“The tactic involves police marksmen shooting a suspected suicide bomber in the head with no warning to stop them from detonating their device. It was developed as part of Operation Kratos, the Yard’s strategy to counter suicide terrorists.”
My emphasis. Fair enough. If that’s the best way to stop a suicide bomber, I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to make the decision, but at least we know about it now.
The Met says that its tactic does not amount to a “shoot to kill” policy, and that it is consistent with laws governing the use of “reasonable force”.
Riiiight. So if you shoot someone in the head seven times, the intention isn’t to kill them, merely to stop them from whatever it is they’re doing at the time. Living, for instance.
Can’t they just say “if we think you’re a suicide bomber, we’re going to kill you, it’s as a simple as that. So don’t be a suicide bomber/Brazilian/whatever - and we’ll go easier on the extra-judicial executions”.
At least they do admit they made a mistake last time, but now they’ve been on vocabulary training courses, so that they’ll all use the same words. An impressive first step, I’m sure you’ll all agree. Presumably last time someone misunderstood “he’s showing no suspicious behaviour whatsoever”, for “blow his head off”. An easy mistake to make, I’m sure it could happen to me.
It’s all about the media and the level of transparency their tactics have for the general public. The incident with the Brazillian was not only a human tradgedy but in the case of NYPD, a PR nightmare. In today’s world where everything happens on camera they have to have some kind of cohesive lie they tell themselves in order to be able to wake up and justify doing what they do.
While the president’s popularity is on the down and down they are just being careful to not piss off the voting public.
It’s a sad world sometimes
Puts a whole new spin on the word “liquidate”.
Nothing to add. My brain is dead, but I’m back-oh, that was a rhyme! Clever me!
I’m off to London on Friday, do you think they shoot Germans? Oh Oh!
Belinda: Okay, so it’s in the UK, and the article goes on to say that the British public don’t want potential suicide bombers to get anything less than they deserve (the suicide, but without the bomb bit). What’s unacceptable is that they’re not prepared to say “yes, we fucked up, that might happen again, and yes we do actually try and kill these people before they get a chance to press the ‘loud’ button”. I’d appreciate the honesty much more.
820: Quite. The disturbing point was that eleven bullets were fired at point-blank range and the expert marksmen missed three times. Or maybe there was no target left.
that_girl: Shoot Germans? The very idea! So long as you wear a bulky rucksack and act suspiciously and nervously, I’m sure you’ll be fine.