London shooting : just cause?
July 24, 2005
More detailed reports on the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes indicate that he was followed from an apartment complex in Tulse Hill, near Stockwell, an ethnically mixed blue-collar neighborhood, thats a block of flats, not a house. He boarded a bus and plainclothes police bolted after him only when he left the bus and headed for the tube station. Witnesses said Jean ran from them towards the platform:
“He looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox, absolutely petrified. They pushed him onto the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He’s dead.” said Mark Whitby, one of the witnesses.
Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told reporters that officers had ordered the man to halt and had opened fire only after he failed to obey. But none of the witnesses reported hearing any warning (sic. Washington Post).
The shooting took place under shoot-to-kill, shoot-to-the-head guidelines to deal with the threat of suicide bombers. While officials would not publicly discuss the guidelines, sources told British reporters that a senior officer is authorised to deploy special armed units to track and, if necessary, shoot dead suspected suicide bombers. The officers are advised to shoot such assailants in the head to keep them from setting off explosives.
The guidelines are based in part on procedures used by the Israeli and Sri Lankan authorities in intercepting suicide bombers. But police officials insist officers still must follow the law, which only allows the use of reasonable force in preventing a crime. The guidelines of the Association of Chief Police Officers say police should not open fire except when someone’s life is in danger and there is no other way to stop the assailant.
