Menzies killing verdict limitations
- Thread starter Surfer
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Oh, I see ....... they shot multiple rounds into his head by accident! and of course, that is not serious ...... **** me! I hadn't thought of that.
The officers should be responsible for their actions: yes, they were scared and nervous, yes, they had poor intel', etc etc and I would probably have done the same in their position BUT they blew the head off a totally innocent guy who was going about his ordinary life/business; they ****** big time and will regret it for ever, I feel but the verdict should be unlawful killing IMO.
No way.
You're an armed police unit, designed to act quickly, under pressure. Your understanding of the situation is basically that there is a terrorist about to blow up a tube train, and you must stop him by any means necessary. Your training tells you the best way to prevent a possible suicide bomber is by shooting him in the head. You're in a constant rush to catch up to the suspect from the start of his movements. By the time you finally reach him, it's literally last second, as the tube is about to leave the station. I'd defy anyone not to do what they did.
I honestly don't blame the men who directly shot de Menezes in the slightest, as they had no time to think on their own. They were fed bad information through a collection of ****-ups, as has already been said. Given that unlawful killing can only really be applied to those two officers, there's no reason that verdict should have been returned.
What gets me about this is that someone higher up should almost certainly have taken responsibility and resigned for this. Innocent people should not be getting killed by our police force without major consequence, and even if part of the fault did lie with some of the surveillance's mixed information, a senior officer should always be prepared to accept the blame for those under their command.
He was pointed out by the surveillance team as they got on the train carriage. In fairness to the former, I don't think they had any idea the armed team were going to gun him down immediately. Last thing they heard before they went into the station, they still weren't even sure if he was to be arrested.
So probably the armed unit was given a description like "guy in jeans and a denim jacket". You'd think someone would give the armed unit a picture (that could've easily been sent by mobile) of who the suspect was believed to be, so that they can make a comparison when they see him (just in case). It sounds like the only ground team that were able to do that was the surveillance team. I wonder if this was the case - if it is then I can't understand it. Surely every unit on the ground should have that kind of information. You'd think that if you were an officer on the ground, you would want to be able to verify (as much as possible) if the intelligence you're being fed is accurate or not - and therefore be able to react if it's not.
The whole thing sounds like a cluster-**** (awesome phrase). Who knows... is it the officer who coordinated the whole thing who's at fault, or the way the whole operation was designed?
The whole thing sounds like a cluster-**** (awesome phrase). Who knows... is it the officer who coordinated the whole thing who's at fault, or the way the whole operation was designed?
err no that suggests the officers where thinking "oh **** he just has to move his finger and we're all dead."
Why would they go "oh he's clearly not a suicide bomber (how do you know what a bomber looks like? wrong shade of brown? ) **** it lets shoot him for the lulz, not like anyone's going to bother investigating it is it?"
out of curiosity if he had been a bomber, and the police had followed all the arm chair officers in here, tried to arrest him and he blew the carriage to hell, would these same people be sitting here saying how terribly the police acted and failed to save all those lives?
De Menezes had no links whatsoever to terrorism (apart from having the misfortune to live in the same building as Osman), so that scenario is irrelevant to this case.
That is exactly what is wrong with this argument.
People are quick to say how he was murdered and the police were wrong to have shot him X number of times in the head, but if he had been found to have a bomb under his jacket or blown himself up in a carriage because they hadn't acted on the information they had available to them then everyone would be singing a very different tune right now.
Yes an innocent man died. Yes it is a tragedy. But you have to be slightly objective about the entire situation.
There were a number of failures that day that led to Menzies' death - Poor intelligence and the loss of contact when the armed officers went underground being just a couple of them and steps need to be taken to minimize the risk of this happening again, but suggesting that the officers on the ground are at fault for following orders is insane.
But he wasn't. All these tiresome ifs and buts
What happened that day was tragic - mainly for JC and his family but the guys involved will have to carry this for the rest of their lives. Regardless of what anyone says they would not have wanted to take the life of an innocent.
Having said that, I will add this: If it has to be one or the other, under what circumstances could the shooting possibly be described as lawful?.
The intelligence was bad, and listening to some accounts this could have been avoided had the police been better organised.
Whilst it's not strictly relevant to the possible outcomes of the inquest, it is an interesting point and I doubt this thread would exist if it was a failed suicide bomber that had been shot.
Of course, the police all have powers of precognition.
It's part of the same set of abilities issued to them with their gun, along with their ability to shoot someone in the hand, with a pistol thus making them drop a weapon, at a distance of 100 meters without risking any injury to others, and totally incapacitating them without putting anyone's life at risk.
As I think i've already said, to totally and instantly incapacitate someone who might be armed with a bomb that can be trigged with a single push of a button is to shoot them in the head.
And to shoot them at least 2-3 times - there are a surprising number of cases of people getting shot in the head and surviving without serious long term damage, and even more who will survive for a space of several minutes.
IIRC a quick google brings up a study by an American group into survivability of GSW's to the head, and it's something like 10-20% who will survive at least long enough to reach a hospital, and many more who don't die instantly.
I actually feel quite sorry for the officers who were in the armed team, they were in a situation where no matter what they did, they risked at least one person dying, possibly many more (including themselves), and a series of screwups some of which were eminently preventable* they not only have to live with the fact they ended up killing someone who it turns out wasn't a threat, but face calls for them to be jailed by armchair experts who don't know about what happened, and can't even be bothered to understand the reasons behind some of their actions (multiple shots) and instead brand them as trigger happy, and insinuate that anyone in authority who doesn't want them hung out to dry is corrupt.
*See earlier comment about the radios (something no government in the past 15 years have seen fit to sort out).
Never said he was. But both of you dodged the question.
Would that be because the answer would seriously **** up your pedestal ?
I get a little fed up when people use hypothetical arguments to help their cause. That's all.Would that be because the answer would seriously **** up your pedestal ?
There really isn't any need to be quite so rude.
Don;t really have a cause i was asking out of curiosity.
And you're still dodging that question.
I get a little fed up with armchair critics on their high horses questioning the actions of police officers trying to prevent a terrorist attack...
I say again - what terrorist attack? Quit with the personal insults. I have an opinion which (as far as I am aware) I am allowed to post in this forum.
I have not attacked anyone, I questioned the post of another individual as I have yours, without resorting to silly jibes.
If you actually bother to read my post properly, the first one I submitted in this thread, it might do you good to take note that I sympathise with the police on the ground. But at the sametime someone should accept responsibilty for what went wrong.
Yeah, good point. Again, makes me wonder how much the armed unit are supposed to assess a target once they're in proximity. I think in Isreal, when they've been tasked to take out a suspected bomber, they still have to analyse the target when they see them, before doing anything...
is if you're as educated as the average bomber, and don;t really have the equipment available.
plus why bother, the explosives are hardly reliable, much easier to just have a button.
90% of the time people wont be able to stop you.
Makes you appreciate the IRA more though, they made and acquired high quality explosives, and used live agents who escaped with an amazingly high success rate.
Imagine what they would have been able to do if they'd had fools willing to do suicide bombings.
No, he was directly pointed at by two members of the surveillance team as the armed unit reached the tube train. I'd suggest reading up on the timeline on the BBC site if you actually want to know how it happened.
Arrrrrgggh, that's not the point! The problem most people here have is that it should never have gotten to that point in the first place, because de Menezes was a completely, provably innocent man!
Stop twisting the argument.