<p>Or they look at my library books, search your house and lock up your neighbor for years and years</p>
<p>And for a democracy, we ain’t such a good model anymore</p>
<p>
Right. Things are so dramatic in your neighborhood, CGM.</p>
<p>Driver, whatever…I never had said anything directly to you, but you are showing yourself to be a petty person who has decided to act like a middle school girl</p>
<p>Please do not get personal…that is childish, and it shows me where you are at mentally…I get it now, I have lowered myself to your level, I have failed myself in that respect…</p>
<p>I take it very seriouslly when I see our hard for freedoms eroding, why fight for something that is slipping away?</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>I believe the police have been forthcoming about the shooting, after they knew he was not connected to the bombings in anyway, a statement was released, admitting a mistake and issuing an apology.</p>
<p>More details couldn’t be released until his family in Brazil were notified.</p>
<p>The shoot-to-kill policy still remains, and as a Londoner who travels on the tube everyday I am in favour of it.</p>
<p>This death was a mistake and admitted as such, but I can see how his behaviour was very suspicious.</p>
<p>It has now emerged that the Brazilian man’s visa had expired 2 years ago, so that is most likely the reason he ran</p>
<p>Seven shots to the back of the head and one to the shoulder, eight shots in total. None of the several hundred thousand illegal London immigrants deserves execution-style death.</p>
<p>That officer will not be back on the streets. So says me. </p>
<p>I read an editorial column in The Times today: “the inconsitistency bordering on callousness of Scotland Yard has been breathtaking.” </p>
<p>Having lived in the unsavory bits of Manhattan, I appreciate that the London police have traditionally maintained a less violent profile than the NYPD. It was a remarkable example for the world. They will not give up that tradition in the face of this new threat, hopefully. </p>
<p>Instead, this single officer will be stood down. That is my prediction. He made a dreadful error.</p>
<p>I doubt it. They WANT the police to do what is necessary in an instant reaction and they will take the blame if need be.</p>
<p>Time will tell, b. I think they want the police to make the CORRECT split second decisions. London cannot afford these mistakes. I wouldn’t want that guy in my squad, would you?</p>
<p>Here’s the column in full:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1070-1707225,00.html[/url]”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines;
<p>The fourth paragraph of that Times article reveals some new information that I hadn’t seen before, making it look pretty bad for the officers involved and the police in general. According to this article, he hadn’t been under surveillance in connection with terrorists.</p>
<p>Calmom, you’re right. If ever challenged by the police, I will instantly stop, keep my hands in clear view, and move only exceedingly slowly if at all. That despite despicable things like what happened to Cyrus Kar, the Iranian-American filmmaker detained in Iraq who was kept in custody for a month <em>after</em> the authorities came to the conclusion he was innocent and whose treatment before his status was determined was inappropriate anyway.</p>
<p>Let’s take it as a given that, regardless of our politics, we’d all like to be safe from homicidal bombers (that they are suicidal as well is irrelevant), and that we pay taxes to try to protect us from same. Let’s also take it as a given that none of us would like to be shot and killed in error by the people we pay to protect us, and we probably wouldn’t like either people to be either.</p>
<p>So once we’ve established the outside parameters, we can talk about these issues with each other respectfully.</p>
<p>TheDad - your strategy would make you an easy target.</p>
<p>It’s very possible that Jean Charles did not “trip” when he went down but deliberately dropped to the ground in a gesture of surrender - that is, doing exactly the sort of thing that you are thinking would be safe. As anyone who watches cop shows know, cops always order their suspects to lay prone on the ground when they are chasing them - so the safest thing to do when being chased by cops is to go down. So maybe this guy ran from the cops (perhaps not even realizing at first they were cops), then realized his mistake & surrendered. For which he was summarily executed.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the UK’s policy is, but as an American I would have interpreted a “shoot-to-kill” policy as authorizing lethal force against a fleeing suspect, at a distance (which does in fact happen from time to time here in the US) – I wouldn’t have thought it meant gunshots to the back of the head at close range – which really should more appropriately be labeled a “summary execution” policy. </p>
<p>Somewhat ironically, perhaps, I have a different view on the Cyrus Kar thing – I think his detention was very unfortunate, but that it was his own stupid idea to go make a movie in a war zone, and he is very lucky that he was detained by US soldiers rather than captured by insurgents or killed in crossfire somewhere along the way. He deliberately put himself in difficult and suspicious circumstances; he was treated reasonably well, and allowed to contact his family early on.</p>
<p>I just thought of a brilliant solution to this problem!</p>
<p>Why don’t the bad guys just promise not to use bombs anymore and the police promise not to make any more mistakes? That will solve everything!</p>
<p>This is obviously a tragic event, but it was IMO caused by the TERRORISTS using bombs to kill and endanger many innocent civilians. Imagine if a police officer had a suspect in custody and then inadvertently triggered a bomb by performing a search, and many people were killed or severely injured. That would not be an impossible scenario. Police officers have to make very tough decisions, and frequently these decisions need to be made instantly. You should all be grateful that some people are willing to have to make the tough decisions. Anyone who thinks that police officers are happy to kill innocent civilians is wacko.</p>
<p>You give the terrorists an awful lot of credit (and power, too).</p>
<p>
The Times </p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>after hearing what Rumsfield told the Senate last year about the pictures and videos of what went on at Abu Gharib, we have lost a lot of credibility in the world…its to disgusting to even cut and paste here, we have turned into our enemy</p>
<p>"Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.</p>
<p>And that is us…</p>
<p>The worst thing he did was run into a train station, if he ran down the street maybe it would have been different. But to run into a station then vault the barrier and get on a train it made the police think the public was in danger and they acted as they had been instructed to when dealing with a suicide bomber.</p>
<p>So now the police should shoot and kill every one who runs to catch a train? If they started shooting the gate vaulters around here, we’d have a massacre. (And before you say that London is different, try to keep in mind that the US is obviously a target for terrorism and our cities have subways that are just as vulnerable to attack as anywhere else).</p>
<p>What is going to be even more difficult and scary is when school starts and you have all these kids, highschool and college, with big backpacks or messenger bags filled with books, and as the weather changes, and everyone is in heavy clothing, I can’t imagine the confusion, false alarms and even real threats. If you are a teen boy with darker skin, or a non-typical caucasion features, you will be watched even more. What to do"? This is a giant mess.</p>
<p>Yup. Has already crossed my mind. At age 12, my d., adopted from India, would go on airplane trips with her gymnastics team - 15 pre-teen and teen girls, 2 coaches, and 5 moms, 90% towheads. On 6 straight occasions, they pulled her out from among the towheads, and spent up to 45 minutes searching her - a 12 year old wearing gymnastics duds! We figured the odds of that happening randomly at roughly 400,000 to 1. Now she is in New York City, traveling to and from her piano program on West 85th Street, with a huge traveling bag filled with piano music. She is not a New York native. Having grown up in New York, I have much greater fear of what could happen if the police decided to go after her than I am of terrorists or of common criminals. I am very discomforted by even having the thought, and I apologize for it - but it doesn’t mean that I don’t have it.</p>
<p>30,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the U.S. last year. Makes “terrorist” activity look like child’s play in comparison. Statistically, one might be safer in Kashmir.</p>