Annoyed about politics

[thermidorthelobster]

I'm currently a little annoyed by a couple of things.

Firstly, the whole Met Police business.  A court has found the Met Police guilty of breaking health & safety laws.  So what's the punishment?  A £175,000 fine.  And remind me, whose money funds the Met Police?  It's ours - us taxpayers.  So the people paying the fine are taxpayers.  And what penalty is there for the officers who shot an innocent man 8 times in the head at point-blank range, or their supervisors, or their managers?  Nothing at all.  Nobody's apparently responsible for this.  In my view the fact that nobody IS responsible should mean heads should roll, as clearly the procedures are totally flawed.  Clearly there was a big mistake made here.  Or, if not, shouldn't the police or the government turn round and admit that if we're going to fight terrorism we might have to shoot a few members of the public from time to time?

And in the blue corner...  A government minister is fined for using his mobile phone whilst driving.  He says he was taking "an important call about deportation".  And that's supposed to mean what exactly?  It's OK to take the call if it's important?  How did he know the call was important when he answered it?  It really gets my goat that he's somehow trying to justify this.

[Evilgoat]

I'm currently a little annoyed by a couple of things.

Firstly, the whole Met Police business.  A court has found the Met Police guilty of breaking health & safety laws.  So what's the punishment?  A £175,000 fine.  And remind me, whose money funds the Met Police?  It's ours - us taxpayers.  So the people paying the fine are taxpayers.  And what penalty is there for the officers who shot an innocent man 8 times in the head at point-blank range, or their supervisors, or their managers?

Sorry but can I stop you here.
If you hear 'Stop! Armed Police' and run, sorry, you asked for it, you were warned. No sympathy here, its a terrible shame and a waste BUT he was challenged. The case does not sdipute this and has little or nothing to do with it. Would YOU leg it if you were challenged?

The case is about Health and Saftey, there was a very, versy serious risk that someone uninvolved may have been seriously injured, thats what this is about. Sorry, but mr Menzies did the wrong thing and paid the ultimate price.

You have a point about the fines though but what can you do?

Or, if not, shouldn't the police or the government turn round and admit that if we're going to fight terrorism we might have to shoot a few members of the public from time to time?

Again, see up, which part of 'Stop, Armed Police' was unclear? The city is in a heightend state of alert, we've just been bombed, and this guy was clearly challenged and told to stop moving, so he ran.

Or would you have prefered they were right but didnt fire and someone blew up another underground train?

And in the blue corner...  A government minister is fined for using his mobile phone whilst driving.  He says he was taking "an important call about deportation".  And that's supposed to mean what exactly?  It's OK to take the call if it's important?  How did he know the call was important when he answered it?  It really gets my goat that he's somehow trying to justify this.

Sorry but he should have the book thrown at him as an example, but as with the other Police Super last week, naught will happen I fear.

Welcome to the UK. At some point that government seem to have forgotten that they are public servants, hence 'civil servant'. Its only going to get worse too.

[hobbit]

And in the blue corner...  A government minister is fined for using his mobile phone whilst driving.  He says he was taking "an important call about deportation".  And that's supposed to mean what exactly?  It's OK to take the call if it's important?  How did he know the call was important when he answered it?  It really gets my goat that he's somehow trying to justify this.

With all the money they get to spend on expenses perhaps a hands free kit would have been a useful thing to have

As for the other subject I'm afraid my views wont stay on long if I post them, so I will not comment

[graham]

What do you expect from self righteous government ministers i bet he had a fag in his company car too.  :?

[rollazuki]

As far as Im concerned if a copper says stop, asks you to pull over etc etc, and you refuse, then you should lose all your civil rights, immediately.

If an armed copper demanded I stop, Id be on the ground sharpish, not running away. Reason? Id expect to be shot at, and Ive done nowt wrong.

Its ridiculous that they should be fined etc. If the guy had been a bomber and they had hesitated, the dumb ass newspapers would now be blaming their casual attitude for a train full of people dying. They cant win.
And as for the dim woman on the news who said they were armed and looked threatening.....THATS WHAT AN ARMED RESPONSE TEAM SHOULD LOOK LIKE YOU DIMWIT !!!

Pretty soon they'll be risk assesingf war zones, and accounting for each shot fired.

They should trust their rigorous training and leave em to it.

Rant over, no expletives used, calming down.........

Ps, tell ya what, If armed police are telling some bloke near me to stop, and he doesnt, whatever the reason, Ill be happy when thay take him down. Job done, no bystanders hurt. Result.

[Evilgoat]

Pretty soon they'll be risk assesingf war zones, and accounting for each shot fired.

Pretty sure Police have to already. Theres a good write up here (yes its an IT site) about why he was shot so many times and with that ammo. You have to remeber what they thought they were dealing with, you dont want to 'wing' someone with a bomb, they have to be stopped dead and fast!.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/16/de_menezes_dum_dum_explanation/

[thermidorthelobster]

Sorry but can I stop you here.
If you hear 'Stop! Armed Police' and run, sorry, you asked for it, you were warned. No sympathy here, its a terrible shame and a waste BUT he was challenged. The case does not sdipute this and has little or nothing to do with it. Would YOU leg it if you were challenged?

Yeah, actually that's a fair point.  Maybe I've been biased by the BBC reporting of the whole thing;  it's come across differently in the news reports recently.  On the other hand, there's plenty of coverage of the key police failings.

However, taking on board the fact that the guy may have brought it upon himself, if the police are judged by a jury to have made numerous errors which led to a death, why should I pay for that, when the people involved get away with it?

[L90OOK]

The Police & Military have strict 'Rules of Engagement' that are drilled into them.  I am sure these would have been adhered to...in fact I haven't heard that these are in question??  The guy should not have run...simple as that...I know I would have pulled the trigger if I had challenged the guy & he'd run.
We had a couple of good sayings...survive to fight...&...better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.

As for the minister on his phone...string him up by the larger of his two testicles & make an example out of him.
If I can afford a car kit for my mobile I am sure he can!  

[Biodiesel-Bev]

Put yourself in their scenario....

You're an armed plain clothes police officer, you're following someone who has been identified to you as a suspected terrorist.  You and your collegues follow this man to a tube station.  You challenge him, you shout "Stop, armed police" several times and the man makes a run for it into the tube station and onto a train.  This occurs within a couple of weeks of 4 terrorists blowing themselves and innocent people up... maiming, injuring, killing innocent people.  
You believe that this man is a terrorist, he may have an explosive devise on him, he won't stop no matter how much you shout, he's hell bent on escaping from you, why?  Your heart is beating fast, is he going to blow himself, people on the train and now you to pieces?  What do you do?  Wait til he triggers the bomb or stop a possible massacre.

How many of you on here would want to find yourself in that police officers shoes?  How would you have dealt with it.  I know what I would have done.

[thermidorthelobster]

Yebbut I'm not disputing that (see my post above).  My point was that the Met Police have been found to have made serious mistakes (listed in link above) by a trial jury, and they're being santioned by being forced to spend my tax money as part of a fine, whilst no individual is being held responsible for those errors and punished.

[datalas]

perhaps we can all get a get out of jail free card for use in the MET area ?

seems fair to me

[Evilgoat]

Yebbut I'm not disputing that (see my post above).  My point was that the Met Police have been found to have made serious mistakes (listed in link above) by a trial jury, and they're being santioned by being forced to spend my tax money as part of a fine, whilst no individual is being held responsible for those errors and punished.

I think the problem is that the idea of actual wrongdoing here is so dammed vague that no-one seems to know what was actually done wrong but the media want to 'hang' someone and due proicess needs to be seen to have been followed. Because the actual offence here is so hazy (some helth and saftey violation which is very shakey) theres not actually anyone to pin it on.

The Media is happier than if nothing was found wrong and for the best part, will shut up (or at least quieten down) and the Met hasnt actually been told off for anything and as you pointed out, the Londoners will pay for the fine in their next council tax bill.

The Met did their job, in the best way possible with the best information they had and Menzes muffed up when the chips were down, but someone MUST pay for this.

Its like pin the tail on the fog bank :)

[Eeyore]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - since when has being frightened been a capital offence?

How many more innocents are going to die because they were scared or simply didn't understand what was going on? I can name three incidence off the top of my head.

Sure, the coppers may have said 'stop or I'll shoot', well, our South Amercian friend, IIRC, was stationary, face-down, in a train carriage. He wasn't runnin' anywhere at that point. What happened to only the guilty have something to fear? Now you can be either guilty, scared or have limited comprehesion.......

Personally, I'd be worried if no-one else is worried about this.

Cheers
 8)
Eeyore

[Biodiesel-Bev]

Surely the fact that he ran and refused to stop for armed police officers is reason enough to increase the officers suspicion that he was a terrorist suspect, as the officers had been told.

And, personally, I would be more worried if, based on the intelligence the officers had been given, they did nothing.  It's too late when he's then blown up a train.

He may have been on the floor when shot, but the fact he was on the floor doesn't necessarily prevent him from detenating a bomb.

[Lord Shagg-Pyle]

So who ultimately is responsible? The guys who pulled the triggers. But, and I will speak from experience on this one, if you have been given information that is to the best of your understanding, current and acurate, then you have to act on it.
For example, I had to arrest a guy who was wanted for armed robberies, and was believed to be in posseion of a live 9.mm Beretta and 1 sawn off shotgun.
Two days previously he had run off from a car and a sawn off was found in the car. Good information.
I do a stop on him two days after, and as he is sat in his car, he makes a move towards an object between the seats. I interpret this as him going for a gun. I hit him, with a baton, several times to the head until he is unconcious and not able to move. He was going for a screwdriver.
If I had had a gun, there is no doubt in my mind I would have shot him.
I was justified in using that level of force because of the information that I had been given.
The guys who made that decision on the Tube train wouldhave been given as much information as possible. The info may have been wrong, but to their knowledge it was accurate. They acted in the way that they did because that is the what they are trained to do. You cannot stand there and ponder over if you are doing the right thing when the person in front of you may have an exploding waistcoat on.
Fighting terrorism is not played by normal rules and the sooner the sceptics in this country wake up to that fact, the better. You cannot reason with these people. They do not understand or want to understand reasoning.
There are a great many people out there who are putting their lives at risk daily to try and keep this country safe for the vast majority of the population.
As for paying the fine Thermidor, if you don't like it, don't pay your taxes and see where that gets you. Do you think we are in some kind of rose tinted Utopia? Get real!
I don't like the idea that I have to pay to support a war in Iraq, but I don't slag off the armed forces who are out there, because that is the job they do, under difficult circumstaces.
I don't like taxes that will be used to pay for scrounging layabouts to sit on their idle arses at home, but I do it.
Wake up, don't believe what you see or hear on the Press. This country is at war with a movement that will not hesitate at blowing up women children, men, Christian,Muslim, Buddhist, black, white or any other creed.

On a lighter note, the politician who got caught on the phone? What a [ed: naughty]. Serves him right. Throw the book at him.

[Eeyore]

I can't buy into that philosophy, I'm afraid.

The problem as I see it is an escalating risk of innocents getting killed because of an error of judgement on one side or t'other. If no responsiblity for this is placed on those that do the killing (whether justifiable or not) we head to a nazi state - and I don't really want that.

Sorry, but I feel you can't kill someone based on a hunch. And it was a hunch that killed Menendes (the hunch was he was carrying a bomb. He wasn't).

Cheers
 8)
Eeyore

[datalas]

Just as a word of warning guys, I can see this conversation (and it is currently a conversation) going distinctly pear shaped very quickly,

Can we all show restraint and respect (or a combination of the two) and try very hard (as all have currently been doing) to not let this get personal...

not that anyone has shown any hint of doing so far, but I think that this is a very sensitive subject and that worries me :)

[Pete]

Whitnes statements state. A He wasn't running. B there was no call to him to stop. C Woman sat next to him stated that he was pinned down before he was shot.

 Squadie in NI  fires ONE shot at a car that runs a check point in the dark. Ends up in Wakefield jail convicted of murder.

 Cop fires SEVEN shots into someones head at point blank range in a well lit area and walks free.
 
 As the bard put it. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.

 Crap training, bad management, call it what you want, it should never have happened.

 Pete.

[Lord Shagg-Pyle]

I can't buy into that philosophy, I'm afraid.

The problem as I see it is an escalating risk of innocents getting killed because of an error of judgement on one side or t'other. If no responsiblity for this is placed on those that do the killing (whether justifiable or not) we head to a nazi state - and I don't really want that.

Sorry, but I feel you can't kill someone based on a hunch. And it was a hunch that killed Menendes (the hunch was he was carrying a bomb. He wasn't).

Cheers
 8)
Eeyore

Gibraltar. 3 people taken down because they were thought to be carrying guns or a trigger device for a bomb that was set to go off in a crowded place. It turned out they weren't carrying a device.
Before you say "but they were known terrorists", that had nothing to do with it.
The Police/Security services are human. Operations like this are not an exact science, They never have been and never will be.
What would you like to see? Everyone sitting down in a circle discussing it before it happens?
So the cops who shot the bank robbers in Chandlers Ford, should be put before a court? Lets feel sorry for the poor bank robbers. They were lovable cheeky chappies who loved their mums who also just happened to carry guns to do their chosen line of illegal activity.
I do not want to see every Police officer armed full time,but the guys and girls who do carry get my full respect, as they are expected to go out, do the job, having made the decision to pull the trigger for reasons shown in my previous post, and then get slated by the public and press for doing it. This will be the same public and press who would crap themselves or worse when faced with a real nasty guy armed with at the least a gun or at worst a bomb.
As for the escalating risk to innocents, the terrorists seem to be doing a pretty good job of doing that!
Eyeore, sorry mate, I wish I could live in the same world as you do, but I'm afraid it doesn't exist anymore.

[BigBlue90]

I have written a number of replies to this post and then not posted. My feelings are with the officers concerned who are in no win situation.

They were given a set of orders based on information available at the time from various sources. They carried out the orders as per their training beleiving at the time that if they did not then innocent people on the tube and themselves would die.

The rest is history however they still have to live with the fact that they did everything right and they are still wrong.

While I agree with the fact that the fine will be paid by the public and it just seems a little strange.

I would also like to live in a world where we can consult hindsight first and everything we dealt with would be crystal clear. Trying to deal with suicide bombers is a very difficult thing when the person you are trying to stop wants to die anyway.

At the end of the day you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Its very easy to sling comments from your armchairs however a little more difficult to deal with in real life.

[Lord Shagg-Pyle]

Whitnes statements state. A He wasn't running. B there was no call to him to stop. C Woman sat next to him stated that he was pinned down before he was shot.

 Squadie in NI  fires ONE shot at a car that runs a check point in the dark. Ends up in Wakefield jail convicted of murder.

 Cop fires SEVEN shots into someones head at point blank range in a well lit area and walks free.
 
 As the bard put it. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.

 Crap training, bad management, call it what you want, it should never have happened.

 Pete.

Pete, I agree. It should not have happened,  nor should the case with the squadie ever have got to court, but Politics are at play here. Unfortunately there will now be more public enquiries into it. Meanwhile, the bombers sit there and laugh at the way we handle all this. It is a very, very bad joke.

[BigBlue90]

Whitnes statements state. A He wasn't running. B there was no call to him to stop. C Woman sat next to him stated that he was pinned down before he was shot.

 Squadie in NI  fires ONE shot at a car that runs a check point in the dark. Ends up in Wakefield jail convicted of murder.

 Cop fires SEVEN shots into someones head at point blank range in a well lit area and walks free.
 
 As the bard put it. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.

 Crap training, bad management, call it what you want, it should never have happened.

 Pete.

I take it that you have all the facts with regards to the security services and the police and are aware of all the information and the decisions that went on in the lead up to the situation in the tube.  Have you had, or seen any of the training that the officers have. Do you know what information they had and how that information effects the outcome?

If we are going to start throwing things then should he have been in the country?

[graham]

I've read through this thread one thing springs to mind, how good was this guys English? did he understand what he was told to do?

[Panda]

I've read through this thread one thing springs to mind, how good was this guys English? did he understand what he was told to do?

Thats what i was thinking was he just running because he was scared and didn't know what was happening?

I'm not say that it was wrong to shoot him after all i wasn't there so i can't really past judgment and i hope ill never have to decide, but for thos who do have to make the call good on them not a job i would want.

[Evilgoat]

I've read through this thread one thing springs to mind, how good was this guys English? did he understand what he was told to do?

Thats a whole other kettle of fish, but good point!

[Biodiesel-Bev]

We are all entitled to a view and an opinion.  But unless you're a police officer and find yourself in similar circumstances, how can you fairly judge these officers.  There are some of us on this forum who have to deal wth these issues day in day out, and find ourselves having to make life-changing decisions.  

Look at it from the officers angle for a change, without the luxury of hind-sight, crystal ball and 'I told you so' comments.

As an aside, wasn't menendes in this country illegally?

[Sider]

Regardless of his level of English, "Stop" and "Police" are not that difficult to understand... At the end of the day, Stop is used as an almost universal traffic sign, and the portuguese for police is Policia.

Having been in situations similar to what the shooters found themselves in, I would have done pretty much the same. And the same as the British Police, we were not trained to aim carefully and avoid injuring more than necessary. We were trained to incapacitate the target fast and effectively, and incapacitate in our book meant put 2 rounds in the chest, one in the head and move on to the next target.

And yes, Menezes was illegally in the country.

In my humble opinion, the witch hunt against the Met is just political rubbish. And although I dislike both the idiots in Downing Street and Red Ken, I don't think the police force is something that should be used as a political weapon.

[Biodiesel-Bev]

Regardless of his level of English, "Stop" and "Police" are not that difficult to understand... At the end of the day, Stop is used as an almost universal traffic sign, and the portuguese for police is Policia.

Having been in situations similar to what the shooters found themselves in, I would have done pretty much the same. And the same as the British Police, we were not trained to aim carefully and avoid injuring more than necessary. We were trained to incapacitate the target fast and effectively, and incapacitate in our book meant put 2 rounds in the chest, one in the head and move on to the next target.

And yes, Menezes was illegally in the country.

In my humble opinion, the witch hunt against the Met is just political rubbish. And although I dislike both the idiots in Downing Street and Red Ken, I don't think the police force is something that should be used as a political weapon.

Well said.     =D>  =D>  =D>

[thermidorthelobster]

Well I don't want to stir things up any more than I already have by posting this in the first place...  but I'm still uncomfortable about the idea of shooting somebody 7 times in the head at close range.  Does that show control...  or does it show a total lack of control in the response?  If you're going to stop a suicide bomber, one shot to the head should be enough surely, maybe 2 or 3 to make sure, but by the time the 7th bullet's gone in, aren't you acting purely on emotion?  I've never had to shoot somebody in the head, so naturally I can't see it from the perspective of somebody who has, but I'm still uncomfortable about it.

[Eeyore]

I appreciate everyones comments on this, but this is where I make an honerable exit!  :lol:

Cheers
 8)
Eeyore