Man shot dead in Stockwell unconnected to terror inquiry

[QueenOfQuotes]

Just seen a ticker on the BBC website saying that

jimjams, but if he spoke near fluent English, I can't imaging the police wouldn't have said who they were and given him a chance to surrender - although I haven't been following this story as closely as I would have liked.

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What ifs abound...

Oh come on. 'Why didn't the intelligence services see the terrorist attacks coming' is a reasonable question, as is 'why did they shoot an innocent man dead'. Otherwise we might as well live in a totalitarian state.

One thing I found particularly distressing was the Sun headline yesterday 'One down, three to go' which gloried in this poor man's death. Disgusting. Sickening. Horrifying. Shameful. I really hope the Brazilian ambassador reports them to the Press Complaints Commission, as ineffective as that might be.

Oh, yes - ask those questions, they're very important. But it's the endless, "He might've been..." "It could be because..." that's driving me mad!

As for the Sun headline - vile

Happy Mum of 2 and Janh - really? The police shoot dead your son and you would turn around and say "job well done chaps, silly blighter deserved everything he got running away from you lot inplain clothes waving guns".

Hmmm you're very different from me then becuase when my son became collateral damage to the vaccination programme it completely changed my mind about "the common good".

Carla- in Stockwell - where gun crime is rife- I'm not sure you stop to wait to find out whether people saying they are police really are.

NOw if evidence comes out later that makes this person look seriously linked to the bombings then I could change my mind. But it appears to me that people are saying it is justified to shoot a scared man running from people (not easily identifiable as police) with guns because a)he came out of a house under surveilance and b)he ran into an underground station.

I think him running away was not a suspicious act I think it was entirely understandable.

RE- wearing rucksacks or not- I thought one of the other ones- threw the bag into the carriage just before the doors shut then ran off?????

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Re the suspiciously large jacket- II thought it was a fleece. My son was wearing a fleece yesterday (several sizes too big- its a hand me down)- and was acting very strangely in public (likes looking through keyholes at the moment). What we going to do? Shoot him?

Msschops- they had him on the floor and were holding him down. I can't believe people are happy to accept shoot to kill so easily when it claims innocent lives. Di we have shoot to kill during the IRA years? I'm suspecting not as there was such a huge fuss when the 3 IRA men were shot in Gibralter (personally I think that was possibly justified- fromw what I know about it) But this is different. You can't just shnoot to kill on a hunch! With 100% posiitve ID- yes, but not a hunch!

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No, but if they're going to have a shoot to kill policy, I think they're going to have to look seriously at their tactics.

Why didn't they try to apprehend him sooner? If he had been a suicide bomber, he could have potentially blown himself up in the ticket hall, or the instant they shouted "stop police", after all.

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Does anyone truly believe the police did this for a bit of a laugh? Or do you think they were acting on the best information available to them at the time?

If it transpires it's the former, the obviously that's wrong. If the latter, it's a tragedy in more ways than one.

They appear to be backtracking on the 'house under surveillance' excuse as well now. Have said that it was a block of flats. So the reasons they have given for shooting him dead are: he lived near an address under surveillance; he was wearing a fleece; and he ran away when someone in plain clothes pointed a gun at him.

If they carry on like this, it could be any of us next time. How do I know what the hell goes on in the building I'll be working in next week? Maybe one of the employees in one of the many companies there is under surveillance? Maybe one of the neighbours is a bit dodgy? I dunno, I've got epilepsy and acute stress can bring on a seizure... maybe they'd shoot me for that? At this moment I am MORE scared of the police/security services than I am of terrorists. I'm not joking.

What extra things? As far I can tell from what they have said they shot him because a)he left a house under surveilance and b) was acting suspiciously (which appears to be an interpretation of what he was wearing, the fact that he ran when they waved their guns at him (which I just cannot view as a strange reaction- sorry!) and the fact he ran into a tube station).

Exactly SP- and Edam- we think alike- so it was a different flat- oh dear oh dear oh dear.

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hunkermunker I don't for a moment think this was done for a laugh- I suspect a bit contributary factor were that the police were pumped up- and as in the Harry Stanley case therefore acted impulsively rather than using common sense. IN which case procedures need to be reviewed. For starters I think when someone looks at what happened here they should note that the outcome may have been very different if the armed officers had been uniformed.

jimjams, I do think it would have to be a particularly thick gangland sub-culture it they thought they could murder someone on the tube and get away with it. Even in Stockwell.

hunkermunker - I refer you to my previous post. Of course it wasn't done "for a laugh", but something clearly needs to be done about the policy they have, and also the way they gather intelligence.

As it goes, if they were right about the address, a suicide bomber could quite easily have left and gone in the other direction while they were all following this chap. The policy as it stands does not seem to make us any safer.

I agree, SP. I'm sad this has happened, but don't want the police to hesitate in the future in a situation that proves deadly for large numbers of the general public, iyswim.

What happens if next time they shoot dead a muslim by accident? Few more disaffected young muslim men converted to suicide bombers? Shoot to kill is a dangerous policy at its best and if they're going to shoot the wrong people then you have to make sure the fall out isn't going to be massive.

So should the shoot to kill policy be scrapped?

What if the next person does have a bomb?