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Author | Topic: Police Shootings | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Percy writes:
That is not the situation in the UK. I of course don't buy the argument that every police use of their weapon must be a kill shot. Firearms are only allowed at all in situations where an imminent lethal threat is realistically evident. When a tactical firearms team is called in their policy is to shoot to remove the threat. That usually means shooting into the chest area because that is the biggest target but that, of course, carries a risk of being fatal. How is that any different from what I just said?
quote: Again, pretty much what I just said. The last 2/3 of your post was a cut-n-paste, but you provided no link or attribution. It appears to have come from Operation Kratos - Wikipedia. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Percy writes: This appears to argue that committing an attack makes you fair game for execution instead of just arrest. I'm afraid I could never agree to that. Would it make a difference if we changed your wording to:
This appears to argue that committing an attack makes you fair game for being shot dead instead of just arrested. Because of course it does. Calling it an 'execution' - and I believe earlier you've called it 'murder' - burdens it with delayed, deliberate, unnecessary and inevitable sanction. There was no intended allusion to the end result of a legal process. I meant execution in the sense of a mob hit or something like this, it's positioned to the exact right spot:
The police are following policy, making split second decisions based on that policy and training are are subject to the same criminal law against murder that I am. Force of any kind must be reasonable according to the circumstances. Anybody acting outside that law will be prosecuted. At least in this country, police are almost never prosecuted when they kill someone. That fact is why this thread exists.
The terrorist also knows what to expect if he goes around knifing people in the street and wearing a suicide vest - he WILL be shot dead. I do not support the death penalty but I do support shooting people dead that are attempting to kill others. The suspect was not attempting to kill anyone prior to the moment he was killed but was being held down by passersby. He was killed immediately after the last passersby was pulled off. --Percy
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Percy writes:
I think you're weakening your case by nitpicking about an example where the shooting was clearly justifiable. At least in this country, police are almost never prosecuted when they kill someone. That fact is why this thread exists."If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you...." -- Rudyard Kipling
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Tangle Member Posts: 9514 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Percy writes: The suspect was not attempting to kill anyone prior to the moment he was killed but was being held down by passersby. He was killed immediately after the last passersby was pulled off. And then shot - presumably in the head - because he had a fake suicide vest on and had already proved his intentions. That's policy and training and I can't see what other policy could work in anything more than an armchair tactician's mind with all the time in the world to replay videos of the event from all angles.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I think that it should be self-evident that a trained professional would not be taking silly risks. To argue against that with. I thing but sarcasm seems pointless. Yet this goes on and on.
quote: Since I am obviously correct that isn’t it.
quote: Because a head shot at close range with an accurate weapon is very unlikely to hit the vest.
quote: I’ll interpret that as a desire to be let off the hook for the obvious misrepresentation. Especially as there is nothing confused in my explanation at all.
quote: Since the nature of the attack and the apparent presence of a suicide vest give good reason to perceive a threat - extending to the members of the public the police were extracting from the situation - I think that defence holds up in this case.
quote: I have and I see no such message,
quote: It is a fact that English has many ways of expressing things. For instance the phrase reaching for the detonator implies that is was not in his hand.
quote: You missed the reference to the wiring - also he would have had to be holding it closed even if the switch was too small to be visible.
quote: I raised it to point out that it would make the dead man switch effectively the same as a manual detonator.
quote: Message 371 But he clearly planned to die. Taking the chance that he changed his mind doesn’t seem to be a good risk. quote: I think we can be certain that he was aware that he was in the ground, surrounded by armed police.
quote: Disingenuous. The issue is the evaluation of the vest as a threat, given the information the officers had. That should remain constant unless you can give a good reason why it might not. It should not change drastically depending on the argument you wish to make. I’ll also point out that merely coming up with unlikely possibilities that happen to favour your view does nothing to advance the discussion.
quote: 20-23 seconds in. Note that Tangle confirmed in Message 378 that the Met’s firearms doctrine calls for a headshot.
quote: Underline, not undermine,
quote: I didn’t claim to know. Whether he did or not is irrelevant because we can’t know - and nor could the armed police on the scene.
quote: I’ve seen no reason to think that m6 evaluation is wrong.But even if I am - given the catastrophic consequences of being wrong - either way - it would be insane to go with the choice most likely to be wrong. Yet here you are...
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
I said I was done with you in Message 339, and as long as you continue with your "argumentation through misrepresentation" I'm still done with you. Are you done with me on this thread or done with me period? I can always leave the forum if my presence is not welcome. Just say the word and I'll fall on my sword. Before that happens, perhaps you can tell me what I'm saying that's so different from what everyone else is. If I'm arguing through misrepresentation then isn't everyone else? Thus far their arguments seem very rational and reasonable. "Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
They should have ordered the suspect to remain on the ground as the passersby were removed from on top of him. When the last passerby was pulled away then any attempt by the suspect to rise would justify shooting him. How would his standing or lying alter whether or not a bomb would detonate?
In the leg. I of course don't buy the argument that every police use of their weapon must be a kill shot. I don't know how it works in the UK, but I imagine that the rationale is similar if not exact to US methodology -- that the only reason to ever fire your weapon is only if there is a deadly force situation. So if you shot with the intent to maim where there is no justifiable reason to assume a deadly force situation, you're committing a crime. That is what less lethal options are available for. In any event, based upon the way these officers were moving and shot placement they looked very well trained -- probably have cross-trained with the SAS, which tells me they have practiced similar scenario's hundreds of times. As I've said earlier, had the police done nothing substantial and it ended up being a real vest packed with explosives, many more people surely would have been killed. And then the police are placed in a situation where they had the ability to mitigate lives lost and failed to respond appropriately. From a purely utilitarian perspective, most would agree that the lesser of evils was acted upon that day. "Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I note that you avoid quoting the section of Tangle’s post that is most relevant to this case.
In extreme situations, the policy recommends that covert police officers fire on suspected suicide attackers without warning, aiming multiple shots at the brain stem to minimise the risk of detonation of a bomb.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
PaulK writes: If he had a detonator in his hand and if the police officer standing right over it couldn’t tell how he was holding it you might have a point. If you knew the suspect's hands were visible while passersby were atop him then you might have a point.
But that was not in the argument and it looks like just another of your unlikely possibilities. I can tell you think an argument was made where the point about a detonator was necessary but missing, but without more information I can't tell what argument you're referring to.
Since he was attacking with two knives, however, it’s far more likely that he wasn’t holding a detonator. Sure, if that were the whole story, but 2019 London Bridge stabbing - Wikipedia says the knives were taped to his wrists. Was that done in a way that left his hands free? We don't know at this time.
quote: The first twenty seconds. It’s clear that there were multiple people piled on top of him and obstructing the view. You said, "The suicide vest wasn’t noticed until they were pulling people off him." Where in the video do you think you're able to tell that they noticed a suicide vest? It's not in the first 20 seconds, and you say yourself that the people piled on top obscured the view. The video also doesn't show any shots being fired, and if you start watching at time 30 seconds you'll see a video taken from a bus that shows the policemen at some distance from the suspect, who, if you watch carefully, is still moving. Some part of him bobs up above the divider fencing just as the camera is panning away. I think the initial reports are, in a "fog of war" kind of way, probably inaccurate about a number of things, but that people are taking those initial reports as gospel, and are seeing things in the videos that aren't there. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: No. That’s just nuts. If they can’t see his hands they can’t confuse a deadman switch in his hand with a manual detonator in his hand.
quote: No, we’re talking about my argument that a manual detonator was more likely than a deadman switch because the belt hadn’t detonated.
quote: It would be pretty hard to use a knife while clenching a switch in his hand.
quote: And I supported my point by indicating that there were people in the way so that they couldn’t see the belt. That is visible in the video, just as I said. I don’t think you can tell exactly when they notice and never claimed that it could be seen.
quote: I don’t see how that helps your point
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
DrJones* writes: What action did the man take that police responded to by shooting him dead?
he put on a suicide vest and went out in public. I know there's enormous impetus for people to view this as a heroic outcome for the police, especially given the backstory (unknown to police at the time he was killed) of having served time in prison for terrorist activity and having already murdered two police, but you have to consider what dangers are presented to society in general in approving the killing of a defenseless man lying on the ground. Yes, he put on a fake suicide vest. So does a guy trying to make it into comedy on open mic night by doing his terrorist routine. As he walks past the bars on the way to his gig an unrelated skirmish breaks out, someone screams "suicide vest," he's attacked and attempts to defend himself, he's lying on the ground and passersby are being pulled off him while policemen point their guns, and the next thing you know he's dead. And the worst part of it is that likely no policemen would be charged. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
ringo writes: Percy writes:
I think you're weakening your case by nitpicking about an example where the shooting was clearly justifiable. At least in this country, police are almost never prosecuted when they kill someone. That fact is why this thread exists. I think the pushback my views on this incident are receiving are a reflection of the degree to which the culture of guns has affected everyone. It is so pervasive that it has shifted the entire debate rightward. There's been no diminishment in the number of situations where the public believes police were justified in using lethal force. I'm not playing a political game in this thread by carefully choosing cases that best support my views. I'm taking on all unjustifiable (in my view) police shootings without regard to how difficult making the case will be. This one is, on the surface, a tough one. It's the obvious execution style of the killing that makes this incident worth taking on. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Percy writes:
And then shot - presumably in the head - ... The suspect was not attempting to kill anyone prior to the moment he was killed but was being held down by passersby. He was killed immediately after the last passersby was pulled off. And yet not a single news report says where the suspect was shot. Just now was the fourth or fifth time I've tried to find this information. So sure, presumably in the head, I agree, but we can't forget that's not yet a fact.
...because he had a fake suicide vest on and had already proved his intentions. Police somehow do often manage to arrest rather than kill violent offenders who "had already proved his intentions."
That's policy and training and I can't see what other policy could work... Since the suicide vest was fake, a policy of not killing people when it's not necessary would have worked just fine. I know the police couldn't know the vest was fake, but it isn't clear they ever saw the vest before killing him. The policemen were already positioning themselves for a shot (this cannot be denied, since they did shoot him - twice) before the passersby were all removed. This can be sold as being prepared to take a shot in case it becomes necessary because if the shots were fired when we think they were (immediately after the last passersby was removed from danger, but no video I've seen includes the actual shots, so this is difficult to confirm) then this argues that the police were preparing for a shot, not just remaining prepared.
...in anything more than an armchair tactician's mind with all the time in the world to replay videos of the event from all angles. The policemen in the videos had a much better view than any of the videos. Did the policemen have body cameras? There's another fact we don't know. Remarkably little additional information (more like none) is emerging. The relevant stories returned by a Google News search are all several days old. --Percy
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Tangle Member Posts: 9514 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Percy writes: This one is, on the surface, a tough one. It really isn't.
It's the obvious execution style of the killing that makes this incident worth taking on. Again, you're equating the police's action in this incident with taking someone to a field and shooting them in the back of the head. The guy was deliberately shot dead because he was a terrorist that had already killed two people and was attempting to kill more. The police were following a thought-through policy and their training for dealing with a suicide bomber. If they acted outside the law, we'll hear about it. But I'm betting anything we won't. And, btw, I'm speaking as someone anti-gun and anti-capital punishment.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
To be clear, my stance is pretty simple: Where there is a clear and present danger, shoot to kill. A man with a suicide vest is a clear and present danger, period. There's been no diminishment in the number of situations where the public believes police were justified in using lethal force."If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you...." -- Rudyard Kipling
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