workers on whom everyone else's pension and current income depends.

Dinner

Sparks wrote:

Bull****. They trailed him to the station, and allowed a suspected bomber into a tube station the day after a failed bombing attempt? That's negligence and/or incompetence right there. Then they shoot him in the head. That's excessive force even if he hadn't been innocent.

And if one more person says that the right thing to do to a suicide bomber is to shoot them in the head, I'm going to scream. People, he's wearing a home-made bomb of which you know no details. Does he have a dead-mans trigger of some design (not all require a physical switch to be held down)? Did he use some relatively expensive and hard-to-obtain plastic explosive which wouldn't go off if shot, or did he use some unstable homemade explosive? Do you know where the detonators are? The detonating circuit? Do you know what will happen if you shoot any of these components?

They did not allow him into the station, they confronted him and he ran into the station. So against the police's orders he ran into a station where he knew full well, that there had been attempted attacks on stations the previous day.

Tell me, if he had a dead mans switch then wether he was shot or not, that bomb would have gone off. So tell me, why wouldnt you shoot a suicide bomber in the head? You could shoot him in the taurso and hope that he has plastic explosives that wont go off if shot. You could shoot him in the head and kill him. Thats the better option, if its a dead mans switch it would go off either way. Yes?

If it's not a dead mans switch it would not go off and many lives would be saved. Yes?

Shooting a suicide bomber in a public place is a stupid, stupid, stupid act,

So you would rather the asked him politely to move into a more quiet place so they could shoot him there?

In the circumstances the police acted correctly and as they had been ordered.

pete

Arabel wrote:

They did not allow him into the station,

But they did allow him to get on a bus.

So you would rather the asked him politely to move into a more quiet place so they could shoot him there?

I'd have preferred it if they'd surrounded and apprehended him on the street, where they could keep their distance (in case he was a bomber) and not allowed him into a confined space (such as a bus or a tube station) with (potentially) plenty of civillians around. But we don't know why things panned out the way they did.

In the circumstances the police acted correctly and as they had been ordered.

I think that's for the inquiry to decide.

Sparks

Arabel wrote:

They did not allow him into the station, they confronted him and he ran into the station.

Every report I've seen so far state explictly that he was confronted inside the station and that he legged it for the train.

So tell me, why wouldnt you shoot a suicide bomber in the head?

Because it's a better idea to prevent them getting near a target.

You could shoot him in the head and kill him. Thats the better option, if its a dead mans switch it would go off either way. Yes?

After this heinous paranoid overreaction that's cost the life of an innocent man, you have the sheer lack of a grip on reality to even ask that?
NO.
It is not acceptable for agents of the state to shoot first and ask questions later.
Nor is it acceptable for them to allow a suspected bomber to get within reach of the public like that.

So you would rather the asked him politely to move into a more quiet place so they could shoot him there?

No, I expect SO19 to follow training and earn their pay by challanging him away from a crowd in a controllable situation in full uniform and identifying themselves.

In the circumstances the police acted correctly and as they had been ordered.

No, they executed a man out of fear and paranoia.

Wheely

my two cents are that it is tragic and inexcusable. Right they thought he was a bomber but the fact remains that he wasnt. He was jut a guy and now he's dead. If the police suspected him they should have arrested him and questioned him. They should in no way allowed him onto a bus...if his potential threat was great enough to warrant him being held down and shot 5 times in the head then it should also have been great enough to make sure he didnt get on a bus. Anyone blaming him for running is bloody ridiculous and just shockingly insensitive. The man is dead............for nothing and in a n effort to stick up for the police you're trying to blame an innocent man whose life is now over. I dont think there's anything more to say other than RIP.

murphaph

murphaph wrote:

Earthman,
If we're just going to wait until the police tell us the operational details (unlikely) then there's no thread. So I ask again with respect to the police tailing a man through city streets who is suspected of being a suicide bomber;

And I'll tell you again that all the speculation in the world is worthless without the full facts.
If it satisfies you I wouldn't be entirely happy myself letting a potential suicide bomber all the way into the station, but then I don't know what the police were thinking and if I had to second guess and give approval for everything they did based on my lack of knowledge, then every criminal in the land would have a paradise to operate in probably.

Sparks wrote:

No, they executed a man out of fear and paranoia.

Sparks,
I'm not going to respond to the rest of your post because what I have to say here applies to the rest of it.
You are making definite pronouncements without all the facts of the matter.
Do you think its right to do that?

pete wrote:

I'd have preferred it if they'd surrounded and apprehended him on the street, where they could keep their distance (in case he was a bomber) and not allowed him into a confined space (such as a bus or a tube station) with (potentially) plenty of civillians around. But we don't know why things panned out the way they did.

Thats my thinking on the matter too.I don't know why he was allowed on the bus,have we any witnesses to help us with that? For instance did he get on the bus before they were able to challenge him and did any of the officers get on the bus with him? How did they know that it was stockwell he was goign to get off at? and/or did they follow the bus with police cars?
I'd probably have as many reservations as murpaph and Sparks on the matter but I'll await the full facts rather than pre judge based on a few.

Nuttzz

we live in an imprefect world, that poor man wouldnt have been shoot if some loonies werent blowing themselves up for misguided reasons.

the cops may have pulled the trigger but the terrrorists "loaded the gun"

No, they executed a man out of fear and paranoia.

sad comment, considering your other posts on this board i really expected more from you....

A Dub in Glasgo

Earthman wrote:

Well you are the one describing this death as terrorism when a man who speaks fluent English(His cousin said this on the radio this morning) and has been working in London legally for 2 years runs from the police and attempts to board a train wearing a baggy coat on a hot summers day is shot dead the day after some people tried to commit mass murder on the trains and 2 weeks after they did suceed in commiting mass murder.

You know, I am now living in Glasgow and I have grown to tolerate the cold. I will wear short sleeve shirts when many others in the south of England will be wearing coats. Just maybe this guy was used to the heat of Brazil which would have been a lot hotter than the 17C in London on Friday morning thus he tought it was a bit nippy and decided to wear a coat.

If you have ever seen the opening scene in the film 'Get Shorty', you will know what I mean

Honestly Dub I am disappointed in your analysis and specefically your decision to declare a situation completely devoid of the extenuating circumstances.

There are extenuating circumstances but I still believe the police (or special forces?) were far too reckless for the public good. I would like to see some accountibility for the fact that an innocent man was murdered by the state.

In my opinion, yeah I'm really really sorry for the bloke thats dead and I have a lot of sympathy too for the poor cop that pulled the trigger and how he must be feeling today.

Just some collateral damage

That said however,what that Brasililian did was in my view akin to being as stupid as walking out infront of a speeding truck on a busy road.

I guess we will never know why the dead man did not stop. Do we even know if the Police (or Special Forces) identified themselves. Would he have ran if it was uniformed police challenging rather than police dressed in civilian clothing? Do you also attach some blame to women who have been raped if they wore scantily clad clothing? They were asking for it?

A Dub in Glasgo

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

You know, I am now living in Glasgow and I have grown to tolerate the cold. I will wear short sleeve shirts when many others in the south of England will be wearing coats. Just maybe this guy was used to the heat of Brazil which would have been a lot hotter than the 17C in London on Friday morning thus he tought it was a bit nippy and decided to wear a coat.
If you have ever seen the opening scene in the film 'Get Shorty', you will know what I mean

I'd take your point were it not for the fact that the forecast for Sao Paulo tomorrow is min 17c max 21 c. The minimum on wenesday is 10c Maybe they are wearing coats there now and it is their winter but to say that they wouldnt be used to London temperatures or constantly wearing coats would be a misnomer in my view.
I don't want to trivialise the death of the man either.

There are extenuating circumstances but I still believe the police (or special forces?) were far too reckless for the public good.

Thats a belief not based on the full facts, but I understand your concern.

I would like to see some accountibility for the fact that an innocent man was murdered by the state.

Well you see heres where my main beef with your stance is.The police are accountable in this instance, there will be an independent inquiry.
Your first comment on this thread was to call this terrorism.
Terrorists have no accountability.There is no transparency with them.

Do we even know if the Police (or Special Forces) identified themselves.

They did identify themselves.

Would he have ran if it was uniformed police challenging rather than police dressed in civilian clothing?

I don't know.

Do you also attach some blame to women who have been raped if they wore scantily clad clothing? They were asking for it?

Whats that got to do with the discussion?I have taken the view that running away from armed people on a public platform when they are shouting police stop and get down to everyone is a wreckless and dangerous thing to do, the day after a botched terrorism incident.
Thats a perfectly logical view to take.Equating the police to terrorists isn't in my view.

BuffyBot

No, they executed a man out of fear and paranoia.

You better pony up your proof to the Met then. I'm sure they'll be too glad to have the case solved so soon, and with such ease.

A seperate point: I'm sure the CCTV footage from around the area/inside Stockwell Tube will probably help them figure out what happened.

Sparks

Earthman wrote:

They did identify themselves.

Sure about that? These are the same group now up in court trying to explain how shooting an irishman carrying a table leg who turned around when they asked him to was a justifiable act, don't forget.

Hydroquinone

If anyone thinks an inquiry will do anything but vindicate the men who shot this Brazillian, they are fooling themselves.
This could be for a number of reasons, the one you believe depends where you sit on political spectrum.
1 - The police always look after their own
2 - The officers acted as they saw fit in the given circumstances
3 - Any suspicion that they are being made the patsy will mean no other armed policeman will ever pick up a gun again
4 - They're Brits. What do you expect?