The Stockwell Shooting
will be a talking point in the programme tonight.
will give you some insight into the IPCC's thinking and the recommendations are . Oh and for a fuller picture from the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ - there's .
Comments
I can only see confidence in our police forces being diminished if these matters aren't investigated fully. Only then can we begin to re-build the trust and confidence in the police...
Jason Good re comment 20 and the like...
I don't think letting the police use whatever force they think necessary whenever they believe it is the safest thing for the 'public safety' - folk crawled out of the wood work on that one when Harry Stanley was shot for carrying a chair leg back on 22/09/1999 and we now know that if the police have the 'full support' of the public so they don't have to worry about split second decisions they kill innocents.
If when faced with such decisions they aren't calm enough to be collected then they should not have guns. Never mind the ammunition.
Fearless @ 21, I don't know how it is done, but your post is divided into what looks like several posts -- is that caused by bullet-points or something? -- and the one after it is not divided from it properly, and has come out centred instead of left-justified, at least to my browser. In fact the last paragraph of your post is centred too, now I look.
Waaah!
Is this a case in which one should complain to the moderators? I don't want to complain about the *post*, only about the configuration!
Chris (23) Sorry for the eye-strain! On my browsers (IE at work, and Safari at home) It has different looks to what you describe. On IE it's separated on an Ordered list with the sub-points having balloons, but they appear bold (not something I added). On Safari, it looks the same, but no bold. In both cases, it's all left justified, with the sub-points indented. All I did was put things in a Ordered List, honest! I'll try not to be so "flash" in the future...
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It is a fact that "procedures" are the responsibility of the commissioner. It is the "procedures" or luck of them,that has been heavily criticised in the recent court case. However, I am not surprised that Ian Blair refuses to accept responsibility and resign. Pride and decency has long abandoned many of our public figures. Why should he be the exception?
Very sad!!
There has already been a lot of talk about ‘far-arms’ today. My advice is to always keep your arms near. With respect to the reporting of this kind of story, might I suggest the term ‘guns’, or ‘officers with guns’?
Split second decision by police when shooting to kill.
So what is new? I spent a few years in N Ireland during the seventies. Young junior NCOs were frequently put in the position where "one second too soon and I`m in court - one second too late and I`m in my coffin". "Is that a joyriders car, a bomb on it`s way or a drive-by shooting coming at me?".
There isn`t an easy way out.
But I can`t help feeling that if soldiers had failed to act according to their instructions in thie way that seems to have happened here there would have been much more fuss i.e formal trials!
And their commander would certainly have not been so flip - he would have made sure of his facts and not been so fast in proclaiming a distorted account of events
Alright, there can be no disguising the gravity of the Metropolitan Police's misjudgment when officers gunned down an innocent man in their hunt for potential suicide bombers, and how the actions of its officers may erode public confidence.
But I thought the apology issued by Sir Ian Blair, the Met's commissioner, to the family of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, wrongly shot dead at Stockwell station, was sincere and swift. However, no words, at that time, would have been of comfort to the family who are apoplectic in their criticism of the police, as are many civil liberty advocates.
Yet it is still a depressing reality, given the nature and magnitude of al-Qaida's threat, that the police cannot rule out the possibility of other such deaths occurring. As Sir Ian pointed out, his officers are required to make split-second judgments, and are continuing to do so in the frantic hunt for London's would-be suicide bombers. If police shoot a suspect who has ignored their commands and is unconnected to terrorism, as it now appears to have happened in Mr de Menezes's case, they will be condemned.
Yet I think this condemnation will be even greater if detectives then ignore a terrorist who goes on to blow up a Tube train, or double-decker bus, with the loss of many innocent lives. Even Shami Chakrabati, the director of human rights group Liberty, concedes that she considers herself fortunate not to have to make such decisions; a sentiment that other critics of the police should embrace.
For, as we know the very difficulty of defining al-Qaida, and what its acolytes are fighting for, places an even greater strain on the security services to identify the perpetrators. This is compounded by two further factors. Firstly, al-Qaida's preparedness to sacrifice suicide bombers, with no criminal backgrounds, means it can strike anywhere – and at any time. Secondly, the terror network is a totally unpredictable global organisation. As such, the police will only be successful countering this new evil if they retain the public's fullest support, even when mistakes do occur.
Mr de Menezes would still be alive today if it had not been for al-Qaida launching its offence against Britain, which necessitated the police to take decisive action. The young Brazilian, now mourned, is as much a victim of terrorism as all those killed on July 7.
So, their messages are:
the court's verdict was right;
the future not the past is what counts, and the future looks OK;
we support the Police and, by extension, Blair (but not their legal defence team);
we don't say what we think of the Government, but draw your own conclusions.
Fair enough. Take it away, Eddie.
MoTP: I agree that it was a difficult call for the police but ......
There were clearly a lot of issues, and no organisation, however fine, should be immune to criticism. Not that I'm saying the Met is necessarily 'fine', although it is probably adequate in general terms.
I can accept that Sir Ian probably could not have influenced the course of events at the time, although that may be open to debate. No CEO can be everywhere all of the time, although given the particular gravity of this particular event, or at least its perceived gravity prior to the shooting, I'd have thought it was one of the incidents of the day upon which he should have been keeping a wakeful watch.
However - and it's a big however - it was aspects of how he dealt with the aftermath that I find bewildering for somebody in such high station. That he should have sought to delay an inquiry, that he should have sought to support unreservedly his team, that he should have been 'kept out of the loop' for so long - these are all worrying issues, I feel, for somebody in his position.
While I can appreciate that, at a time of high terrorist alert, he did not want any criticism to be levelled at the Met, he should also have realised that we, the public, have genuine concerns at the death of an innocent man in such circumstances and at the implications for our personal safety as we walk the streets or travel on the Underground in London.
Ken (3) I think the position the police find themselves in is more difficult than anything either they or the army have ever faced. You'll remember the 'Yellow Card' which gave squaddies the rules under which they could open fire. Basically they had to be certain that either their lives or the life of someone they had a duty to protect was in danger. Until recently that meant being sure the suspect had a weapon pointed at someone. But a suicide bomber's weapon is out of sight and s/he doesn't need to make an overt move to detonate it. In those circumstances even a shouted warning could give them the time to send a crowded tube carriage to Kingdom come. It would inform the debate if people were more aware of the technical difficulties that the police face.
Sis,
Worth repeating:
"it was aspects of how he dealt with the aftermath that I find bewildering for somebody in such high station. That he should have sought to delay an inquiry, that he should have sought to support unreservedly his team, that he should have been 'kept out of the loop' for so long - these are all worrying issues, I feel, for somebody in his position."
Well said.
xx
ed
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
-- William Blake
I have a great deal of sympathy for the police officers on the scene on that tragic day. As far as I can tell they were acting in good faith, believing that the man they were chasing was a terrorist suspect thought to be wearing a suicide bomb. I have no criticism for those pulling the trigger.
However, that they ever reached a position where they had this belief about the wrong person is inexcusable and is the issue that must be addressed. Why were their radios not able to work in the environment into which they were deployed? Why was the identification of such a crucial person bungled? Who is responsible for these operational failings?
I fear that swapping the Chief Constable will not improve the situation - but there must be responsible people further down the chain of command who had both strategic and tactical control of this episode (or the policy which lead to it) and did not do the right things.
The public should not neccessarily know everything that goes into protecting us from terrorists - that level of disclosure only helps the terrorists themselves - but we should be assured that someone has oversight of this and that, when the system fails, appropriate changes are made. I have no faith that this is the case at present.
MOTP - I think you over-simplify. You say: "Mr de Menezes would still be alive today if it had not been for al-Qaida launching its offence against Britain."
But he might also still be alive if the police had radios that worked underground. Or if there had been enough armed response officers. Or if there had been an effective communication structure linking the various groups who were involved.
Blair could have improved any of those 'ifs'.
Sid
Sid (10) I agree entirely. I can't believe that Ken Livingstone's response on the programme yesterday, when asked about the shooting was *These things happen*.
GM @ 11, of all the bad excuses for fatality "these things happen" may be one of the worst I have ever heard.
One might as well suggest that CdM would have died in the end anyway so shooting him didn't make any difference. Not acceptable.
Mind you, Ken's other example was someone being killed by the police for carrying a chair-leg in a bag, which shouldn't happen either. It sounds as if what he was saying was "if someone completely innocent of any offence is shot dead by the police that's just one of those things that happen", and that's a really appalling attitude to take. Yes, it has happened more than once: it should never have happened at all, certainly not twice, and definitely not as a matter of course.
This weekend the film "A Bridge Too Far" is being aired, presumably because of Remembrance Sunday.
One of the main failings of the operation was faulty radios. That was over 60 years ago...
The Kings Cross fire enquiry highlighted the problems with emergency services radios 20 years ago.
Do we never learn from these episodes?
Are radio blackspots the police version of the daleks' kerbs?
It does appear, from the IPCC report, that there there were some significant failings in both systems and operating procedures. Ultimately responsibility for these failings must rest with the Commissioner and his 'team'.
I have serious concerns about the fact that the incident involved someone being shot 7 times in the head. I do not criticise actions of the officers at the scene, but I do question their training. You just do not need to shoot someone 7 t-imes in the head to render them totally harmless. Anyone with the most basic combat knowledge of firarms will tell you that anything more than a 'double tap' (2 shots to the head) is quite literally overkill.
If any soldier serving in Northern Ireland had shot someone more than twice then serious questions would rightly have been asked.
About split second decisions.
I don't think anyone is criticising the people who did that. What's wrong is that they ended up in the position where they had to make those decisions: the IPCC is basically saying that poor planning and communications earlier in the day led to that. That's why it was Health and Safety, not manslaughter.
Jason Good @ 13, as I understand it from critics of Mayor Giuliani, he was in charge of a decision to move all the communications centres for emergency services into a single building in New York (probably because it was cheaper that way). The reason that a number of firefighting personel died on the eleventh of September was that they lacked radio communications -- that building, just below the twin towers, was destroyed, and comms went with it, so they didn't know that they ought to try to run away rather than going on upwards as the towers fell.
I don't think we do learn, if that's an example from a time that recent. I don't state it of my own knowledge, because it's hearsay to me, but it does fit the way that radios and cellphones were not working on that day.
The events at Stockwell and the subsequent accounts leave me wondering how someone with no obvious rucksack and not overly padded can be thought of as a suicide bomber.
It is fairly clear that the person doing the shooting was in a state of panic. The contradictions between the public and the claim of warnings being shouted suggest that the police realise that they were at fault but cannot admit it. This is a case for better training in the use of guns.
Perhaps it is a case for screening of passengers as they pass through barriers as well.
(Ed) 8
Worth repeating - I should say so.Lets not get distracted by constant proclamation about how the police have such an important and evermore difficult job to do these days.How split-second decisions in potentially deadly situations put the police under so much pressure.It was the organizational shambles that preceded the final moment that is what Ian Blair should take ultimate responsibility for.It is the arrogance of the man in such a tragic situation that people find intolerable.Blair by name and Blair by nature.
I am reminded of 'Rule 303' as in the film 'Breaker Morant' - as with the poor fellow who carried a table leg somebody else is now dead, albeit under different circumstances, and the probability is that no-one will be held 'responsible'... again.
Has no-one thought about how the police where briefed and prepared to shoot to kill and I find it disturbing the use of the phrase 'special ammunition to kill quickly' - I remember a programme years ago when a documentary reflected upon how 'evil' gangsters were because of the way they 'tampered' with their ammunition.
If the Geneva Convention is good enough to cover the ammunition the armed forces use - should the police not also be made to follow it as it is increasingly armed?
Michael (19): my personal view is that the police should have and use whatever weaponry and ammunition is best for the situations they find themselves in. If hollow point rounds "do the job" and help them to protect the public, so be it.
I can also see no real alternative to a "shoot to kill" policy if faced with genuine suicide bombers.
The real issue for me is how the targets are selected before an operation and then identified and "dealt with" in the field. Stockwell has shown the police get this spectacularly wrong.
The police cannot be allowed to be "judge, jury and executioner". Yet at the same time they have the pressure of protecting themselves and the public in the face of a changing threat.
Independent judicial oversight and clarity over policy has to be the way forward.
Peter (17) Your fist paragraph echoes one of my concerns. There are a number of questions that remain un-answered even after the IPCC report: