Police shoot "suicide bomber" at Stockwell

[Taxloss]

Emergency closes two lines; network primed to go amber; rumours of armed police surrounding a mosque in Aldgate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706787.stm

"Swarming". Welcome to the state of Permanent Emergency.

[non sociopath skin]

1. With respect, Taxloss, can I ask you why "suicide bomber" is in quotes?

I've heard no statement to that effect yet about the man who was shot. Is this your hypothesis?

I need to hear more about today's event before I'll feel equipped to analyse and speculate.

The Skin

[Taxloss]

2. It's the hypothesis of others, not me.

Hence the scare quotes.

I have as much idea as you do. The man was shot five times. They didn't think he was a pickpocket.

Police have confirmed the shooting.

On edit: tidied up.

[Benbow]

6. Love your avatar, Taxloss :-)

And I am afraid that "they didn't think he was a pickpocket" gave me a grim little smile.

I don't know which of the other commentators here is British, too, but everyone should know by now that the British police are not routinely armed, and - unlike in the US - one is not allowed to shoot just anyone "on spec" as it were (eg one cannot shoot people who look as if they might burgle your house).

British police have to have a good - ie lawful - reason for shooting anyone.

[Taxloss]

12. I'm British. I live in central London.

Two stops from Stockwell, actually - Pimlico.

Most of the posters here are British.

[Benbow]

84. This is hurting ordinary people very badly

One of the people caught up today at Stockwell got out at Pimlico,

'I've never seen blind panic in my life until today. Sitting on the Northern line train at Stockwell and all of a sudden the driver is screaming: "Everyone off the train, we're evacuating the station." On the platform I hear 4 or 5 gun shots coming from the front of the train. Everyone (about 100 people) panicked and just started running as far away from the shots as possible. We streamed into the opposite platform and realised that we were running into a dead end. People were wide eyed and screaming. A few people looked as if they were ready to jump onto the tracks. The driver wouldn't open the doors and we're hammering on the glass shouting to open the doors. Eventually he did and we got out of there. They let us off at Pimlico station and people were just slumped on the kerb bawling - no one had a clue what had happened.'
Johnnie Tonner, London

People just slumped on the kerb bawling. Dear God.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4703867.stm

[non sociopath skin]

9. Okay, thanks mate.

I genuinely wondered whether the police had suggested that he was one of the bombers.

The Skin

[CWebster]

3. Still, there were witnesses

who saw the cops push this guy to the ground and pump five shots into his head at close range. Now they are surrounding a Mosque.

Yeah, sounds like Israeli tactics to fight terrorism and already all the pundits are spinning this without the facts. Even without the facts, that act by the cops sets a dangerous precedent and I can't imagine how it will serve to thwart terrorism--rather inflate it in the Muslim community.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. The mosque was a bomb scare

which has now been declared a hoax.

[Taxloss]

7. This isn't the West Bank.

Our police are not using "Israeli tactics". Bulldozers are not clearing firing lines in Tower Hamlets. A wall is not winding its way through South Yorkshire. Let's not get hysterical.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[Benbow]

17. With respect, you are off your head - a number of Muslims died

two weeks ago. How many Muslims who got up this morning will be going home alive this afternoon because of rapid, and extremely brave, action by 3-5 policemen?

[CWebster]

26. Excuse me, I am here in the good USA

and I saw the kind of hysteria that commensed after 911 and how that fear was used to fuel justification for the slaughter of thousands of innocent Muslims.

Keep that in mind when you pat your government on the back instead of questioning their policies that creates the environment--because I'll tell you mate--


BEEN THERE, DONE THAT.

[Benbow]

30. That explains your casual use of the word "niggers" then -

Have you not noticed that in the UK we have had nothing like the hysteria that followed 9/11 in the USA (in which some 300 British people died, too, as Bush conveniently forgets)? In the UK, we have started criminal investigations; in the so-called "good" US, you decided to skip the criminal investigation and go for revenge instead - on a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks (there were no Iraqis on any of the hijacked aeroplanes). The USA is a rogue state. The UK is not a rogue state.

Explains why your criticism is so off-target.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

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[Benbow]

42. I doubt that the UK people are your "best buddies" in the war on terrer

I can't speak for Tony Blair, of course.

[T_i_B]

52. "you are our best buddies in the war on tewwowism"

Now does that seriously justify going round Central London blowing up innocent people? That is what has been happening over here of late and that is what (we hope!) the Police were trying to prevent.

The British people actually protested against the Iraq war in huge numbers but that does not matter one jot to the likes of Al-Quaida or their apologists I'm afraid.

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. Innocent people don't generally run like hell when accosted by police.

It is, let us say, unwise. Especially in light of recent events.

[Benbow]

39. Quite

This is out of the ordinary but, like most people, I don't want 50 people killed (700 injured) to become an everyday occurrence. I don't want London (population 6m) to become like Baghdad (population 7m). If that means that I don't run away from armed policemen, that's fine by me.

[CWebster]

49. We gotta get the tewwowists before they git us

That is what fuels the war on tewwowism here--and look how safe we are.

I'd advise you to turn to your government's policies to find what fuels backlash in your own neighborhood.

[Taxloss]

68. I'm curious.

According to you, what exactly should I, as a central Londoner, be doing right now? Marching on Downing Street? Just so I know how to be doctrinally pure.

[CWebster]

40. oh man

African-Americans in the US know what a crock that is.

[Benbow]

46. This is the UK, not the US

[CWebster]

54. Big deal

Your poodle does tricks for our imbecile chimp.

[Taxloss]

62. Our poodle represents us as much as the chimp represents you.

That is, not at all.

We managed to muster the largest protest in our history again the Iraq war, more than a million people. The Iraq war is, and always has been, much less popular here than it is in the US.

[Taxloss]

19. We don't know anything!

You think I'm "comfortable"? I've got people running around in my city shooting each other and trying to blow themselves up!

How do you know he's Muslim? We know nothing! This entire discussion is coasting along on speculation.

If these police officers over-reacted, they will be punished. They will lose their careers.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

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[CWebster]

45. That's the best you can come up with? Why...

it is just like trying to reason with a Bush supporter intent on getting those Ay-rabs for 911. Any one of them will do.

[Benbow]

47. I am being polite to you, that's all - but I am also bored with you

You are contributing exactly nothing to the sum of human knowledge.

[CWebster]

58. Again , personal attacks

Dealing with uncomfortable issues does that.

[Spider Jerusalem]

71. Broad-brush generalisations ALSO violate the rules, you know.

Or you would, if you bothered to read them. As do inflammatory statements. Can we say "hypocrisy"?

[Taxloss]

50. Go easy with the criticism there.

We're attempting to deal with a major terrorist emergency, an exceptional situation, in our country as it is happening around us. Try and imagine what GD would look like if this was happening on the Denver subway.

[Spider Jerusalem]

55. Or NYC...

which is a better comparison (there'd be mass fucking hysteria and rampant speculation and paranoia; have to say, as an American, that I admire the level-headed reaction to crisis evinced by those from the UK here).

[T_i_B]

59. NYC has already been attacked

9/11 anyone?

That said I was on DU at the time and you didn't get anyone going round trying to justify that atrocity back then on DU. Quite the opposite in fact.

[Spider Jerusalem]

63. Yes...

I was speaking of relative threat/population/importance of target/etc. (not nearly as many people use mass transit in other US cities compared to New Yorkers, either...)

[CWebster]

65. Like I said BEEN THERE DONE THAT

proceed cautiously.

Don't follow us. There is a choice. Other countries took it.

[Benbow]

67. Have you actually ever been out of the USA - do you have a passport?

[T_i_B]

70. There are apologists amongst us

I hate having to post this, I really do. But it does seem appropriate with this troll.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1532738,00.html

Within hours of the bombs going off two weeks ago, the voices that one could have predicted began to make themselves heard with their root-causes explanations for the murder and maiming of a random group of tube and bus passengers in London. It was due to Blair, Iraq, illegal war and the rest of it. The first voices, so far as I know, were those of the SWP and George Galloway, but it wasn't very long - indeed no time at all, taking into account production schedules - before the stuff was spreading like an infestation across the pages of this newspaper, where it has remained.

No words of dismay, let alone grief, could be allowed to pass some people's lips without the accompaniment of a "We told you so" and an exercise in blaming someone other than the perpetrators. No sense of what such a tragedy might call for or rule out on the first day. Exactly as if you were to hear from a distraught friend that her husband had just been murdered while walking in a "bad" neighbourhood, and to respond by saying you were sorry about this but it was foolish of him to have been walking there by himself. We had the same after 9/11; still, one nurtures the illusion that people learn. Evidently some don't.

It needs to be seen and said clearly: there are, among us, apologists for what the killers do. They make more difficult the fight to defeat them. The plea will be - it always is - that these are not apologists, they are merely honest Joes and Joanies endeavouring to understand the world in which we live. What could be wrong with that? What indeed? Nothing is wrong with genuine efforts at understanding; on these we all depend. But the genuine article is one thing, and root-causes advocacy seeking to dissipate responsibility for atrocity, mass murder, crime against humanity, especially in the immediate aftermath of their occurrence, is something else.

Note the selectivity in the way root-causes arguments function. Purporting to be about causal explanation rather than excuse-making, they are invariably deployed on behalf of movements or actions for which their proponent wants to engage our indulgence, and in order to direct blame towards some party towards whom he or she is unsympathetic.

[Taxloss]

74. I read that piece.

Although I was sympathetic to its drive, I am deeply concerned by its language and the language of pieces like it. "Apologist". Partly because we antiwarriors - well, me at least - have been scrupulous to avoid "we told you so" to pro-war friends and relatives for a number of reasons. It's poor taste, and it's unconstructive. But we must not allow Blair, just Blair, to escape considering that the centrepiece of his second-term foreign policy made Britain greatly less safe. We CAN and SHOULD tell him "told you so". That's not apologism.

[T_i_B]

76. I did say I didn't like posting it

But with this troll it seems appropriate. Fortunatly this troll is more of a minority then Norman Geras would have you belive.

[Taxloss]

79. Even in this country.

Norman Geras is wrestling with guilt and remorse, and this is his attempt to "deal" - invent a popular phenomenon that does not exist, and then condemn it. This is the sound of preconceptions crashing down. I wouldn't like to be inside his head right now with all that furniture-moving going on. And the guilt.

[Name removed]

85. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

87. Deleted message

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[Benbow]

10. And those witnesses are still alive and going home to their families

Are you in the UK, CWebster? You must know that, this being Britain, it is unlikely to have been "Israeli tactics" - and I have not seen any "spinning" yet - if hundreds of people are alive because that guy is dead, then terrorism has been thwarted. And it may serve to put off a few other would-be "martyrs".

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

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[Spider Jerusalem]

18. And you don't, either...

automatically assuming the worst (especially when the actions taken in this case are, to say the least, extremely out of character for British police if he WASN'T a dangerous suspect) doesn't help anything.

[CWebster]

33. This is what I know

He was apparently a dark-skinned kid and five rounds were pumped in his head at close range.

Now what do you want to bet that there will be an official story on this whether it is true or not? No trial, no need to prove evidence--none of the trappings with which the civilized world separates itself from the terrorist.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

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[CWebster]

51. That is against DU rules

and again a personal attack because you don't have a rebuttal. You are responding from a place of fear. Perfectly understandable. But before you sanction assassinating Muslims in the street, I suggest you hold your government accountable for an illegal and trumped up war crime in Iraq.

[HamdenRice]

56. Against the rules? So is your use of the N word, even sarcastically

and I sent an alert about it.

[Taxloss]

36. We operate differently here.

The fact that the police have shot a man means that there will automatically be a disciplinary inquiry separate to the criminal investigation. Automatically. And in full public view.

[T_i_B]

48. Disciplinary inquiry indeed

There has to be an inquiry after something as big as this. That way we can get to the facts without hysterics from conspiracy minded loons.

That is something our trolling chum who likes saying the N-word a lot needs to remember. That and the fact that this is not 2nd amendment country, which means that the Peelers over here are not trigger happy.

Bet you must be getting really pissed off with all this Jihadi stuff going on around you Taxloss.

[Taxloss]

57. It's getting tiresome.

My journey to and from work yesterday was a pain. And the sirens and helicopters -ALL THE TIME.

[T_i_B]

75. I'd invite you over to Chelmsford or Ingatestone for a pint...

...just to get away from this, as there are Beer festivals in both places, but there were coppers all over the train stations last night. Utter Chaos. Most commuters round here are pretty hacked off with it all too.

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. There will be an inquest

The law demands that. So evidence will have to be provided, and lawyers will be able to question it.

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. London is not Los Angeles.

Any policeman in the UK who shot a suspect without cause would be subject to an enquiry, termination and imprisonment. You really ought not to project American attitudes onto other countries; you'll usually be wrong.

[Benbow]

21. Neither do you

I LOVE Muslims - I LOVE Arab culture, language, art - to me they are not, never "niggers" (in your repulsive expression), they are fellow human beings.

And you are out of your tiny mind.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. And he obviously has no idea what he's talking about re the UK, either...

not British, that's obvious; note American spelling of "civilised".

[Taxloss]

23. A muslim, was he? How do you know?

Could have been a Hindu. Or a Zoroastrian. Or a Buddhist.

[ladjf]

22. What purpose was served by killing him? Wouldn't he have been

a valuable witness? Was he a direct threat to anyone while lying on the ground under the policemen? Something is fishy here.

[Taxloss]

69. The police clearly believed he posed an massive threat.

This situation is unprecedented.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. It's the hypothesis the 'experts' are putting forward on TV

On the grounds that "shooting to kill" would only be allowed if they had reason to believe he was a danger - and, in this case, that would mean a bomb on him.

Having so many police able to chase the man makes it seem likely to me that they were already following him - this wasn't just someone who suddenly leapt the barrier at one tube station out of many.

[CWebster]

8. If there were so many cops chasing him

you would think they could've restrained him. After all, isn't that Blair keeps babbling on about--how we are so much more civilized?

What if they suspected him out of hysterical fear--and reacted the same way all those cops did that fired endless rounds into the body of the man reaching for his wallet in NYC? You know, the cops that got off? I can't imagine this will serve to do anything but announce open season on British Muslims and dark-skinned people.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. British police don't normally patrol while armed

So there wouldn't be armed police just around on the off chance, and it sounds as though there were too many police around for it to be just any member of the public who panicked when challenged by the police (and Sky News says its police sources say he was a suspect from yesterday's bombings).

Yes, they may well have shot without knowing if he had a bomb with (or on) him. They'd be worried that, if he had a bomb belt or similar, he'd set if off - which you'd have to be very confident about how quickly you can restrain him to prevent.

It does mean that people are going to have to do whatever police shout at them, if they're not going to become a target. I'm not very happy about that, but I can see the point of view of the police.

[Benbow]

25. If a policeman said "Stop" to me, I'd bally well stop - I guess this guy

didn't stop.

"It does mean that people are going to have to do whatever police shout at them, if they're not going to become a target"

And, to be honest, that is the norm in many countries. Even in continental Europe, and certainly in most Third World countries.

[Taxloss]

31. Most people would stop.

I would. That's the British contract: If you are polite, we are cooperative.

[non sociopath skin]

11. Yes, my feelings too, Muriel.

I may not be the Plods' biggest fan but I don't see them as trigger-happy. There must have been some sort of positive ID here ...

The Skin

[Benbow]

14. In the British context, the hypothesis makes sense

"Having so many police able to chase the man makes it seem likely to me that they were already following him -"

Yes, that thought struck me too. Also, that the possibility that he had explosives strapped to him, which the police would want to ensure that he was not in a position to detonate. In which case, seconds could make the difference between one dead man and 20 dead people.

What a nightmare - imagine having less than 10 seconds to stop a fast-moving suicide bomber in his tracks and, at the same time, not shoot any bystanders.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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[Benbow]

28. No chance - look at all my posts on the DU

I was, am and ever will be against the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003; and I have said so to anyone who will listen.

[cheeseit]

64. Yeah- because not wanting to get blown up is SOOO nationalistic...

[HamdenRice]

27. A suspected bomber is a unique danger ...

As an African American New Yorker, I deplore and actually fear our NYPD's seeming right to shoot to kill a person for reaching for his wallet.

But it seems to me a bomber is in a different category, even from someone armed with a gun, because even after a bomber has been pushed to the ground and restrained, he may still be able to set off his bomb. Again, I deplore Israeli tactics, but their experience shows that when a suicide bomber is cornered or captured, they typically set the thing off.

[Taxloss]

43. A terrible dilemma for rank-and-file police.

I don't envy them.

[Nihil]

77. Not for the standard plods

These (armed) guys would not be standard beat officers.
As such, they would have undergone significantly more training in
life or death incidents. Still, as you say, I don't envy them.

[Benbow]

80. R4 "World at One" is going to talk about the "rules of engagement"

for armed police in such situations.

[HamdenRice]

88. Even though I can understand the police action it creates a scary world ..

because this stuff invariably escalates in police forces. The South African police started out as pretty typical Commonwealth police. Several ANC memoirs, like Joe Slovo's, mention that they were cordial, and they used to even joke with the Special Branch officers in the first rows of their meetings.

Then in the 1950s, they began "fighting terrorists," then came Sharpeville, Soweto in the 1970s. But the 1980s they were executing activists and by the 1990s, they were a thoroughly lawless force.

I'm not predicting anything, but just saying that even if it was justified, the UK has to be very careful that this is not the beginning of a slippery slope.

And there is a precedent. The generally approving way you all describe the restraint of the British police I am sure does not apply to their activities in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s.

[Guy_Montag]

44. Eye-witness reports seeing "bomb-belt"

on FiveLive.

Not sure how he knows what a bomb belt looks like, but apparently wires coming out from his jacket. Could have been an iPod though.

Anyway, I'm yet to be convinced, but I'm with the rest of the Brits here, the rozzers don't tend to shoot without justification.

Anyone know how many people have been shot by police in the last year?

[Taxloss]

53. I think one person was shot last year.

More people are killed by police cars.

BBC News 24 keeps talking about a "smoking package" at Stockwell.

[non sociopath skin]

66. There was one here in Northumberland earlier in the week.

Crazy guy holed himself up in his house and threatened all around with a home-made shotgun. Understand that he shot first ...

The Skin

[Benbow]

60. Eyewitness accounts and picture

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."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm

[Mr Creosote]

72. I actually heard that bloke on 5 Live

in my entirely amateur opinion he was the least compelling eye-witness I've ever heard. This guy however:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm
sounded very believable. And judging by the pictures from Lords it's really not a winter coat day in London today. Very odd behaviour normally.

[Guy_Montag]

78. The guy on five live sounded real to me, because he was so

bloody awful.

[non sociopath skin]

61. Well argued, guys. We have enough problems without conspiracy-theory ...

... trolls and flamers trying to wind things up.

It is highly likely that the police knew who the guy was and that, to coin a phrase, he presented "clear and present danger".

As I've said before, if some crim wanted to blow me up and the plods took him out before he could do it, that's fine with me. No execution there.

The Skin

[Benbow]

73. On Monday this week, the British Muslim Forum, issued a fatwa

with the approval of more than 500 UK Muslim clerics, scholars and imams.

This is the full text:

We wish to express our sincere condolences to the families of all the victims of the London attacks. We pray for the swift recovery of all those who are recovering from injuries.

There are many questions emerging from the London bombings. One of the most important questions is what does Islam say about it?

To answer this question Muslim scholars, clerics and Imams from all over the UK have been consulted to issue this formal legal opinion (fatwa) so that Muslims and non-Muslims can be clear about Islam's stance on such acts.

On behalf of over 500 clerics, scholars and Imams the British Muslim Forum issues the following religious decree:

Islam strictly, strongly and severely condemns the use of violence and the destruction of innocent lives.

There is neither place nor justification in Islam for extremism, fanaticism or terrorism. Suicide bombings, which killed and injured innocent people in London, are haram - vehemently prohibited in Islam, and those who committed these barbaric acts in London are criminals not martyrs.

Such acts, as perpetrated in London, are crimes against all of humanity and contrary to the teachings of Islam.

The Holy Koran declares:

"Whoever kills a human being, then it is as though he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a human life, it is as though he had saved all mankind." (Koran, Surah al-Maidah (5), verse 32).

Islam teaches us to be caring towards all of Allah's (God's) creation, not just mankind. The Prophet of Islam who was described as "a mercy to the worlds" said: "All creation is the family of Allah and that person is most beloved to Allah who is kind and caring towards His family."

Islam's position is clear and unequivocal: murder of one soul is the murder of the whole of humanity; he who shows no respect for human life is an enemy of humanity.

We pray for the defeat of extremism and terrorism in the world.

We pray for peace, security and harmony to triumph in multicultural Great Britain.

It seems clear to me that the suicide bombers and would-be suicide bombers are not really devout Muslims, just brain-washed young men. And they are thumbing their noses at their own religious leaders.

It is a pity that a fatwa does not count here, apparently, for as much as it counts in - say - Iran. I was very optimistic, earlier this week, and impressed that the Muslim religious leaders in the UK had reacted so quickly.

[Guy_Montag]

81. Shot man was suspect from yesterday.

BBC FiveLive

[Taxloss]

82. Maybe the police were trailing him.

It would explain why so many closed in in the final moments.

[Mr Creosote]

83. Shot man

was a distraction so that the Patriot Act could get re-signed.
Democratic Underground LBN.

Mr Creosote shakes head in utter disbelief and dismay and waddles off for a waffer thin mint

[Taxloss]

86. Since when has Karl Rove headed the Met?

DU just boggles the mind sometimes.

[southlandshari]

89. Locking

This thread has been overtaken by exchanges between a handful of members that contain personal attacks and violations of DU rules on civility and content. Please review the guidelines here and try to keep discussion open and respectful:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules_detailed.html


Feel free to PM me if you have questions!


Many thanks,
Shari

southlandshari
DU Moderator