Shoot to kill

Well, Tribesman, no offense, but your initial post did have a bit of a chip on it's shoulder.
Hey thats Ok , I now threaten all the Brazilians at work with being transfered to London if they don't work hard enough .
Of course I have a chip on my shoulder , I have experienced terrorism and anti terrorism from an early age (my first recollections of shit is from the age of 4) , I saw 9/11 and I lost familly in it (bad holiday), but it is not the first family that I have lost through terrorism , Islamic or otherwise .
But I also have much experience of the anti terror bullshit , and have been a victim of it on more occasions than I wish to remenber .

The issue I have with the subject is the damn lies and misinformation that surround every aspect of it , and peoples willingness to accept those lies .

Well, I'm very sorry for your loss on 9/11. I lost several people that day as well. And I'm sorry for your other losses as well, both to the terrorists and the g-men sent to clean them out. And no, we shouldn't just sit back and let the government 'protect us' whether we want it or not. But do you really think disarming all police is an appropriate response? I'm not baiting, I'm seriously asking.... Even in Europe, a lot of your criminals are armed, no?

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Originally Posted by Don Corleone

Why not launch an independent commission to probe & charge everyone involved for what happened?

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Isn't that what's happening? In the UK, we have a standing independent police complaints commission that investigates all police shootings, including this case. The disclosures revealed by the leaking of the evidence to that commission prompted this thread.

Don , have I ever mentioned disarming the police ?
Full accountabilty is the issue .
IF the commisioner sought to block the required investigation and allowed/contrived in the spreading of lies and disinformation then he must lose his job , and IF the military intelligence unit are the same bunch of murdering bastards under a new name then they should already be in prison , not running round London with guns .

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Isn't that what's happening? In the UK, we have a standing independent police complaints commission that investigates all police shootings, including this case. The disclosures revealed by the leaking of the evidence to that commission prompted this thread.

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Didn't the Police Commissioner get the investigation delayed by 3 days and that the police involved were not immediately debriefed?

If so is the Commissioner culpable in covering it up?

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Yes, they lie sometimes to cover up their mistakes (apparently, here). But that doesn't mean that the people that believed them are somehow culpable...

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I agree if people have at least questioned why something was done and the official events where doctored. If people blindly agree then they are failing their duties as a citizen... no one in the backroom is the type to just sit still and nod their heads however.

Problem is the majority of people in the world just duck and cover and don't ask: why? Or they just jump a few steps to the conculsion that they wish for and select the evidence that agrees. (Aside: Which is another reason people are not truly equal and why communism fails).

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Didn't the Police Commissioner get the investigation delayed by 3 days and that the police involved were not immediately debriefed?

If so is the Commissioner culpable in covering it up?

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Personally, I give him the benefit of the doubt. He made the request for a delay in the morning almost immediately after the shooting, presumably still in the belief that the victim was a suicide bomber. I completely understand him wanting his officers energies focussed on tracking the escaped suicide bombers rather than handling inquiries about a tragic, but less urgent case.

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

I completely understand him wanting his officers energies focussed on tracking the escaped suicide bombers rather than handling inquiries about a tragic, but less urgent case.

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Surely given the outcome from now on all police shootings should be investigated immediately. It is ignoring a few steps of the law to execute someone based on the assumption they are a suicide bomber and then going on with that assumption to delay an investigation.

Western justice used to rely on judge, jury and executioner being separate parts of the state. If we are to bypass these steps then when an execution happens we should start the questioning immediately.

As it stands it has gone from Ask Questions, Shoot Later and bypassed Shoot First, Ask Questions Later to Shoot First, And delay as long as possible in asking Questions.

If anyone can be labeled a terrorist (see the no fly lists), and then anyone can be shot as a terrorist and have that investigation delayed what kind of state does that leave one living in? :help:

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Originally Posted by English assassin

I'm not too sure about this. For murder, we need to know the state of mind of the person doing the killing.

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No need to do this, technically speaking the judicial system (and for instance anybody that wants science) does not need the state of mind of any man to state if this was a murder or not. In principle it was a murder an imprudent one perhaps but it was one. To see if he has the intention of doing it (deceitfully) the system looks at the facts. If he shoots for any reason he knows he can kill the person, for instance it's presumed wanted by the victimary. He it's not different, except that it's so biologicaly obvious that that kind of shooting will end in death, that i don't believe that they spend much time asking themselves if this was deceitful. Anyway if the supect was justified in some way to do what he did then it's a different subject.
Personally i think that giving that kind of power to an authority may end in absurd and terrible results, like for example (even if we're talking about a terrorist) a terrorist that has a bomb but he never opens the jacket (so the policeman could never see it), never runs, well he never does anything suspectful (besides of "looking" like a terrorist). The thing is that by any motive the police kills this man and then they realize (or before, it really doesn't matter for this example) that he has a bomb. Justification: he had a bomb. Was he going to use it? Well he never showed signs for that, the witnesses never saw anything (someones may say that they really saw signs... "The problems of perception"?), in rational law the police was not justified, even more if he never saw the bomb, and more if he never inteviewed the suspect. But this kind of case could happen and the police go unchecked...

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No need to do this, technically speaking the judicial system (and for instance anybody that wants science) does not need the state of mind of any man to state if this was a murder or not.

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No disrespect but in English law unless the killer had the intent to kill or cause really serious harm its not murder. The "mental element" is an essential part of the crime that must be proved. Likewise many defences to murder depend on what the killer thought was happening at the time. I should perhaps explain that "murder" is limited to the most serious crimes where someone is killed, what the Americans call second degree murder we call manslaughter. So there may be some confusion there. My point was only to those who say "its murder" that we don't know and its probably not.

Its not just pedantry. If we all walk about saying it was murder (colloquially), and then no one is prosecuted because legally no crime was committed, it seems as if the police are not subject to the law. Which isn't true (formally anyway).

I still think there would be likely to be considerable difficulties prosecuting this, (although the idea of trying corporate manslaughter has its appeal,) which is why the enquiry that follows every police shooting is a good idea. They can concentrate on what went wrong and how to stop it again which is surely the main issue.

For what its worth and from no direct personal experience I entirely agree with Tribesmans concern about spooks. I've worked with ex-spooks and they are a law unto themselves. At the very least they make sure those in power think there is always a need for spooks, just so no one gets sacked. At at worst they are altogether too keen to play with their toys.

Well, if I behead my neighbor, saying "I thought he was going to kill me" wouldn´t be a good defence, would it. I would be charged with murder. The intention to kill was clearly there. What was not there was any reasonable suspicion. Having been told that the man was a terrorist is not enough, every policeman has the duty before using violence, to assess whether it is justified or not. If someone is not able to do that, he should have rejected the authority to use violence. But of course, the policeman is not at fault alone. The authorities that ordered him had also the duty to prevent innocent men from getting hurt. Instead, they gave an order that was not appropriate in the situation.

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Well, if I behead my neighbor, saying "I thought he was going to kill me" wouldn´t be a good defence, would it.

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It would if he was closing on you with a lethal weapon in his hand. It wouldn't if he was sitting in his armchair minding his own business.

We might have to leave this to the court/enquiry. Obviously, telling a policeman "shoot that man" would not give the policeman a defence. The guy with the gun is always responsible for the decision to shoot or not and I believe that is made quite clear to them.

But the fact that he had been told that the person was definitely a suicide bomber may well, IMHO, have contributed to him honestly believing that it was necessary to shoot the guy to avoid him triggering a bomb or drawing a weapon.

We will have to wait and see. We don't even know, for instance, whether or not the gunman saw the victim entering the station slowly and without a rucksack, or if the first thing he saw was him struggling with the officer on the train.

Thing is, a special forces person told that a man's a terrorist and must be stopped at all costs is going to do just that, it's his job. He's not the person responsible for the killing; those men have to rely on the fact that the intelligence is correct, and cannot be blamed for acting on faulty intelligence. The person(s) who provided that faulty intelligence through negligence, such as the supposed operative taking a leak at the time, are ultimately the ones responsible for causing the death of an innocent man. If special forces people in the field start doubting the orders given and intelligence behind them they couldn't do a thing; it's simply not their decision to make.

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

Thing is, a special forces person told that a man's a terrorist and must be stopped at all costs is going to do just that, it's his job. If special forces people in the field start doubting the orders given and intelligence behind them they couldn't do a thing; it's simply not their decision to make.

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Funny thing is, most countries don't even make it legal to use military personnel for internal security. The police should handle that, not guys trained to kill enemies of the realm.

Again English Assassin, the "mental state" as you say in any case is semantically wrong placed in any case. If you're talking about conciousness then you could be right, but judicial system works, when it cans, like an exact science so the decitions are fair. When a guy aims a gun to another it's sufficient to prove "dolus eventualis", that's considered intention for all porposes. If you wanted to know the true "mental state" of the man in the moment you will have to come back to the past and enter his mind, you obviously can't do it (and if you could it would be terribly wrong to do so, but that's another subject), so you base your suspicions on facts and in testimonies, all facts and testimonies talk about a rational state of the mind, for this it's considered that he "acted" because the fact was a result of the manifestation of his personality. That's all, if you want to look for proof of "mental state" you will need to talk to a psicologist, but as the only way to know the mental state is to hear to the testimony of the victimary, because we're talking about past (who obviously can lie) then in this case the analisys will progress (i expect) to the point that they determine if this was deceitful (when we talk about "intention", not before) or if it was imprudent, but again, i ask you, because i want to know, is imprudent murder (manslaughter as you say) punished on England.

Geoffrey S: Ok that would be the case when there were no testimonies and facts that prooves the contrary. When it comes to details, some times the common sense can make wonders, so in this case if the common sense states that the victimary acted like he should act then it's more complicated, but the facts proove that he didn't have enough suspicions to act like he did.
In another subject you can't penaly blame the state, so if there's some sentence like this there will be a lot of problems in relationships beetween nations, so my guess is that even if this was the case to blame the state, it would find a way to blame a man and wash it's hands.

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

If special forces people in the field start doubting the orders given and intelligence behind them they couldn't do a thing; it's simply not their decision to make.

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Wrong, Nuremburg trials threw that defence out.

Fair point.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Wrong, Nuremburg trials threw that defence out.

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Surely theres a difference between shotting a suspected terrorist (shortly after a terrorist attack) and rounding up peasants and shooting them into mass graves though ?

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

If special forces people in the field start doubting the orders given and intelligence behind them they couldn't do a thing; it's simply not their decision to make.

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Not at all. The principal teories on that matter say that the subordinate can reject some orders if he see a rational doubt about the situation, specially when the case is out of rutine, and more specially when the life of another human being is at stakes.

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Originally Posted by monkian

Surely theres a difference between shotting a suspected terrorist (shortly after a terrorist attack) and rounding up peasants and shooting them into mass graves though ?

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True, but either way you cannot use "It was an order" as a defence against murder.

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Originally posted by Papewaio

True, but either way you cannot use "It was an order" as a defence against murder.

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Originally posted by Soulforged

Not at all. The principal teories on that matter say that the subordinate can reject some orders if he see a rational doubt about the situation, specially when the case is out of rutine, and more specially when the life of another human being is at stakes.

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As I understand the situation that ocurred that morning the police (or special forces) team that shot Jean Charles wasn't the team that was following him. The testimony I heard (from the report of one of the surveillance team) on the news indicated that the firearms team entered the train, entering just as the doors were closing. I don't know what their orders were, but as they entered the train they saw one of the surveillance team wrestling with the suspect. The surveillance officer said he recognized the firearms team, so it is possible to assume they recognized him.

So - you've been told your following a suicide bomber, you rush onto a tube train and see a fellow police officer struggling with someone. In those circumstances I can see why they opened fire. I think judging from this what happened was a tragic misunderstanding.

The conduct of the police in not admitting their mistake sooner, and not correcting reports about the suspects suspicous behavior is abhorrent, but from what I've heard of the actual incident I'm not sure that the officers who fired should be charged with murder.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

The principal teories on that matter say that the subordinate can reject some orders if he see a rational doubt about the situation

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In most armies, to disobey a direct order from a superior officer in wartime is punishable by summary execution, or at the very least a general court martial. All you can do in such a situation is obey the order and hope your side wins the war, as justice is decided by the victor. Else a lot of Soviets and other Allies would have been put up against a wall with a handkerchief and a cigarette.

This sad case, just shows how you cannot trust the police when they close up ranks around a mistake and try and cover up stories. So many people here and in the country bought all their lies even after the many cases we have had before of the police cover ups.

Sad to say I told you so, but it was obvious. Now Ian Blair, the commisioner has to go, he not only lied about the situation, tried to stop the investigation but also did not publish the real happenings to the family when he knew. That is despicable beyond belief, in fact quite sickening. It shows how little our police force has come, it is still a secretive, racist, authoritarian and horrible organisation. I have lost so much respect for the police force after this incident and it will take a lot to get my respect back. I will always respect individual policeman doing their jobs well, but the police force as a whole stinks.

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Originally Posted by monkian

Surely theres a difference between shotting a suspected terrorist (shortly after a terrorist attack) and rounding up peasants and shooting them into mass graves though ?

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Not if you have "evidence" that tells you that all the peasants are terrorists...... :balloon2:

The 'evidence' being your orders are to brutally murder any slavic or Jewish civillians ?

I'm sorry but the two are poles apart. No pun intended....

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Originally Posted by Grey_Fox

In most armies, to disobey a direct order from a superior officer in wartime is punishable by summary execution, or at the very least a general court martial. All you can do in such a situation is obey the order and hope your side wins the war, as justice is decided by the victor. Else a lot of Soviets and other Allies would have been put up against a wall with a handkerchief and a cigarette.

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And the American Prison scandal in Iraq... have they been cleared once for obeying orders?

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Originally Posted by monkian

The 'evidence' being your orders are to brutally murder any slavic or Jewish civillians ?

I'm sorry but the two are poles apart. No pun intended....

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If you get an order to shoot a civilian on an open street in London during rush hours or you get an order to round up peasants in a remote village and shoot them are to me an order you should refuse. It's just silly.
Surely it's a more horrible crime to shoot hundred than shooting one. Never the less both situations are murder to me......

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

And the American Prison scandal in Iraq... have they been cleared once for obeying orders?

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Those cases were only brought into a courtroom due to public pressure. If the public had never found out, odds are nothing would have been done, except for maybe a symbolic slap on the wrist.

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Originally Posted by bmolsson

If you get an order to shoot a civilian on an open street in London during rush hours or you get an order to round up peasants in a remote village and shoot them are to me an order you should refuse. It's just silly.
Surely it's a more horrible crime to shoot hundred than shooting one. Never the less both situations are murder to me......

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The difference being the Waffen SS knew that they were killing civillians, the armed police thought they were neutralising a terrorist target.

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Originally Posted by monkian

The difference being the Waffen SS knew that they were killing civillians, the armed police thought they were neutralising a terrorist target.

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If you are going to call a kill (not murder) neutralising, then using the same language set you should refer to the SS bit as collatoral damage.

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Originally Posted by A.Saturnus

What makes it more than a police mistake was that the operation was carried out with extreme prejudice, despite insufficient information. Even if Mr. de Menezes had been a terrorist, it would still be murder.

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It looked as if the operation was carried out with extreme efficiency -- until it turned out they got the wrong guy. What happened then, apparently, was a cover-up of outrageous proportions in which even Ian Blair was kept uninformed of the essentials. It casts a bleak light on British Police and I must admit I was genuinely shocked over the weekend about what came up. Even if half of that were true (and I still believe only half is true), the lack of judgment in some, the prejudice and outright lies of others, the involvement of questionable units, sloppy intelligence etcetera are really appalling. I fear the mutual trust between the British public and its police force will suffer enormously from it. That's a brownie point for the terrorists.