Man shot dead by police on Tube

[RickSp]

Right. A Jamiaican, some East Africans, some Pakistanis. Do you KNOW how many of them there are in the UK? Get a grip. Shall we make them wear yellow crescents too, just in case??

Come on - you want to do it, do it right. Camps. Camps are the answer. Round up anyone with a swarthy or dark complextion and lock them up in camps. Sure, that's the answer. And the yellow star thing too. Nice touch.

[Sonart]

I guess a little collateral damage is acceptable in your view.

Tossing around inflammatory rhetoric is easy, Zeeb... and cheap. Here, let's turn it around... let's imagine that it wasn't Mr. Menezes but rather... say... Hasib Hussain who, having outrun police and reached his target, triggers his bomb as police try to humanely subdue him, killing 25 and wounding even more. I guess a little collateral damage is acceptable in your view?

It's real easy to toss around phrases like "summary execution", but an execution is about punishment. They weren't trying to 'punish' Jean Menezes. As you state yourself, Zeeb... "I think the purpose is clear, they want to prevent a suicide bomber from detonating his device."

You then go on to state... "I'm not sure how to handle this kind of issue, but I don't think shooting people that turn out to be innocent is going to help much." Operative phrase, 'I'm not sure how to handle this kind of issue...' Yes, it was tragic that Mr. Menezes was killed, but not nearly as tragic as the dozens that died due to subway bombs. So unless you have a sure-fire way to avoid such tragic mistakes while at the same time assurring that dozens don't die as "collateral damage" due to police over-caution, perhaps we could all dial down the accusatory rhetoric a tad and try to comprehend what an incredibly difficult situation this is for everyone involved, including the police.

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[Matt W]

perhaps we could all dial down the accusatory rhetoric a tad and try to comprehend what an incredibly difficult situation this is for everyone involved, including the police.

Absolutely. The important thing to note is that this 'summary execution' is obviously a cock-up - the police failed to stop the suspect from getting on a bus, they failed to stop the bus, and it would appear (to judge from the suspects' reaction) that they failed to properly identify themselves. As a result, they had to assume the worst - but it's incredibly important that these things don't go wrong next time.

[ibm]

i don’t claim to know all the details about this, as i don’t. but regardless if the police failed to identify themselves, if the man didn’t pull the trigger while on the bus, what made them think he was gonna do it in the tunnel? mysterious.

if the man indeed was a bomber and the police shot him to death, the police wouldn’t have been my hero, either. my questions will still stand. the way they handled this is criminal. that is, failure to stop and question the man early is incompetence and negligence; killing a man who was merely a suspect with 6 shots in the head is barbaric. i have no doubt of the police’s good intent btw.

the only way to stop terrorism is to change the foreign policies and stop the interference to the arab world. as long as this doesn’t change, the terrorists who blow themselves up, the casualties caused by the bombing, the u.s. and brit troops died in the war along with those iraqis, and retrospectively, those who died in 9-11, etc., are all victims of the awfully wrong and imperial foreign policies that have been promoted for decades by the governments of the u.s., brit and others.

[PatrickHenry]

Listen. Jean Charles de Menezes was NOT "swarthy!" He was a white guy who looked a lot like any other european.





And execution by repeated gunfire to the head of a suspect that is arguably in custody is police murder. That is why the Brazilians are staging widespread protests. Not because he was killed while a fugitive from police. No, he was shot to death while cornered, down on the ground and surrounded by police.

You who would excuse this murder are complicit.

An independent investigation is coming. How "independent" will it be?
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3987f6be-fe...00e2511c8.html

[PatrickHenry]

John Gardner is the Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford, and occasional Visiting Professor at Yale Law School.

Police state: Like many of my fellow-Londoners I am less alarmed by suicide bombers than I am by the police’s Mossad-style execution of a ’suspect’ (who turned out to be a completely innocent passer-by) on Friday 22 July. This is not because we are at greater risk of death at the hands of the police than at the hands of the bombers. (Both risks are pretty tiny, but of the two the risk posed by the police is clearly smaller). Rather, it is because, all else being equal, it is worse to be killed by one’s friends than by one’s enemies, and worse to be killed by people in authority than by people not in authority.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7189

[Chris]

Listen. Jean Charles de Menezes was NOT "swarthy!" He was a white guy who looked a lot like any other european.

Thanks for backing my opinion.

[RickSp]

Listen. Jean Charles de Menezes was NOT "swarthy!" He was a white guy who looked a lot like any other european.

He was mistaken for a Pakistani. The police said as much. From the photo he looked "foreign" and, to my eyes at least, would qualify as "swarthy". Quibbling about skin tone is getting silly.

The underlying point remains, the London police shot an innocent man eight times in the head based primarily on his appearance.

[rcne]

RickSP

The underlying point remains, the London police shot an innocent man eight times in the head based primarily on his appearance.

Lets not gloss over his actions immediately preceding the shooting. I wasn't there, but did he run?

Was there a potential threat, circumstantial, but still there, from his place of residence, his clothing and finally his actions.

Why did he not just put his hands in the air and say "I give up".

[Zeebadee]

RickSP


Lets not gloss over his actions immediately preceding the shooting. I wasn't there, but did he run?

Was there a potential threat, circumstantial, but still there, from his place of residence, his clothing and finally his actions.

Why did he not just put his hands in the air and say "I give up".

Suppose you were walking along in a middle eastern city. You notice some guy following you. You look around, there's more people obviously following you. All are in civilian clothes. The faster you try to move away from them, the more obvious it becomes that they are trying to hem you in. Are you going to run, or are you gonna give up?

[Nono]

None of us was there, and many questions remain unanswered. I've heard (as stated) that he exited a house under police surveillance (and suspicion) and headed straight for the Underground. This made him suspect enough to be followed by armed cops.

The underlying point remains, the London police shot an innocent man eight times in the head based primarily on his appearance.

Were you present, Rick? Did you count the number of discharges? No? Then how do you know? And how do you know on what basis they fired?

The facts will presumably come out in due course. And (since unlike the circumstances surrounding the Hutton and Butler inquiries, Tony the Tooth need not fear for his political hide either way) those facts will probably be reliable.

Then we can all start ranting.

[RickSp]

Were you present, Rick? Did you count the number of discharges? No? Then how do you know? And how do you know on what basis they fired?

So are you suggesting that we can only believe what we see with our own eyes? We can no views on any topic to which we were not witnesses? Yah, right. Sure.

The initial report was that the police only shot de Menezes five times in the head. The more recent reports say he was shot eight times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Of course, the initial reports also claimed that de Menezes was definately tied to the Tube bombings. Much of the initial reporting has been wildly inaccurate, or so it seems based on press reports. Fortunately the Brazilian government involvement may marginally improve the chances of the truth eventually coming out.

I would think that any Londoner should feel threatened by trigger happy plain clothes police who can legally imitate 007's "license to kill" with point blank shots to the head, apparently based on fashion and ethnicity.