But deep shadows were cast over the police after a leaked investigation report revealed they had identified Mr. de Menezes as a would-be bomber without looking at his face because their intelligence officer was busy urinating; that he had not run from them or jumped any barricades; that he was not wearing a bulky jacket; and that police had given him no indication he was being pursued. He had also been physically restrained in the train by one officer without resistance when a second fired seven shots into his head and one into his shoulder.

The good news and the bad news. The bad news is there isn’t any good news. Lies, lies and more lies. Who should resign? Well Ian Blair for one (can you rescind a knighthood?). And Charles “Big Ears” Clarke on condition it doesn’t let Blindgit back as Home Secretary.
Who will ever believe the Metropolitan Police again? Time to clean the stables. Sack the entire Metropolitan police and have them reapply for their former jobs. Then those with corruption on their record can be eliminated. It will need something this drastic to regain public confidence, if ever.

If this Brazilian citizen became a suspect simply for walking out of the wrong apartment block, that’s a dangerously low threshold for shoot-to-kill instructions.

A great deal has been made of his winter coat. Someone here said it was 16°C that day; I had read it was 20°C when the attack occurred. Those are temperatures in the sixty-degree range. To someone used to a more tropical environment, that can easily be cold enough to require a coat, even a thicker coat.

So we have a case here that, if I may be so blunt, combines little more than racial profiling for non-White-looking people in the wrong neighborhood with shoot-to-kill orders.

For people in those neighborhoods at least, the police perhaps become an actual greater threat to their lives than the terrorists are. Is this acceptable to them?

If the police had shoot-to-kill orders for anyone blogging in western Tokyo between, say, 11 p.m. and midnight on a certain day that is classified, would you be supportive of this in the name of “protecting the citizens”?

Of course. I’ve mentioned this several times before. Likewise if Ms. Grendel was raped and murdered within the borders of Texas, I somehow doubt you’d be petitioning the Supreme Court to not have him recieve the death penalty.

It was about 16°Celsius that day, I’ve seen people in Düsseldorf wearing winter coats last week. They didn’t get shot though. I suppose we’ll have to wait for the trial to hear the whole story?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711021.stm

There has been one change in BBC reporting. Earlier, they stated that Menezes came from an address that had been linked to a bomber through a piece of paper found in his belongings. Today, in “Shooting victim’s family may sue” BBC is saying: “He had been followed by police from his block of flats in Tulse Hill, which was under surveillance in the hunt for the group behind Thursday’s attempted Tube and bus bombings.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm

Well that is a significant distinction. An address. Or a block of flats. An apartment unit. Or an apartment house. A big difference. At any rate, the earlier report said they followed Menezes, and when he headed for the subway, they took action.

The BBC has actual onsite witness interviews as well. One person describes Menezes as Asian. Another said Pakistani. Make your own conclusions. Since the family is beginning to talk lawsuit, these interviews are disappearing quickly. But all referred to his unseasonable thick coat, which might have concealed – what? One person stated he had grabbed ahold of a passenger. I noted when I read it, that this did not jibe with the another witness’s description of him being tackled and thrown to the floor.

Of further interest is this 24 July BBC piece:

“After the suicide bomb attacks in London on 7 July it is thought the Met’s Anti-Terrorist Branch implemented its own pre-arranged response to suicide bombers, based on Acpo advice.

“Codenamed Operation Kratos, and based on the experiences of the Israeli security forces, the guidance reportedly states that an officer can shoot a suspect in the head if it is thought he is a suicide bomber who poses an imminent danger to police or the public.

“If Operation Kratos is being used, it would be the first time a shoot-to-kill policy was officially allowed on British streets.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711619.stm

As for me, I’m going to shave my beard and mustache and whiten my skin the next I travel to Europe or North America. God forbid I walk out the wrong building and don’t understand the shouted instructions of people in plain-clothes running at me.

1: Jean Charles de Menezes leaves a house under surveillance and arrives at Stockwell station

2: Witnesses say he vaults the automatic ticket barriers and heads for the platforms

3: He then ran down an escalator after being approached by up to 20 plain-clothed police officers and tried to board a train

4: He apparently refuses to obey police instructions and after running onto a northbound Northern line train, he is shot dead

Earlier BBC reports stated the particular house was under surveillance because its address had been linked to one of the bomber’s possessions. Found in a backpack or somesuch.

Sometimes in these situations, the early unfiltered information is best. Do you own filtering.

Along these lines, Internet Haganah speculated on 21 July: “The detonators went off, but not the main charges (aging TATP left over from 7-7?)”

Also: The shoot-the-brain method is ineffective against the dead-man-switch technique.

This is actually a similar issue to the capital punishment discussion we had earlier – the irreversibility and the question of “false positives” is the key point. The question you actually posed in your posting was

How many false positives is society willing to accept?

Certainly, mistakes have and will be made, but it’s the ratio between positives and false positives that will decide the form and size of the operational frame in the future.

My personal impression is, the willingness to accept false positives in Europe is lower than in other parts of the western world – but then again, public opinion canchange very quickly.

And, Curzon, your threshold in regard to such cases is only high as long as you are not affected personally by it.

No. Definitely not. Look at NYC’s attempt at poli-correct bag searches. Can’t have any profiling, now. And this is in the shadow of the towers. But hey, the ACLU lives here too. Joe Biden can moan and groan about inadequate security for trains and buses. But if he has to walk through protest lines, he’ll use his limo.

Down on the border, judges release illegals arrested when their appearance led to conclusions. Can’t particularly blame the judges, either. They’d have gone free on appeal, chances are. This way no expense. No legal fees. And no more incarceration.

While airport screeners select the aged and infirm for intense scrutiny – intentionally – to show their impartiality. And how much energy over time has been expended on nail clippers? All so that log books can be filled with details for reports – Blah, Blah, Blah … Hey, can’t say we’re not doing our job. Here’s our report. Conforming to govt. standards as set forth in Bulletin —

Specifically on the unarmed man shot in England:

Can anyone imagine a US law enforcement agency training its officers to rapidly take down would be perps and unload magazines into their heads? Never happen. S.W.A.T. teams operate with some impunity by clearing the area of witnesses first.

I look forward to the Brit investigation results. It does appear that the officer who killed the Brazilian had received special training. The initial media reaction was that, judging by his actions, he would have to be military.