Posted on 07/23/2005 8:13:19 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
I saw suspect shot dead
By NICK PARKER,MIKE SULLIVAN, STEVE KENNEDY, CHARLES RAE and VIRGINIA WHEELER
A SHAKEN commuter told last night how he watched armed undercover cops shoot dead a suicide bomb suspect by pumping five bullets into him.
Mark Whitby, 47, was sitting reading his paper when the Asian man leapt into his Tube carriage at Stockwell station — with the plain-clothes cops in pursuit.
As the man stumbled the cops closed in and — fearing he was about to detonate a bomb — immediately opened fire.
Mark said: “As the man leapt on the train I looked at his face. He looked just like a cornered rat ... like a cornered fox, absolutely petrified.
“Then he tripped. One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him — bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
“Five shots and he’s dead. It was no further than five yards from me. It was like a nightmare — a very distressing sight.”
Last night police sources told how undercover officers had followed the suspect to the station from an address in neighbouring Brixton, South London.
The house had been under surveillance overnight after its address was found on documents in one of the rucksacks used in Thursday’s failed bomb attempts.
At 9am yesterday a young Asian man walked out of the house wearing a heavily-padded jacket.
He was tailed from a distance and followed on to a bus.
The officers in pursuit were wearing concealed earpieces connecting them to Anti-Terrorist chiefs at New Scotland Yard.
When it became clear the man intended to get off the bus near the station the officers urgently requested armed assistance — fearing he had a bomb beneath his padded jacket and planned to detonate it on a train.
Scotland yard has just apologised for shooting an innocent man, apparently a Brazilian. This is going to be a test of moral courage, not a good time to have a cock-up like this.
I believe that the terrorists will consider it a success if the public believes that all Muslims are their enemies. (I haven't come to that conclusion myself.)
If they accomplish this, then there will be many more "vigilante" efforts directed at mosques, muslims, "Asians" of various stripes, and immigrants both legal and illegal.
When that time comes, it will no longer be a mystery why such a person would run from non-uniformed men chasing after them. So far, this incident is a potential victory for the terrorists and holds little potential for aiding in the War on Terror.
If the authorities, for example, only expect to correctly identify bombers fifty-percent of the time, that would mean that half of their killings would lack justification, at least by prior standards. Such performance will not be acceptable.
Five shots?! Five shots!!
Good. That's what my S&W 340PD holds.
We don't need no steenkin automateeks.
What a mess.
I have a nephew who is of Portuguese descent. If he had been standing on the train next to the dead suspect, he probably would be dead, too. He is just one camel short of looking like an Arab.
I believe that the terrorists will consider it a success if the public believes that all Muslims are their enemies. (I haven't come to that conclusion myself.)
I have no objection to the terrorists winning on that score.
If they accomplish this, then there will be many more "vigilante" efforts directed at mosques, muslims, "Asians" of various stripes, and immigrants both legal and illegal.
That remains to be seen.
When that time comes, it will no longer be a mystery why such a person would run from non-uniformed men chasing after them. So far, this incident is a potential victory for the terrorists and holds little potential for aiding in the War on Terror.
"...non-uniformed men chasing after them"? Cops are the only people authorized to carry weapons—especially automatic weapons—in Britain. The guy would've had to have had an I.Q. of 80 not to understand that he was being ordered to stop by policemen. Sorry, I'm not buying the "he didn't know who was chasing him" excuse.
If the authorities, for example, only expect to correctly identify bombers fifty-percent of the time, that would mean that half of their killings would lack justification, at least by prior standards. Such performance will not be acceptable.
I wouldn't generalize from a single instance. I expect much better than 50% accuracy in this war. But let's not forget that it is a war, and to imagine otherwise is to ignore what the other side has been saying and doing for several decades now. The islamists know that they're at war with us; if we don't know it, so much the worse for us.
Scotland yard has just apologised for shooting an innocent man, apparently a Brazilian. This is going to be a test of moral courage, not a good time to have a cock-up like this.
Yes, I posted earlier that it was being reported that the shooting was 'a mistake'.
But this doesn't change the fact that it's the responsibility of somebody who wishes to remain alive that he apprise himself of the circumstances in his immediate vicinity that might make his wish difficult to fulfill. If the man was a Brazilian who didn't speak English and wasn't aware of the news and wasn't able to recognize British policeman and didn't know better than to run when being ordered to stop on the day after terrorist attacks, then his death was very much his own fault. To suppose otherwise is to suppose that it's the responsibility of everybody else to insure the continued existence of the terminally stupid.
Oh yes. This is going to cause some serious problems. Not the sort of cock-up one wants to see when the police need to keep good morale and the public at large need to trust their competence. Shooting suicide bombers repeatedly in the head at close range is still a perfectly valid tactic, but if you're going to do it then it's helpful not to get sloppy in identifying a suspect and assessing what threat they pose.
Shooting random Brazilians for being brown and suspicious-looking isn't very smart or good for the public's morale.
So do I. The Brits are so proud of their video surveillance system, perhaps we will see video of the suspect jumping the turnstile and running toward the train. Perhaps we will even see the police yelling for him to stop.
Logically, if I were trying to prevent a suicide bomber from detonating his bomb before I could stop him, I would not yell a warning. This would remove the justification for shooting him, but it would increase the probability that I could stop him before he bolts out of panic. How did the suspect realize that he was being followed? Did the suspect spot the followers long before reaching the train station? Did the police really believe that a suicide bomber would stop?
I don't want to seem insensitive to the death of the Brazilian, but, as things appear now, it was through his own fault that he's dead. If that turns out not to be so, I'll acknowledge my error.
UK Police: Man Killed Unrelated to Probe By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer
The man, whose identity has not been released, was shot Friday at a subway station in the south London neighborhood of Stockwell. Witnesses said the man appeared to be South Asian and was wearing a heavy padded coat when police chased him into a subway car, pinned him to the ground and shot him in the head and torso.
Point blank range... can't miss... not even good target practice. People who live in fear can not be trusted to protect the freedom of others.
It has not been explained why the police were following him at all; very likely they mistook him for somebody else. Under the circumstances it was not smart to run from the police, and it was especially not smart to run into a subway station. But people do dumb things.
The Iberian peninsula was ruled by Muslims for some 400 years. There are people from Portugal, Spain, Latin America & beyond who could be mistaken for being Arab. This greatly benefits the jihadist terrorists in more ways then one.
A suicide by testing the railway defenses. That makes sense to me.
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