David Hansen wrote:
On 23 Jul 2005 01:16:05 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-
There are no
niceties, this isn't a game, many people died two weeks ago because men
as brave as those at Stockwell yesterday were not in the right place at
the right time.
Discussion of the bravery, or otherwise, of those involved makes no
difference to the questions that are being asked.
So far I have an open mind, but as time goes on it looks more and
more like an operation which went horribly wrong. BTW I hope that is
not the case.
I will be interested to see what the brave new "independent"
complaints bunch make of this and whether they are any better than
their predecessors.
As we now know the police are saying the man shot was not connected
with the enquiry but was a Brazilian who had been working in the UK for
three years as an electrician. There seems to be a connection with an
address used by one of the suspects, and there is the question as to
why he ran into the station after officers instructed him to stop. He
was apparantly a good English speaker. In view of the background to
the incident and the attendant circumstances the officers at the scene
who trapped and shot him would have had very little choice of action.
All aspects will be examined, but it will be the operational
circumstances and decisions made that put those officers in the
position they were in that will be most closely examined. Even Liberty
are expressing sympathy for the police in this case. This operation has
gone horribly wrong and cost a life. If this man had been wired and the
officers a fraction of a second late the criticism would have been why
the police had not prevented many more deaths.
An awful tragedy, but if I was still operational and in the same
situation, believeing that in a fraction of a second I and many others
could be dead, then I would be firing those five rounds.I would also
add that on two occasions I almost did open fire on innocent people
(well in one case not quite so innocent)in both cases the trigger was
already being squeezed. Had I opened fire, I know that I had followed
all possible avenues of alternative actions, and the actions of the
people I was aiming at had given me justification for opening fire. If
in that fraction of a second the situation for me hadn't changed, a
petty burglar and six 17 year old Venture Scouts would most likely be
dead.