Suspected suicide bomber shot at Stockwell station.

[cori]

Have just heard an unconfirmed report on the radio. Anyone else?

Harry Stanley was carrying a table leg in a plastic bag. He was Scottish. Someone in the same pub as him rang the police to say an Irishman was wandering round Hackney carrying a gun.

Bang.

Postmortem evidence showed that he was facing away from the police when he was shot - the bullet entered the back of his head.

Whether they got it right this time or not, there has been more than one occasion when the Met have got it horribly wrong.

zoya, that is true but it has emerged that this man had been under surveillance for sometime.

Anyone want to precis this thread for me on a new one?! Cannot face reading over 700 posts...

HD thats right. There was a lot of evidence to suggest the police had good reason to shoot. Of course, it could be propaganda, but we never really know, do we?

HM, loads going on here. People who try and avoid young asians carrying rucksacks are racist, QoQ went nuts, People should smile at each other on the tube and the buses to make sure they are 'normal'.....

Not very good surveillance then. Being shot in the back of the head... doesn't sound like he presented an immediate threat.

Agree about the Spanish - they voted out the conservative govt for all sorts of reasons, one of which was the opportunist lies they told about ETA. The others, were their policies and performance. It would have been allowing Al Qaeda to win, if the Spanish people had said "we'll keep you just because al Qaeda hate you, and we'll ignore the fact that we hate you too"

Hmm. May be worth reading

My initial thoughts on this are that if somebody is suspected to have explosives strapped to them somewhere and won't stop moving or surrender, despite being asked, I'd like them to be shot in the head, preferably until they're definitely dead.

I heard a presenter on LBC this evening saying they should've asked questions of him. Er...before or after he'd blown up a whole tube carriage, several police officers and goodness knows how many members of the public?!

In the current climate, people should do just as they're asked by armed police or they should expect to be shot!

Aloha has been criticised for getting off buses, my clumsy posts have been misinturpreted thinking I am anti all muslims (my BF is muslim!! and agrees with my POV) basically if you have an hour, it could make for interesting reading.

I think Wlit is back under a different name and trying a different tack on the 'don't shoot me down thread' in Chat.

I might be wrong, but somethings brewing..

C, he had been under surveillance, they had been chasing him, shouted at him to stop, he ignored them, hurdled a barrier and fell into a train and they piled on top of him - hence shot in back of head.

Scary or not, if I'd been in that train I'm not sure I'd have been thrilled if they'd held back and said "now then, let's be sure..." and he'd detonated something.

If they were wrong about him then that is dreadful but in the current climate...

Noooo, far too reasoned, MT

HM, it's been an interesting thread, sort of...

please go to new thread. thx.

jan was C reffering to today or the chap with the table leg? I thought the latter but I may be wrong.

I so want to read this thread from start to finish, but I promised myself an early night tonight. Dilemmas, dilemmas

I think C was referring to the Harry Stanley case too.

Yes sorry, I meant the table leg man.

But I have a question about the latest one - he was shot 5 times, but not in the head, according to the eyewitness - in the body. Isn't that dangerous, if he was a suicide bomber and wired up? I know it's OK if it's plastic and needs a detonator, but if he was wearing a thick jacket, how did the police/ SAS know what sort of explosives he was wearing? Has there been any news update?

My uncle knew Harry Stanley well and has been involved in the harry stanely campaign. When the police were called (as Zoya said following a call from someone about an Irish man in a pub carrying a gun) the police came straight from another job. There has been a suggestion that they were very pumped up.

Harry Stanley's death was completely unecessary and the way his widow was treated afterwards was fairly appalling (deatils not important for this discussion). I must admit when I heard about the shooting today I did hope it wasn't another Harry Stanely case.

shooting someone wearing a bomb is not as i understand modern ballistics particularly dangerous- not as dangerous as giving them a chance to detonate.

depsite the met's deservedly appalling reputation i have to say i think that in the current climate they had little choice in this situation...and in the current climate anyone who disobeys commands issued by armed police is asking for the most severe consequences possible

here's something written by my uncle about the harry stanley case he's always been the revolutionary of the family (lots of his brothers and sisters read the daily mail ) I do think it sounds as if todays situation was different, and I really hope so.

Sorry, the bloke I meant was under surveillance was the man shot today. Harry Stanley was a different awful matter, altogether.

yeah I know HD, its just I did think about Harry Stanley as soon as I heard about this morning.

I personally didn't think of Harry Stanley but I did wonder, "is this another mistake?".

I saw on the news the man being arrested and taken away from Downing Street. It turned out he was innocent and was released without charge. He must have been so scared. Pleased he listened to the police and did what they said. He could have quite easily been shot.

Jimjams, that was interesting to read, thank you. So sad he had just recovered from cancer.

C, eye witness reports are famously innacurate. I found this out for myself a few months ago when I heard someone trying to get into my flat. I realised when the police came round I actually had no idea what he looked like and my description I am sure was awful. Dp says this is much the norm. I can't believe anyone was really concentrating on the shooting, they must, surely have been focused on getting the hell away.

it looks likely the officers who shot the man in Stockwell weren't police but special forces. Not sure whether that's reassuring or not, tbh. Must talk to my ex-army not quite BIL...

There was a post earlier saying that police trainers had been saying there was more to the Stanley case than met the eye because H Stanley had a history of violence or some such. That's appalling - that the police are still trying to justify their terrible, terrible error by blackening the poor man's name.

Edam, that was me - told to me by DP who is a PC and was told detailed accounts of this case during his training. I think I also said later that I don't know if this is propaganda or not, who knows, really?