Things that never make the news...

I don't think they do, I don't think they think, they are filled with the blood lust that humans get in on a hunt, of anything. Its basic, low-level, hard wired into our low brain functions, deep in our animal brains (amygdala ? ). Once the "chase" was on the outcome was pretty inevitable.

The officers were doing what they were trained to do, sure, but what they were doing was based on horrendous intelligence, and we now find out that they had safer options for taking him down BEFORE he got on a crowded tube, even assuming he was a suicide bomber.

And if I were designing suicide bomb fuses, you sure as hell wouldn't stop mine going off just by shooting the guy with the button. Fortunately these groups don't have real engineers working for them.

Steve

You follow them through crowded streets, on a bus and then down into a crowded tube station. Then shoot them...

I feel sorry for the guys doing the job, to the best of their ability and with the training and policies they have.

But however you slice it, the whole episode stinks. I don't think anyone wanted to kill an innocent man, but the events immediately before and after reek of cover up and corruption.

The sad truth is that every restriction of freedom and every chip out of our traditional way of life is another small victory for terrorism. I guess that makes Blair the biggest terrorist of all.

On or around Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:51:35 +0100, Lee_D enlightened us thusly:

Quite honestly, I doubt you can in fact stop him blowing it up. That's why it's called a "dead-man trigger" - though it's faintly possible that blowing his brains out will work. Either that of go for the trigger itself in the hopes of damaging the mechanism so it don't work... but were it me designing it, it'd be a simple "break circuit and up she goes" system, and I don't really see how you can prevent that from being triggered. 'bout the only thing you can do, in such case, would be to swamp the suspect with manpower and hope to take over holding the trigger until such time as it can be safely defused... might be that you want to blow his brains out at the same time if opportunity allows.

On or around Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:34:41 +0100, Steve Taylor enlightened us thusly:

not sure about that. There's no evidence really - mostly, you don't know someone's a suicide bomber 'til they blow up, but anyone close enough to try to prevent it would no doubt get blown up as well, anyway.

but a dead-man trigger is pretty simple, really, and doubtless the simpler the better.

On or around Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:34:00 +0100, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

with you there. The people on the ground were doubtless following the bloke thinking "is he or isn't he" and not sure whether to shoot the poor bugger or not.

but frankly, if we come to the point where people can be shot on suspicion and where people can be arrested and held without trial, then we've already lost most of the much-vaunted freedom we're supposed to have. By my book, the correct response would be what they used to write on bombed buildings in the war "Business as usual" - if you enact draconian measures to try to prevent that which is, basically, untraceable and unpreventable, you're doing the terrrists job for them, as you say. They don't even need to actually blow anything up any more.

During stardate Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:05:03 +0100, Austin Shackles uttered the imortal words:

I'll wait on the full report rather than the trial by media.

Whole heartedly agree and I'd go as far as to say those authorising the use of firearms were also having the same nightmares.

I agree in part, the terror factor is pretty complete. But you still need tools to deal with these elements. What is the alternative?

We've actually come along way in recent years. In the days of Judges rules you could sling someone in a cell, go home for rest days and interview them when you came back when they had time to think it over. PACE sorted that out and rightly so. Now we (the country) have adopted the Human rights act too so people can have their day out in Brussells. It's not all so much a one way street as the picture your painting suggests.

Perhaphs we should just give them a fixed penalty ticket or put terrorist Gatsos up and send them an Notice of intended prosecution, that would show them whats what.

What I fail to see is what the f*ck all this has to do with Landrovers.

Lee D

-- Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam. Winston Churchill

Yup...

Use the army. Don't arm civilians. And I class the police as civilians. Put recording cameras on all police firearms so that after every discharge , data is available for the subsequent enquiry and blokes carrying table legs in carrier bags might get some posthumous justice.

And only permit the use of rifles and not handguns, preferably with electronic lockout on the triggers so that only chief constable authority unlocks them, and if something goes wrong, we shoot the chief constable....That should help.

And I think this has naff all to do with Landies too.

Steve

During stardate Thu, 13 Oct 2005 22:40:56 +0100, Steve uttered the imortal words:

I'll bring some wood for the brazier...this could take a while ;-)

Lee D

-- Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam. Winston Churchill

Shall I bring the chainsaw?

During stardate Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:17:06 +0100, Mother uttered the imortal words:

Only if it's ex Army!

Lee D

-- Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam. Winston Churchill

I think people would be happier if I didn't bring the 36inch ex-military chainsaw actually. I'll bring the 18inch civvy jobbie, just in case...

Austin, can you bring a couple of windfalls please?

During stardate Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:26:35 +0100, Mother uttered the imortal words:

Where the heck are we going to find an 18 inch civvy?

Note to self: Pack fire extingisher.

Lee D

-- Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam. Winston Churchill

On or around Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:26:35 +0100, Mother enlightened us thusly:

I expect I might manage it. Are we going to have the famous fire-pit?

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:11:27 +0100, Mother scribbled the following nonsense:

I've just got back from 2 weeks in crete, and I'm fairly certain I could get used to picking olives and drinking Raki.....

I still can't handle the fact that particular gentleman was already restrained before the goon with the bloodlust dispatched him with 9? bullets.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Tim Hobbs blithered:

Not quite, get one of your colleagues to hold him still, and then shoot him!

before the goon with the

Eyewitness reports of the incident

Mark Whitby said: "I was sitting on the train... I heard a load of noise,

people saying, 'Get out, get down'. I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun

(snip)

"He [the suspect] had a baseball cap on and quite a sort of thickish coat - it was a coat you'd wear in winter, sort of like a padded jacket. He might have had something concealed under there, I don't know. But it looked sort of out of place with the sort of weather we've been having, the sort of hot humid weather"

Commuter Anthony Larkin, who was also on the train at Stockwell station, told 5 Live he saw police chasing a man. "I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."

Two eye witnesses one saying his coat looked out of place and may conceal a bomb the other says he appeared to have a bomb belt on

the problem with hindsight is it never there when you need it Imagine the headlines "police follow suspected bomber onto crowded train and do nothing as 50 die in explosion"

In news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net, Andy.Smalley blithered:

Not sure your description agrees with what has been published at various times since.