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Code words my arse! I know for a fact that code words only work in a well planned situation.

This was a planned operation!

Since he'd entered the station before they got to him then the officers on the ground have to use their own judgement & instincts.

No, they were operatng to the Kratos rules. This meant they could shoot to kill without warning only when they got the code word. Kratos is in effect a death sentence on someone who has not been arrested, much less charged or convicted. It can only be employed with the authorisation of the Gold Commander. Sorry if you don't like that, but it's the rule these officers were operating under.

Things might have been different if Menezes had been seen to be acting suspiciously, for instance fiddling with a rucksack, but he wasn't. At the start of this thread you were still buying the police disinformation that he had been challenged by police and ran away. This was a lie, and of course would have made no sense if the police had really thought he had a bomb.

You have to recall that the armed officers knew nothing about Menezes when they arrived at Stockwell Station. Other officers had been tailing him. The armed officers were only authorised to what Gold Command ordered them. She said she ordered them to stop him entering the station. She did not authorise them to kill him. If that is true, they seems to have committed manslaughter, and they seem to have got away with it. So I don't trust them, no. Why should I? they have not shown themselves to be worthy of trust.

SS - i really think you miss the point - EVERY TIME.
It's YOU that is delusional, and you seem to condone the behaviour of these halfwits running around with automatic weapons who get trigger-happy in public (and behind closed doors in the case of the Forest Gate brothers) in the name of law and order.
Once and for all - to shoot a man dead IN COLD BLOOD is, at the very least, criminally negligent.
As Robches keeps labouring the point - but you keep ignoring - if no order was given to 'take out' this suspected terrorist, then why on earth was this poor unfortunate pumped full of 11 bullets from point blank range?
How / why could they have misconstrued his perfectly normal behaviour as that of a fanatic, bent on causing terrorist atrocities?
Yes, I believe the police at ground level are absolutely culpable for their appalling 'error of judgment.'
The old adage 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen' would seem to apply to the idiots who pulled the trigger on De Menezes, who clearly are not up to the grade when it comes to making a life or death decision over a perfectly decent, innocent human being.
I really wonder if you would be quite so blase if one of your nearest and dearest had got caught up in this absolute travesty of justice.

Robches,

The plan failed as soon as Menzes entered the station. The officers then had to react to the situation quickly. They saw him board a tube train, with other civilians. If he'd have blown up 25 people and the police said they couldn't stop him due to the lack of permission, people would be outraged even more. People would think that the police force were even more incompetent than what they think they are now. People would feel even more vulnerable and would be in terror of travelling on public transport. Once we live in terror then the terrorists have accomplished what they set out to achieve: to terrorize.

The police on the ground are in a familiar situation that we've all been in at some point. It's called a fucked if you do, fucked if you don't' situation.

Since we have different views on this subject, it looks like we're both waisting out time trying to get the other person to see our point of view. I respect your views, and thank you for the debate (but I still think you're being unfair to the guys in the line of fire. I'll leave you with a simplified view of how I feel about the whole situation and leave it there.

If there's a suspected terrorist in a public place, I don't want our police force to gamble with the publics lives, waiting for code words, or hoping he turns out to be a victim of mistaken identity. I see that they're sometimes put in a lose/lose situation and have to make difficult decisions for the safety of the public. I see that mistakes can -and do- happen, but it's an unfortunate consequence of the situation; a minority of fanatical terrorists have put them in. The police force -or public- didn't ask to be put under this pressure & situation, and we're all coping the best we can.

I'm just more accepting of a few accidental 'fuck ups' from our police force, than bombs going off all over the shop, with peoples limbs flying everywhere. Is that such a crazed acceptance?

Sam Slater wrote:

> A: do an experiment. Look for a button nearby, or light switch.
> Go push/flick the button/switch..... There, how long did it
> take? A fraction slower than an eye blink?


Less than 1,000th of 1 second, unless they have wired in a Delay sequence in the Circuitry. Most basic Circuits react even faster.


(Qualified in Electronics Engineering)

Here's a thought:

If the Officer who shot that guy was NOT the 1 who was responsible for getting all the info on the exact "pottential Bomber", just the copper who was told to shoot, is it really his fault if HIS INFORMATION was incorrect, all he can go by, is what he's told.

Here's another way of looking at it, a Soldier in a Tank in the Gulf War was told to open fire on a Anti-Tank Bunker (ATB) far out in the distance, by one of the people further up in the Chain of Command, by which he has to follow, so he destroys the ATB. But later, it comes to light that the ATB was actually a Nato Forces held ATB, is he really responsible for knowing if it was trully an Iraqi or Nato held ATB ?

SS:

Yes, I doubt we will agree on this, but I am glad that at least you now accept that Menezes was not acting suspiciously, was not challenged, and did not run away.

The armed officers had not been tailing him, and indeed knew nothing about him. They were ordered to stop him entering Stockwell Station, and seem to have panicked because they were too late, and he was already in the station. If Cmdr Dick is telling the truth, they were not given authorisation to kill him, so they had no right to do so, and they are guilty of manslaughter, but because the police protect their own, they will not have to face the consequences of their actions. I can assure you that a train driver who is similarly negligent and kills people by accident will receive no such consideration from the police. That's what sticks in my craw, it's one rule for them, and another for us. Tony Martin kills a burglar - five years for manslaughter. Officer X kills an innocent man - no further action. It's not right.

Whilst obviously hindsight makes some people seemingly very wise after the event, the real world doesn't exactly work under these rules and mistakes were made here for sure. But as has been pointed out maybe the officers/commanders took the easy option of taking "one suspect" out and risk making that mistake than making the even worse mistake of tailing a suspected suicide bomber onto a packed train and observing him doing his job ... imagine the outcry then.
Basically this was one of these no-win situations that no doubt some committee/court can now disect and find mistakes galore no matter the outcome.
Though please explain to me Robches how were these Police Officers exactly meant to stop this suspected suicide bomber from entering this tube station ... how the fuck do you apprehend a suspected suicide bomber??

>Though please explain to me Robches how were these Police Officers exactly meant to stop this suspected suicide bomber from entering this tube station ... how the fuck do you apprehend a suspected suicide bomber??

Well, it was Cmdr Dick who ordered them to "stop" the suspect, but she did not give the Kratos code word, so she did not mean "kill" when she said "stop".

Unless the officers had that Kratos order, they had no right to shoot without warning. It's not that hard to understand is it?

As to how they were meant to stop him, I imagine something along the lines of "Armed police, stop" would be the order of the day.

I repeat, the armed police had no right to assume the suspect was a suicide bomber. He had been trailed from a house thought to be connected to one of the attempted bombers, and Cmdr Dick was probably right not to want him to get on an underground train. But, assuming she is not lying, she did not give the order to kill, and it has now been established, despite police lies, that Menezes was behaving normally, was not wearing bulky clothing, did not run away from the police, and was not doing anything which might have led the armed police to think he was an immediate threat.

I would have had no problem with him being arrested for questioning, and that is, it seems, what Cmdr Dick expected would happen. If the armed officers interpreted an order to "stop" someone as an order to kill them, without the Kratos code, then they were grossly negligent, and should be tried for manslaughter. But hey, the CPS has decided not to bring charges, so there's nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here folks, move along, just another Met Police accident.

Crofter, seriously.......you're waisting your time mate.

They seem to think that:

1) Officers should make split second -life or death- decisions, and get them right every time.
2) While a suspects boarding a train packed full of people the officers can tell tell the bombers to 'hang on' while they wait for code words from command.

They seem to think that because I don't blame what the police did (though I do lay blame on the dodgy intelligence), that I support police spraying bullets everywhere whenever they're bored. They read reports on paper and listen to news channels, and then think they know how it should've gone down. They read my posts but don't seem to grasp my views at all. It's common sense that 1 innocent death -by accident- is better than hundreds of blown up people just on their way home from work/school/university. They don't 'see'...

They're letting their emotions get involved in their decision making proccesses. All you hear is 'Menezes this' & 'Forest Gate Bros that': but I wonder how many of the actual suicide bombers names do they know that well from 7/7? Or any of the victims names that were killed that day?

Good luck...

[quote]I can assure you that a train driver who is similarly negligent and kills people by accident will receive no such consideration from the police.[/quote]

Ahhh but a train driver doesn't have to deal with a crazed bomber. He just drives his train. Train drivers don't usually have to make split second decisions either. Falling asleep whilst driving a train is a little different to deciding whether the man you're tailing is gonna blow up 100 people anytime soon.

I don't see the similarities at all.