Teflon top cop evades justice, responsibility So the verdict's in. No one police officer - nor any identifiably-small group of police - was to blame for the mistaken shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005. Rather, the entire 30,000-strong Metropolitan force have all been found guilty - and, rather comically, "fined" £175k. Needless to say, London plods won't be …
I watched Blair's press conference just after the shooting. It was full of statements preceded by "I have been told that", "the information given to me says that", and other such arse-covering. If you can find the video lying around anywhere, have a look through - you'll see what I mean.
My reaction at the time was "Oh look, there's a bloke called Blair on the telly telling porkies".
"But his apparent wilful mishandling of the media afterwards, his manoeuvres to try to keep the IPCC out of the investigation"
Fair enough if true.
"his refusal to accept - by not pleading guilty in this trial - that anything had gone wrong: all of these damn him utterly."
Being guilty and things going wrong are two very different things. So the first part of that statement is utter crap. And, as for him trying to protect his crew (and probably own self interests), who the hell doesn't.
This areshole attitude of, the XXX have buggered up, 'Oi you mister - resign!' is the perfect example of just how screwed up our society is. There are people below him, every step of the way that can be accounted with a hell of a lot more blame.
And, if he is 'guilty' of not doing his job - sack him. If a person is being forced to resign they clearly haven't done anything wrong, it's just regular bullshit politics and bullying.
Other than that, a comment I generally agree with.
"If an armed police officer believes they are in pursuit of a terrorist who might be a suicide bomber and they start making these sort of calculations based on this, how is this going to be seen? Am I going to be hauled off to court?"
Well, yes actually. Public servants who are entrusted to use deadly force must be expected to think about what they are doing very clearly - chain of command is one thing but removing the brain from the front line man in such circumstances will simply give us gun-toting automatons. I think armed cops (and indeed all cops) in the UK already expect to be held accountable if they act irresponsibly.
The cops on the street in this incident would appear to have assessed the information available to them and acted properly - the enquiry should be into how the intelligence came to be so faulty - maybe they didn't give the intel supplier enough Volts. As for Blair - he seems to be just irrelevant.
Quote "Birmingham tac-plods who chose in a similar situation to put 20,000 volts of Taser shock into their suspect's torso area must have been horrifyingly ignorant of explosives".
I keep hearing that again and again and frankly it is about time someone put the urban legend of "Tazer blowing up a bomb" to the test.
It is not voltage which activates the detonator. It is current and it has to be applied onto the electrodes. A Tazer simply cannot supply enough current to fire most detonators. It is set to deliver non-lethal shock which means that it has to hit the victim fwith 50 milliamps or less. Compared to that a standard industrial detonator requires at least several hundred milliamps (some more than an amp) to detonate.
The reason for this is that detonators do not operate based on a spark. They operate based on the current overheating a small filament and igniting suitable explosive. I doubt that Tazer can do that. In fact I would like to see that. It makes spectacular sparks, but none of them is capable to put anything on fire due to the very low energy.
Further to this even if it could deliver enough energy to trigger the explosive the Tazer will have to hit between two spots which are sufficiently electrically conducting to heat up to the point where the explosive can be triggered. Most explosives are not sufficiently conductive for that.
Now shooting from point blank range at a bag of high explosives is a different matter. That actually will blow up nearly anything on any day.
......your readers knew just how vast amounts of taxpayers money is wasted by police forces all over the UK ,NOT even trying to protect the public but quite simply and only to cover up their own wrong doings .This is par for the course and I wish I could say more, but I cannot/am not allowed to, if you know what I mean. As for that arrogant twat called Ian Blair (I would not call him sir ever) ,he was as much a liability at his old force,Surrey Police, as he is now.
What I would love to know is, are Police Authorities there simply to slap the Commissioner of his back and tell him what a great cock up he's made, or are they meant to oversee these people ?.
What puzzles me about Ken Livingston is why, when a few years ago he seemed to dislike the police he suddenyl became their best friends. What have they got on him ,or is he afraid of and thus cowtowing to them ??.
So the police were prosecuted under Health and Safety legislation. The same rules that require them to stand idly by rather than help drowning individuals. If they are supposed to put their safety paramount, then when faced with a (suspected) suicide bomber, surely their own rules require them to run away, rather than tackle the person.
One thing I've never understood about suicide bombers (and the way they are handled): It is quite easy to wire a switch into your bomb such that if, for any reason, you stop being vertical the bomb detonates. The very first thing that security forces make suspects do is lie down ..... BOOOM!
I really can't see the point of prosecuting public bodies for health and safety violations, individuals if they can be identified and are genuinely and maliciously culpable, maybe, but to waste millions on a case that fines a publicly funded body, huh.
Fines ultimately go back to the Treasury, and get handed out. As all government departments are self insuring, they budget for this kind of thing, so in effect they had been given the money to pay the fine before they had to pay.
Rather than pay a whole lot of lawyers lots of dosh, and waste valuable court time, wouldn't it have been far simpler to say, "Sorry, we got it wrong in the heat of the moment, we can't bring him back here's some compensation".
This kind of thing happens, and it will happen again and again because we live in a flawed world, I don't believe this case has helped anyone with anything, except give a load of lawyers a nice little earner.
This post has been deleted by its author
According to this BBC breakdown of what happened....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7050915.stm
####################################
"Armed officers reach the train and shout.
Ken and Ivor point to Mr de Menezes.
Three armed officers board the train.
Mr de Menezes stands up and moves towards Ivor and the armed officers, but Ivor forces him back down into his seat.
Two firearms officers lean over and shoot Mr de Menezes dead."
####################################
If the target HAD been a bomber (and not just some poor sod who was in the wrong place at the wrong time) then he would have had plenty of time to set of his 'device' between the point he realised there were armed police ( when they shout "Armed Police") and the point when he had his brain blown to a pulp.
In other words, it appears that not only did plod kill an innocent man, there's a good chance they wouldn't have prevented him setting off his bomb if he HAD been a terrorist.
...that no serving policeman has EVER been prosecuted in relation to a death in custody in England & Wales. NOT ONE. Plenty have been charged but the CROWN Prosection Service has always declined to prosecute.
Were one aware of this one would realise that the police do exactly what the govt tells them regardless of laws and the govt in turn protects and enriches them.
Makes more sense now mmmm?
I'm all for Blair being forced out over this. He's responsible, he must fall on his sword. Plus he pisses me off - this is the man who gets soused at public events and makes an ass of himself and then tells us plebs that we should pay more for booze as we're all irresposible drunks. Cuntstubble.
This country needs to come to terms with a harsh reality that we've already learnt in respect of paedophiles and politicians: abusers get jobs where they can carry out their abuse.
We need to vet the police to stop people who get off on the idea of guns from being allowed to roam the streets shooting anyone who's the wrong shade of khaki.
The officers who carried out this murder knew the target was no threat. They gave themselves away when they made up all the crap about him acting strangely, jumping barriers, wearing heavy clothing, and refusing to stop when challenged.
Innocent men don't make up such detailed lies in their defence; they knew they'd killed an innocent man, and all the evidence since then points to them not giving a damn.
These people need to be taken off our streets as soon as possible.
A quick look at the propaganda campaign in the immediate aftermath of the shooting is VERY interesting, the police had planed to lie about what happened big time...
let's reread the article posted by the BBC on the day of the shooting.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm
One of these witnesses accounts looks a little out of place now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sounds like a film script doesn't it, but who is "Anthony Larkin"
A quick google of name Anthony Larkin revealed one who happened to work for the Metropolitan Police's forensics department.
The police continued for some time after the shooting to make out that the person they had murdered was connected to the bombers, funny how now no longer fits what they saying about it all being a terible misunderstanding, a innocent case of mistaken identity.
However at the time they tried to portray him a suspicious character, with an an out-of-date visa and a connection to the bombers.
Funny how the story's changed now that people have forgotten what they read back then. With police force like that slash the budget, I say we are safer without them.
The day Mr de Menezes died was in fact the day the terrorists won. Terrorism is about creating divides in society - this sad incident just evidenced the fact that the Met see a clear divide between "us" (white boys) and "them" (every bugger else).
No point blaming "the Police" as has happened here, as it just means a few quid gets shifted around and everything continues as before. This was a total cock up and there was clear fault by individuals.
I want to see how certain they were that they had ID'd the right person, and what they did to clarify any doubt before ordering his death. I await the outcome of the public inquiry. I shall also throw away my Piz Buin - can't be too careful...
I'll have to disagree with our mayor on this one. Armed officers are in a very difficult position, granted. But they are not above the law. If they kill someone without good reason then they should be hauled in front of the court.
In this case (and in any other) if the officers truely believed they were faced with a suicide bomber then they acted correctly. It's the shambles of management above them that ballsed it up.
A quick look at the propaganda campaign in the immediate aftermath of the shooting is VERY interesting, the police had planed to lie about what happened big time...
let's reread the article posted by the BBC on the day of the shooting.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm
One of these witnesses accounts looks a little out of place now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sounds like a film script doesn't it, but who is "Anthony Larkin"
A quick google of name Anthony Larkin revealed one who happened to work for the Metropolitan Police's forensics department.
The police continued for some time after the shooting to make out that the person they had murdered was connected to the bombers, funny how now no longer fits what they saying about it all being a terible misunderstanding, a innocent case of mistaken identity.
However at the time they tried to portray him a suspicious character, with an an out-of-date visa and a connection to the bombers.
Funny how the story's changed now that people have forgotten what they read back then. With police force like that slash the budget, I say we are safer without them.
I am fed up with the scapegoat attitude this country has developed. It happens in politics, law and even sport. If one person is clarly responsible then, of course, punish them but when no-one can be clearly blamed we just go to the top and tell them to take the blame and walk away when really we should be saying "Look, the buck stops with you, you better sort this mess out and don't let it happen again". They are in the best position to implement effective changes anyway rather than some newcomer who just does a load of drastic crap so it looks like he is 'shaking up the system' (another overused buzz-phrase I hate) when all he ends up changing are the bits that actuallly worked.
At the very least the officers should have been thrown in jail.
What is conveniently forgotten in most news stories is that 1 officer shot him and then the others shot him, purely to make it impossible to find out who had fired the initial shot. That is gross obstruction of justice.
They knew what they were doing and they did it solely to hide the truth of what happened.
The whole series of incidents is digusting. What makes it worse is that these muppets can arrest you on site, keep you without charge for 2 weeks and then put you on a control order for the rest of your life that stops you using computers, mobile phones, going out at night and if you want to appeal, your not allowed to see the evidence they have against you.
The police can ruin your life or even kill you with no responsibility or accountability to anyone. Britain truely is a scary place to live in.
I could be wrong, but I remember reading at least one newspaper discussing how one of the shooters was crying in the box.
I'm not saying this woman was in the right, but I don't know how you can conclude the Jury was wrong to exempt her when you aren't aware who was even testifying, let alone what was said.
Like I said, she could be as guilty as sin, but I'm surprised you got your facts so obviously wrong.
...who noticed that Ian Blair seemingly managed to walk out of court, straight up to the press and read out a statement about how the court had vindicated the Met. and him personally and so he saw no reason to resign.
OK, maybe there was time between the verdict being given and people coming out to the press, but given the speed of modern news reporting I can't see there being very long...which means Mr Blair had made his decision not to resign long before the court made it's. Which is kind of funny really - imagine the Met police not taking time to think things through, be sure of their facts before acting.
Hey, at least Mr Blair doesn't carry a gun.
I don't know why the media are obsessed with people having to resign the whole time. Anything happens three quarters of media outlets and whichever politicians are feeling opportunistic that day start screaming for a resignation.
If I knock my coffee over onto my keyboard I can't just resign and be released from any responsibility for tidying up the mess. If someone makes a serious mistake they should damned well have to sort it out. Walking away into a cushty job somewhere else and leaving everyone else to tidy up after you is not, whatever most journalists seem to believe, a punishment.
Having to fix your own mess is a punishment. Forbid them to resign. Drop their pay to that of the lowliest beat officer and drop them in jail if they try to resign, but don't let them forget their responsibility, wash their hands and walk away clear.
I don't think there will be much unhappiness in Scotland Yard over this article. Despite the lambasting tone, a specious sop to the Grauniad corner, the conclusion is one probably one all the Police could live with. Sir Ian get put to pasture after a suitable interval. The policy continues.
"If an armed police officer believes they are in pursuit of a terrorist who might be a suicide bomber and they start making these sort of calculations based on this, how is this going to be seen? Am I going to be hauled off to court?"
No, of course not, Ken - your point is a reductio ad absurbdam. But Lewis dangles the "hauled off to court" bait while studiously avoiding biting on it. So perhaps we should examine what's on the hook. Why no haulage?
It seems the events that took place in the 72 or so hours after the incident, centring on the appropriate mechanism instituted for investigating the police, have been forgotten. There have been suggestions they were stymied. There have been accusations of incompetence. But the absence of the real reason, whatever it is, and regardless of whether it will be found or fixed, does nothing to deflect the conclusion that the mechanism has been tested and found unfit for purpose. Let's not forget either the remarks Sir Ian has made about it. Regardless of the weight one attaches to their connotation (and serving officers might prefer a different one to Parliament for example) and Sir Ian's intent in making them, they denote the same scepticism about the mechanism.
Security (with or without quotes) is a serious matter. If the law is allowed to bifurcate into "one law for them, and another law for us", it risks the same fate being visited upon justice. I would not like to see here in the UK a repeat of that "justice" visited on, for example, the security service after the fall of the Shah regime in Iran. That is why justice of any sort can never be the remit of the institutions of security. It's not enough not to act as a delinquent - one must not think as one either.
Is he armed? Is it the right man? Should he have a jury trial or should he just be executed in the street on the say of a kangaroo court of surveillance officeers?
All might be useful questions for them to ponder before they decapitate someone with a handgun.
"If an armed police officer believes they are in pursuit of a terrorist who might be a suicide bomber and they start making these sort of calculations based on this, how is this going to be seen? Am I going to be hauled off to court?"
Personally I'd hope they're thinking "Am I sure that my *belief* that this person *might be* a suicide bomber is secure enough *before* I unload my magazine into his head..."
If I was going to blow myself up with an explosive-filled rucksack for a cause I believed in passionately, I'd be sure to booby-trap the thing in such a way that if I was killed, it would go off anyway. Not as though it's hard.
You can already buy (for under £40, and probably even cheaper if you search harder) a heart monitor wristwatch. This comes supplied with (for want of a better description) an "electronic bra" which straps around your chest and sends pulses wirelessly to the watch as your heart beats. All any aspiring terrorist need do is open up the watch, extract the receiving antenna and interface it to his own circuitry. Every heartbeat just has to reset a monostable multivibrator; after a long enough period without a heartbeat, the bomb goes off, taking terrorist and police with it.
Yes, a police marksman might have to decide whether it was right to shoot a suspect seven times in the head before doing so.
Isn't making people think about whether killing people is legal or not rather the WHOLE FECKING POINT of prosecuting the people responsible for innocent people dying?
Not only a cock up, a masterly example of how to spin the 'facts'. Plod seems to be much better at that than actual honest coppering, perhaps they should enter politics? oh hang on, senior officers already do.
For the record, I think the officers who actually shot de Menezes were acting in good faith, until the cover-up afterwards. The people in the control room & Cressida Dick probably need a taste of some of the wonderful anti terrorist legislation to get the truth out of them..
May I express my sympathies to all people who have been harmed by British policemen under the guise of "war on terror"
Yes, indeed!
I have to admit I'm still confused by the Met's shoot-to-kill policy (assuming it hasn't been quietly changed in the aftermath of this poor man's shooting). In fact, in a world of dead-man switches, a shoot-to-anything policy seems incredibly risky given how easy such switches are to design and make.
I came up with a design for such a switch with 5 minutes of idle thought and I'm hardly an engineer. A terrorist capable of making a whole bomb should have no trouble with a button that completes a circuit when it's depressed rather than pressed.
I suspect I've added nothing to your original comment but I think it was worth reiterating...
T'end of day the shooting was an instrument to stop any further incidents from happening. It was a simple message sent out to potential terrorists.
The message being "Don't fuck with the us or we'll fucking shoot!"
I don't think it mattered who that day, anyone who seemed to be acting suspciously enough on that day seemed to be a good excuse. Sadly it was Jean Charles de Menezes.
I don't think Ian Blair had much say in the matter, and for a time there were no more terrorist attacks.
Case Closed.
Oh well two men who died as their dreams remained unfulfilled that fateful month of April 1945 in a destroyed shell of a city called Berlin will be smiling to see those who were once were their absolute enemies and rivals are now embracing their right wing extremist doctrine so thoroughly it pales beyond belief !
What price a choice , what price justice as all the principles espoused in the "Magna Carta" are trampled in the dust of the mindless stampede to the illusion of safety at the point of a gun held in your back and the cattle prod at the ready for the dreamers ?
Police can shoot anyone now with impunity , can destroy your house brick by brick down to the foundations with impunity , one can be imprisoned without trial or rights of redress with impunity !
What a sick sad century we live in where "Propaganda" now rules with impunity too !
"a standard industrial detonator requires at least several hundred milliamps"
200 mA for the old designs, rather less for some of the newer ones that include a minimum voltage fuse as well. Line test equipment shouldn't be capable of generating more than 20-25mA, giving a reasonable margin of safety below the minimum detonation current.
Since a Taser will generate 5 amps into 4000 ohms, it will do at least 10Amps into a 1.5 ohm detonater. More to the point, they wack out 4 Joule per pulse! (http://www.taser.org/electrical-specifications.html).
Although, for safety, you should keep your blasting lines shorted out, never operate in a thunderstorm, and keep shortwave radios at a reasonable distance, I'd rather ignore all those rules than sit in the same train carrage with a sucide bomber and a Taser-wielding cop.
I have a non-conspiracy theory regarding the bulky jacket. Listening to R5 on the morning of the shooting, I'm fairly sure I heard one of the early reports describe the victim as wearing a "bomber jacket". This used to be a useful and specific description for an item of clothing, frequently a denim jacket, but for obvious reasons it's not one people use much any more. And if it was used in this particular instance, the reporter almost certainly clapped their hand over their mouth the instant the words came out, and the description was hurriedly rewritten. Just a theory.
You mean like the garment George Dubya gave our PM? It was described in The Guardian recently as "... a leather bomber jacket with Gordon Brown's name written on a black badge."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,2139579,00.html
Bush wearing a bomber jacket seems so very appropriate.
Yeh, because that's really going to seem scary to someone who's trying to blow themselves up, right?
>and for a time there were no more terrorist attacks.
Nothing to do with the shooting, there just weren't any more terrorist volunteers for a while after that bunch of guys bungled their attempt.
Taser, 50mA
By Anonymous Coward said
Posted Saturday 3rd November 2007 10:40 GMT
"a standard industrial detonator requires at least several hundred milliamps"
200 mA for the old designs,
Since a Taser will generate 5 amps into 4000 ohms, it will do at least 10Amps into a 1.5 ohm detonator.
(http://www.taser.org/electrical-specifications.html).
However if you read the specification more carefully it states "The time-averaged current is .00022 Amps." - that is 220 MICRO amps.
0.22mA should not heat up a 200mA detonator and set it off.
Anon
"(probably the same place that the doctored photofit and allegations of cocaine use came from, methinks.)"
I wonder if there would be any panic if specialist officers arrived at nicks for random drugs testing of PC Plod. What the betting that would blow a whole in their image and that would be a failing condoned from the very top. But hey, it is a parlour game for all to play. The House of Commons too would be a bit of a larf, with its wafflers in chief bound to be less than lily white for how else can they justify their being there in the first place. Cheeky Cheapy Chappies .
Its been widely reported that the reason JCDM was not correctly identified when leaving his flat was because the officer supposed to be staking out the front door was taking a leak. *Surely* even though he is not directly responsible for the shooting, if he had been doing his job and/or requested cover while he relieved himself, he would have been able to identify that the man leaving the flats was not their suspect, and the whole sorry mess would not have had to happen. Poor decisions were made further down the line but if anyone should be made an example of it is this officer; how is he not guilty of dereliction of duty?
And what of the "suspect[s]" they WERE watching then? How did that story pan out or was it also something half cocked and cooked up in C's/Controls fevered and convoluted/perverted/subverted Imagination.
Is it all the Scarlett Pimpernel's fault? MI6 baying at the Moon and chasing ghost and phantoms, chasing the Dragon?
JS.... Seek Therapy and Privy Counselling .... Phone Home E.T.
The police are being held up to ridicule and condemnation rightly or wrongly using 20/20 hindsight. The obfustication used by various parties after the shooting happened was wrong and that's what people should be taken to task for. If they had been surveilling a bomber and done nothing there would still be the calls for prosecutions/resignations.
As for the "stazi assassin bastards" comment, well I guess that goes to show how some people really respect the rule of law. What about those extremist assassin bastards who believe that the murder of anyone in their fight against society is justified? I guess you think we should protect their rights at the cost of Joe Public's human rights.
... some of the brain-deads commenting on this story are the same people that froth at the mouth at Police Community Consultative Groups, demanding to know why the police aren't doing anything about cyclists riding on the footpath or without lights at night, or [----- insert enforcement-abandoned-long-ago-trivial-offence here -----]?
With police numbers plummetting over the next five years, it's only a matter of time before someone suggests arming the Community Scarecrow Officers... ermmm, sorry... Community Support Officers...
The facts of the matter are that they WEREN'T surveilling a suicide bomber. Your entire assumption is based on 20/20 hypothesis, not the reality, and the whole point of an enquiry or court case is to use hindsight to decide whether there was a major failing, and the jury decided that there were SEVERAL major failings. As Nick Clegg said in The Independent on Saturday, part of the job at the top is standing up and saying "the buck stops here, it's my fault". If there were operational failures, then ultimately it is his responsibility for not making the system fullproof.
I would not rather one innocent man dead to a hundred dead from a suicide bomber, but if this case makes them think twice about shooting another innocent man where intelligence is highly dodgy then yes, it's a good thing, and to be completely fair, how many people have died from suicide bombings in the last five years? Ian Blair setup a society of fear and paranoia with the Government's backing, and so the buck stops with him. Whether he is not directly responsible, there are plenty of reasons why he is indirectly culpable.
I see Jonathan Evans is talking up the threats too, without any apparent clue as to how to deal with it. More fat milk from the Golden Cow of Ignorant Despond and Respond stealing from the Treasury, do you think. ...for they appear to do precious little of it. .... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7078712.stm
And yes, it does piss me off too to have steam age minions pushing papers around offices, in a digital world.
And Crikey, MI6 don't even have electronic mail which might just beautifully prove that it is always monitored. How very convenient.... it will save me the trouble of sharing the b*****leading obvious. [Although they did have a Message Drop whenever they first went on the Web]
<Hello, is there anybody in there who knows how the World works or only how they are told it is going to work. Have We got News for You? > is all that Space has to Offer of ITs Alien Presence. Is IT Prescient?
> It might help if you were aware that no serving policeman has EVER been prosecuted in relation to a death in custody in England & Wales. NOT ONE. Plenty have been charged ...
Errrmmm... so who charged these policemen (why do you think that policewomen HAVE been so prosecuted, or has political correctness passed you by?) then, John? The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, perhaps? It wouldn't be... errmmmm... other police officers, by any chance...? Or would that spoil the effect of your rant, maybe...
> ... but the CROWN Prosection Service has always declined to prosecute...
Ignoring the fact that the Crown never "prosected" anyone, I suppose the thought that there just wasn't any evidence to PROVE any wrongdoing would also spoil the plot somewhat, wouldn't it...? There's just nothing like murdering a prisoner before lunch to keep the job interesting, after all...
God help us...
The question nobody is asking: Do you honestly think any member of UK armed response would shoot someone point blank in the head 7 times? Consider what other agencies might do this, and get away with such a monumental screw up.
Then connect the dots: don't you think it suspicious nobody has been held responsible. nobody has been prosecuted. An innocent man is dead, and the real culprits will never be identified.
>If they had been surveilling a bomber and done nothing there would still be the calls for prosecutions/resignations.
Well, guess what, they *have* been surveilling someone they thought was a bomber, and they allowed him to board two buses and a tube train without even challenging him.
So indeed, damned if they do (kill an innocent like a dog and have the nerve to blame it on him) and damned if they don't (protect the public from 7/7, 21/7, and the more recent London+Glasgow car bombs).
>As for the "stazi assassin bastards" comment, well I guess that goes to show how some people really respect the rule of law.
The only ones that have not respected the rule of law here are the responsible who got away with murder.
>What about those extremist assassin bastards who believe that the murder of anyone in their fight against society is justified?
Those are held accountable for their criminal actions, and recently even for their alleged criminal thoughts.
>I guess you think we should protect their rights at the cost of Joe Public's human rights.
This statement is inherently flawed. They *are* Joe Public, even if they are called Muhammed. As such, they have their rights as well as they are subject to the rule of law. Like everyone else, except the plod apparently, who only retains the rights.
>I guess you think we should protect their rights at the cost of Joe Public's human >rights.
"Their" rights are your rights and should have been JCDM's rights. The murderers brutally deprived an innocent man of his right to life and should suffer the same punishment as any other murderer that does the same. That you appear to think that having a "good guy" job description makes a difference is juvenile, wrong and fatal to your own safety.
Face it - the UK doesn't have "police" anymore - they have a sick cross between a government-backed militia and a lynch-mob.
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