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To: pythagorean
I went to the link you provided, and the two public witnesses who saw the event had this to say:

(1). "Two members of the public were to become key witnesses. Christopher Wells, a 29-year-old photo processing shop manager, said: "I was coming through the barriers when I saw a man running very fast into the station. Behind him were loads of policemen all carrying weapons. There were at least 20 of them and they had big black guns".

"The man ran towards a large number of people standing around and jumped over the barriers. The police ran after him and jumped the barriers as well, shouting at the crowd to leave immediately. The man carried on running and was followed down."

(2). "Sitting in the carriage was Mark Whitby, 47, a water hygiene surveyor from Brixton. "He ran on to the train hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them wielding a black handgun. As he got on the train, I looked at his face. He looked sort of left and right but basically looked like a cornered rabbit. He looked absolutely terrified."

I don't know when the CCTV first picked up this guy's movements, but he apparently did run through the subway, leap the turnstyle, and ran onto the train, looked left then right, then realized he was caught.

I would never, ever blame the British police for what happened. The man wearing the suspiciously heavy coat ran from the authorities shortly after a major terror attack occurred in the same place, and another, similar attack was botched. The man also had just left a small building that was being surveyed by police for possible terrorists. All of London was sufficiently terrorized, and skittish police were being high-pressured to prevent another attack by capturing or killing the terrorists before they got another chance to kill.

How anyone can place blame on the cops for this particular mishap is beyond me.
Their are two key factors that tend to show the police were convinced the man was a terrorist, the numerous head shots to the guy, and the fact that the police shouted at all the people to immdediately leave the subway. Because police are trained to shoot center mass at suspects, the head shots could ONLY occur if they truly believed the man was wearing a bomb vest and might explode it. They also would not have commanded the entire subway to evacuate immediately unless they were convinced the man was about to do something awful.

Given all the coincidental facts, the man's suspicious garb, his foreign looks, his present location at the crime scene, his leaving a watched buliding, and his apparent running from police, coupled with the unparalleled fear and anxiety that had gripped all of London, I believe the police did what they had to do. I also believe the blame for this man's death falls squarely on the ISLAMIC TERRORISTS that killed so many Londoners, created fear, paranoia and the feeling of helplessness that led police to act decisevely without their usual confirmation before shooting.

33 posted on 08/30/2005 10:41:24 PM PDT by TheCrusader ("The frenzy of the Mohammedans has devastated the churches of God" -Pope Urban II, 1097AD)
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To: TheCrusader
Crusader, obviously the CCTV footage (whose existence and revelations are NOT disputed by the police) clearly contradict the witnesses you quote. Nobody takes seriously their testimonies, which obviously were a product of their imagination, as is often the case with people who panic when witnessing such an event.

Contrary to what you still claim, the man did not wear a "suspiciously heavy coat" but a light denim jacket (see also picture in this BBC article).

Despero and myself have already analyzed several additional aspects of this police blunder and have already answered the issues you continue to raise. Unless you have something genuinely new to add, let's stop dealing with this. It's an overkill!

34 posted on 08/31/2005 7:09:45 AM PDT by pythagorean
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