Anyone like to reconsider what they posted about the train attack on Saturday night?

[margegunderson]

There were (to my mind) some horrific posts claiming that it MUST be a terrorist attack, demanding information on the attacker’s race and motivations NOW, shouting about Starmer censorship and picking fights with anyone suggesting it might not be cut and dried and to wait for more information. Hideously racist as well.
If that was you - any reflections today? What will you do if there’s a next time?

You may be right that it is that simple, but I still wonder whether we are missing something with regards to those who are a clear threat to public safety because of a likelihood that they will terrorise people. For example, the Southport murderer was deemed not to be a terrorism threat, despite jihadi manuals, because he had a variety of different literature from a variety of different unsavoury sources and wasn't ideologically committed to one of them. Consequently, he was able to slip through the net as not a terrorist threat, when he was clearly a terrorising threat. Even those who commit dreadful acts on behalf of terrorist organisations are often recruited because they are already susceptible in some way. There is a chicken and egg relationship between the two. There is no evidence that Valdo Calocane was ideologically linked to anything, yet despite a known psychiatric history, he had been allowed to get away with being in public without taking his medication. It should not take a triple murder for him to be prevented from terrorising the public with knives. Yesterday's attacker apparently stabbed someone in the face on the DLR on Friday, but was free to terrorise again.

Did you view the Plymouth shooting as an act of terror? Or the man in Liverpool who drove his car into pedestrians or all the US school shootings?

The reality is in order for something to be a terror incident it needs to fit specific criteria (a main one that it is in service of a political ideology.)

Some loon on a train who wanted suicide by cop does not really fit that definition.

I agree people knee jerk put everything into the terror bucket if the individual is of a certain national origin / race but that does not mean the official definition of a terror incident should change.

I didn’t post anything. I waited for the police update on TV and I came off social media because so many people were acting as judge and jury and using this as an excuse to be racist towards a range of minorities.

No it isn’t, unless you’re doing it in the service of a political or religious ideology. Terrorism doesn’t simply mean ‘causing terror’.

Yes! I'm a Geordie and Newcastle supporter who lives in London (I don't go to matches now) so I am slightly biased in that Newcastle fans are not shitty but it was the most ludicrous comment.
Oh, it was in response to me they made that comment. Ridiculous.

He did not have jihadi manuals. He had ONE Al Qaeda manual and also had information on the IRA. He seems to have been obsessed with violence in general not beholden to any one ideology. You are engaging in the same kind of misinformation referred to in OP.

No, it's not. Not everything that is terrifying is a terror attack. It is motive that defines a terror attack. Random violence doesn't count.

They do it after every incident. They did it after Liverpool and again this weekend. They all go quiet when the truth comes out, or you get the complete racists/loonies that say the security services and police are lying about the perpetrator. I have seen that already that one of the witnesses worked for the security services when interviewed on sky news.

Its just horrific.

I had to stop reading the threads the other day because they were making me feel sick.

Sadly, none of the racists will reflect on how wrong they were, let alone apologise for their behaviour. Most of them are probably still in denial about the facts and thinking it's all part of some grand conspiracy/cover-up.

We need to stop thinking of these people as reasonable and rational human beings. They are fuelled by hatred and prejudice, and facts don't matter to them.

Al Qaeda is a jihadi organisation. The IRA also produced unsavoury literature. I think we are agreeing with each other. He as obsessed with violence, not wedded to one ideology, so was allowed to slip through the net because of the narrow definitions used to deem whether he was of interest to a certain part of our state bureaucracy.

Absolutely is not what I think. But why are people so quick to jump to judgement and believe there’s a conspiracy? Why immediately decide it must be something to do with asylum seekers or immigrants?
I don’t have the answers more than anyone else does. I agree there’s a worrying number of knife attacks now, and that’s a trend that needs some urgent investigation. And we could use a thoughtful national debate about some of these issues.
But thank you for engaging.

I think we need to look at knife attacks and drug use. Drugs seem to have been decriminalised with any parliamentary discussion, let alone act of parliament. Cannabis is too often described as a benign hippy love drug, when it can cause severe psychiatric health problems. Whether that is in anyway relevant to this case, I wouldn't like to speculate, but I can smell the cannabis in the streets in the nearest major city. There was even a man smoking a joint under and oak tree at the weekend. Harmless, yes, but indicative of how ubiquitous illegal drugs are.

I don’t think anyone ever described the actions of Michael Ryan, Thomas Hamilton.or Raul Moat as terrorism. Then again, they were white.

So what was the point of your post here? Did you really expect people who were spouting off on Saturday to come here and give us all their 'reflections'?

The current National Terror Threat Level in UK is set as SUBSTANTIAL.

This means that a terrorist event is likely.

Who do we expect this threat to come from?

I'm guessing its not the Catholics, or the Quakers, or the Jews, or sikhs

so, when the police and government hold back on details, it stands to reason that people will guess who the perpetrators are, and let’s face it, they are usually right.

Back in the 70’s during the troubles in Ireland. If a bomb went off, nobody ever said “oh I bet it was football hooligans” they universally said, probably IRA, and they would be right.

same thing these days, just a different gang.

I think we have to be careful about both racism and accusations of racism.

I standby my post which said that I think and have thought for a long period of time that we should have ID cards and that these should be used when booking train travel. I was accused of saying "xenophobic rubbish" which I found very strange - particularly as having lived in another country for a number of years that was the practice and as a non-national I had to use my passport as I did not have an identity card.

So in answer to the OP yes I think there were some very racist comments but not all were and we as a society need to be careful of when making an allegation of racism as that makes people feel they can't voice their opinions. This then makes people more likely to turn to political parties who say that "people can't say what they think".

I didn't see those threads either. Nor would I ever want to.

It sounds like this attack was carried out by a man with significant mental health issues. He was also a black man. Obviously these kinds of mental health episodes can occur with somebody of any race, and do. The question here would have to be whether there were any opportunities missed to intercept this man and get him secure before he carried out the attack. I hear there was something with him on DLR earlier in the day. Was there more the police/mental health services could have done in this instance? Is there more that needs to be done to work with people with significant poor mental health who could be a threat to others (or themselves) so it doesn't get to this kind of point?

Very scary incident though and my thoughts are with all of those affected.

No, but as defrazzled said, I would like calm conversations and for people from all sides to just generally stop the pigeonholing, labelling and namecalling.

I think information came out remarkably quickly tbh. They can hardly release names and motives immediately without investigation can they? Thankfully they didn’t given one man arrested was not involved!

People are anxious, concerned and fearful. That has been going on for ages - fear a soviet attack, then just as that drifts away it's all quaeda , 9/11, 7/7 and reading about other islamo fascist attacks. Then we have COVID - will we all die? Well it was not quite as bad as all that but... Oh I forgot the credit crunchity munchity. Then Daesh in the middle east, north Africa and sympathisers, Ukraine was and cost of living crisis.

Ohand what people see every night as small boats arrived. Yes, there are far more legal migrants coming in, yes legal.

Unemployment, fears that grooming gangs were not dealt with for a perceived fear of upsetting minorities. Councils taking down some flags but afraid to upset other communities.

Added to that a political party fanning the flames and offering a (dog whistle) solution.

The true guilty parties - the global elites, the Uber wealthy and parts of an establishment who are happy to see the "little people" eat one another as long as they continue to thrive.

I wonder if he can claim for the psychological effects of not only the attacks but being wrongly arrested. There's also the tasering, dangerous thing to do. Poor Man begging them not to do it.

I think the difference though is that there are people not just assuming its a terrorist attack (with good reason, because as people have said, initial reports were two people involved, and that emergency services were being supported by the anti-terrorism police) but are then spouting all the "send them back; burn the hotels; its the boat people" stuff that turns into vile racists rants.

Calm conversations are getting us fucking nowhere. More scolding and making racism and xenophobia absolutely unacceptable for me.