Is British police's 'shoot-to-kill' policy - with reference to terrorists - justified?
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Is British police's 'shoot-to-kill' policy - with reference to terrorists - justified?
Yes either shoot them or them blow you up.
How terrible it may be, there is probably is no other option. When you have reason to believe that someone has bombs strapped to his body and can blow them up at any time you can't very well shoot him in the leg. You have no idea what means he has to detonate, so you must exclude all options and kill him.
*nods*
Do you think that resorting to the 'shoot-to-kill' policy reduces our moral highground?
Do you think people blowing themselves up is better?
To the fanatics that are willing to murder and die for something abstract you have no moral highground.Quote:
Originally Posted by yrwyddfa
Don't get me wrong though, in the whole civil liberties vs security debate I usually lean towards civil liberties. But when it comes down to a shot in the head of one individual vs an imminent (deadly) threat to a large group... Shoot for the head.
Oh, and moral highground... As if you're MI5 and MI6 have never 'executed' anyone.
No it is not.Quote:
Originally Posted by yrwyddfa
Sure it is. I've never seen a shoot to wound policy. If someone poses enough of a threat to be shot, you'd better hope you kill them.
There was a case in england when a man was shot dead for swinging a samurai sword about, he was of no threat to anyone as he was in the middle of a motorway, however a terrorist carry a nail bomb with the intention of setting it off on a bus hoping to kill or maim everyone around them including themself deserves to be shot..
They were going to commit suicide anyway :D
Well, the first time the 'police' (that was what was reported in the UK) fully implemented and acted out that policy they got it wrong. They killed what amounts to an innocent man.
Similar sword type situation in Seattle (I think, saw it on t.v.). They blasted the guy with a water cannon and pinned him against a wall with a ladder then disarmed him.
Lot's of situations can be defused without shots being fired, but if the trigger is pulled, the logical outcome would be the death of the person on the receiving end. Aiming for the leg isn't the best idea, especially when it comes to a would be bomber.
That was a strange story, they followed him from his house to finally shoot him inside the station. This however does not disqualify the legitimacy of the shoot to kill policy. What choice is there when your responsibility is to protect the public?Quote:
Originally Posted by yrwyddfa
An innocent man running from the police by the accounts I've read. Does seem a little fishy though, if they suspected he had a bomb (which they may not have) why allow him to make it to the station?
I knew somone would bring this up. The fact is the guy ran away, either he is hiding somthing or is stupid. He ran and I would have shot him as well. so waht they laoded 8 bullets into him, make sure he's not going to move.
A simple case of 'poor unlucky fool'
I suspect that every trained police force is trained that if they have to shoot, they shoot to kill, terrorist or not. Even our Fish and Game officers are trained with the "one to the body, one to the head". The key question is whether or not to shoot. If you do shoot, the outcome is a corpse.
NY police shot a kid when he pulled a wallet out of his pants. They made the wrong choice, but once they fired, they continued firing till there was no possible threat from the target. Shooting someone is considered use of deadly force, no matter what you intend. When it is valid to use that is where the question should arise, not what the outcome should be. If you shoot someone in the leg and hit an artery, they could die before any help could arrive.
The problem is that english cops are a bunch or gun carrying rednecks. Now cops children will steal their parents guns and go into a school and shoot everybody. Why can't we all be just like Canada.
If guns kill people, spoons made Michael Moore a fat arse.
Spoons don't cause many lethal accidents now do they? ;)
this is from a guy who lives in america......Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterBlaster
You certainly are a word-smith ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by yrwyddfa
Two carefully crafted questions in one sentence.
"shoot-to-kill" as a policy is standard training for anyone using a gun in law enforcement, that's been stated several times in posts here...
But I think your real, underlying question - if you read carefully...
is...
Should the cops be shooting who they think are terrorists? Is that because of some "profiling" methods they are using? Color of your hair? Way you dress?
We are such a vast melting pot of different people in the US, that we were very careful after 9/11 to make sure that rejecting anyone that appeared muslim was a bad thing to do.
Recently, after the London bombings, I heard the police commissioner of NYC tell people that they should all be on the lookout for suspicious activity. How nuts that request is - everyone on a subway in NYC looks suspicious to me. Backpacks? Strange or large packages? Trucks double parked... That's everyone.
Seems like the "shoot-to-kill" public policy might be more "boasting" and "posturing" then anything else - what do you think?
It is a very diffucult choice. In any case one must employ some kind of logical reasoning in a situation which is very stressful. The office needs to access the situation, how much of a threat the suspect is, do they look like a terrorist, what are they saying, are they near other people who could be in danger. They must mkake they decision in a split second and it is inevitable that there will be mistakes.
I dread to think how the family of that guy who was shot in London feel, I also dread to think how the police office feels about making the wrong call. There are victims on both sides.
Yes, but not when wearing plain-clothes and running after someone with little idea of who you are. They could have taken him down first by shooting his legs and then take it from there. They were wrong to shoot the guy 5 times in the back when wearing plain (non-police) clothes. However, the guy did vault a ticket barrier, - but who wouldn't when 5 men are runninhg after you carrying MP5's and semi-automatic rifles. :)
Jord
Good points from everyone.
I don't know the whole policy that British Police go-by. But if it is something as simple as "If you think you are dealing with a terrorist with a bomb who is likely to set it off, then shoot them" then I don't think it justified. I'm sure it is a little more detailed than that, though.
I think everyone has a right to live. The police have a difficult decision to make in a situation like that. Possibly kill an innocent man or let him live and allow him to blow him self up.
I think that if they are going to use a policy like that then there should be extensive training on assessing the situation.
Too much work then eh! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by visualad
That's going straight into The Quote Thread
MB - are you having bad day???
I didn't think any one would notice. I figured all the english guys were busy running a princess into a guardrail so they could find out what color underwear she was wearing today.Quote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
Damn man, you try to crack one joke and someone turns it into an invitation to bash an american.
It wasn't all that obvious that you were joking MB. Noteme gave his response because rednecks don't exist outside of the US.
Never been to woodbridge huh?Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
No, but redneck is an American entity, there is no such things as a European redneck. Idiots? Sure. Religious zelots? Sure. Generally backward people? Sure. Country music lovers? fraid not ;)
*Edit: This is not the point. I'm just saying your sarcasm wasn't apparent (to everyone), that's all.
Bull. I heard from an english reporter that princess diana had a tattoo of Willie Nelson on her colon. How he got his head so far up her arse without her knowing it just baffles me. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
edit* this was the pre "Momma don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" willie nelson.
Just had to look up who Willie Nelson is.
She did?? Well... whatever.
This is the second post in which you mentioned her. Obsession? ;)
Nope, I was just researching colon tattoos. I was thinking of getting a tattoo of the french flag on my colon.Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
hehe, and you complain about Americabashing :sick: . Give the example man :thumb: .Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterBlaster
Doesn't a colon already look like the french flag? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterBlaster
Like my redneck daddy used to say while we watched Jerry Springer "Fight Fire with Fire or get a colon tattoo."Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
Your father sounds like a wise man. Must be weird when your mother is your aunt as well (we're talkin' rednecks, so..) :)
It's not an entity at all - it's silly slang and I think Europeans think that it's a real group of people - what a laugh!Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
red•neck (r d n k )
n. Offensive Slang
1. Used as a disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States.
2. A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude.
Actually, most people I would label as redneck are wasps - white-anglo-saxon-protestants - basically english and french imports...
But then again, I'm an Italian/Czech from NYC - so what would I know!
Country music lovers?Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
I prefer music with more then 2 beats myself...Quote:
Country music is rooted in the folk traditions of the British Isles. In the new world, those roots became entangled with the ethnic musics of other immigrants and African slaves. Many gospel hymns were also popularized in the nineteenth century South, while tent shows and blackface minstrelsy introduced folk-sounding tunes written by northern professionals. Played on fiddles or homemade banjos, all this music would one day sound as if born in the southern hills.
An Italian from NYC. I don't believe you. You don't have a cousin named Vinny who drives an IROC Z do you? LOL :D
Entity may be bad english on my part but most people understand what redneck means.
Not really. It was actually pretty cool growing up. If my mom yelled at me I always said " I don't have to listen to you, your only my aunt"!Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
My point is I think that you truly believe that there are a group of people with REDNECK hats on walking around somewhere between west virginia and texas - there isn't...Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
(I had an Z28 back in the 80's)
BLAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
If it was black with gold rims I'm not going to talk to you any more.
Don't worry I know, the same type of insult exists everywhere. Here we just say (translated) 'farmers'.Quote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
At least it's not a Firebird. (Kit where are you)Quote:
(I had an Z28 back in the 80's)
Now I drive a supposedly evil SUV - gotta cart my twin boys around somehow...
(I liked my 69 Chevelle SS muscle car a whole lot more - no gold wheels on the Z28 - but I got a little metal model of that car sitting on my desk :D )
That replaced the Z28 after I drove it into a tree one February morning...Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
1982 TransAm was a nice car...
Yeah the Chevelle's are nice. I really miss my 68 GTO. I went to high school with an Italian girl from NYC. She had 3 cousins name vinny and all 3 drove Black IROCs with gold rims.Quote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
Another thread run wild. Could somebody clear something up for me: I don't see NoteMe posting anywhere in this thread? Did grilkip pick the wrong mod?Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
What I love about MB is his posts are all over the spectrum. I don't agree with half of what he says, but I don't understand about 3/4 of what he says. Colon tattoos? How do you do that, and what would be the point? The colon is entirely inside (though I remember a gross picture in Chit-Chat from a year or so back where this was not the case), so it doesn't get seen much.
Then he goes and talks about running princesses into guardrails. I thought he was going to link that to ranchers looking for sheep with their heads caught in a fence, but he veered off into colon tattoos instead.
Ya just never know until he's done speaking.
GO MB!!! :wave:
Just hijacking one of yrwyddfa's threads makes it all worth while...
Now he had to read through all this :D
I've had a couple of Z-28's, and one of them was an IROC. They've really dropped in popularity since the movie "Fast and the Furious" hit the scene.
Generation 3 was nice.
Pretty good thread. I may comment more later.
indeed, i meant pino.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
What a morning, what a thread! Most amusing, though :)Quote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
I know you sort of said this in jest, but I don't think that you are as far from the truth as your subsequent posts make out to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterBlaster
What causes someone to be a policeman? What then encourages that policeman to volunteer (as it is in the UK) to carry arms?
If you want to help people sign up to Liberty, or some other charity. If you want to play with guns, join the army. So why the police? We also have sufficient numbers of specialist 'operators' that could wander around with the police so that the police would never need to carry guns
BTW Eight bullets is not a professional job whatsoever. The double tap will do the job just as well. The guy who shot the Brazilian had him pinned to the floor. One presumes, that he then had control of the situation; unless of course you subscribe to the belief that the would be bombers have technology so advanced that 'three eye twitches to the left and it will trigger the detonator' ?
Anyway five of the bullets were fired at close range whilst under the control of the 'officer'
Another well put point is that why did they let him get to the station. From what I understand the stuff the bombers are using (this time around, anyway) is only really effective in closed spaces. That is to say that although an explosion will occur, if it occurs out in the open it will become far less effective. One would assume that the police would stop the guy from getting into a closeed environment.
The British police got it wrong. There can be no argument on this point. An innocent man is dead.
I personally come from the point of view that there should be no need for anyone, in any circumstances, to ever be killed: whether war, or the 'fight against terror' This is a purist stance - but I do understand that there will be a situation that occurs which will be the nth degree that does require the use of deadly force.
IMHO in that scenario it may well be logically justified, but it is never the morally right thing to do.
The cops are sending out mixed messages, they say they have to shoot to kill because the suspect might detonate a bomb. However they have no problem performing stop and search.
So if the cop has a gun he should shoot the suspect to stop a bomb going off.
If however the cop walks up to a bomber and asks to search his bag he'll get so confused he'll just hand it over without thinking or trying to detonate it.
Well, I love that comment. Also I am sure everybody in the Al Qaeda must love it too. For it simply goes on to show the police and the government are in a panic mode. In saying that more innocent people may be killed, the British police have simply shown that they are so jittery they are ready to pump bullets into anyone at the drop of a hat. That's exactly what happened with the poor hapless guy who was shot dead on a subway. I read on the BBC of an eyewitness account who said the police officers jumped on him and put as many as eight bullets through his head. And the result? They have an innocent dead man at their hands.Quote:
Originally Posted by dannymking
Well the British have now gone a step ahead in arrogance than Dubya, that's for sure.
.
Aren't you supposed to be in town square doing situps? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by honeybee
Funny you should mention that. I heard once that the art of colon tattooing was perfected on sheep.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
honeybee..
The case I was referring to probably a year old or so now..