Posted on 07/23/2005 1:32:06 PM PDT by areafiftyone
A man shot dead by police in London was not connected to Thursday's attacks and may have been Brazilian. More Soon...
An unknown person, coming from a "suspected" apartment, wearing a coat and running from excited people in civilian clothing that appear to be attacking him. Indeed, food for thought.
Which makes his death less regretable? Which makes his life worth less then anyone who died on 9/11? Hardly.
Both the left and the right got it wrong on that one, basically. Diallo was not "acting suspicous," he was just doing what he thought was normal behavior. The police were not racist monsters, they were simply responding to the situation as they perceived it. Sometimes a tragedy is just a tragedy.
We don't know all the circumstances in the London shooting, so it's too early to say if de Menezes was acting in a way that justified being shot, but it seems pretty clear that the police were acting appropriately on their part.
Remember, they were plainclothes officers. This is just conjecture on my part, but could de Menezes have mistaken them for muggers? Sometimes adrenaine and fear can make it hard to realize what a person is actually shouting at you, even if it's "stop! police!"
If he did know they were cops, is it really worth dying because you run from the police? Maybe not, but given the current state of London, you gotta figure it's a bad idea to do anything to incite the police to action against you. I know if I were in the middle of London during the Blitz, I wouldn't run around shouting in German. Sometimes you gotta realize where you are.
Either way, though, if the police have a tip on a man in a heavy coat in summer, who runs away and leaps ticket gates to get on a train, AND there have just been EIGHT terrorist bombings, c'mon. What the hell are they SUPPOSED to do?
It's a tragedy, to be sure. But even knowing everything we know now, I'd still want the police to shoot in the same situation.
An innocent man gets killed, while the guilty are set free by our (US) process, procedure and parole obsessed criminal justice system. (The 'best in the world', doncha know?) Do I have to remind you about our domestic convicted and paroled terrorists getting tenure at major universities? Nothing to celebrate, nothing to rationalize and excuse...
I would rather the one mistake than the God only knows how many there could have been.
Would you have preferred it the other way around?
the heavy coat thing needs to be put to rest though. The high for the day was 70, and it rains daily.
Ok, I can understand that a guy would panic and run (although this makes me believe the guy had a reason to run), but with the recent events...you would have to be brain dead to run under those circumstances....
But, my real problem with this is the winter coat he was wearing in the worst heat of summer...I mean it's hard to blame the cops...regardless...but that bit of info makes no sense and there is no reasonable explanation.
For now, based on everything that has been revealed, I believe the London security team had their legitimate reasons and judgement on the spot to have done this.
Unless they are coming from a house where terrorists might be and wearing a heavy coat on a hot day headed for a subway station. Maybe as a convienence I ought send over the Britain the Chris Rock bit on dealing with the police - "Number 2 - Don't run from the police."
The fact that the cops made a mistake isn't I'm questioning, it's how you so easily distinquish between the "innocent" lives lost on 9/11 and the loss of this "innocent" life. I don't see how any reasonable person can define levels of regret for the loss of any "innocent" life.
"this man's connection to subversive individuals and projects"
huh? in your words: "sources please"
He was coming from an apartment complex. where are you getting "house"?
He looked suspicious and should have stopped when the police order him to.
Do you know how "hot" it was?
It could have been played out to an entirely different scenario. Thank God it didn't.
The slain man was identified Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, a Brazilian electrician who lived in a working-class, predominantly black area of South London that has become a focus of the manhunt in Thursday's failed attacks. In a statement Saturday, police repeated the explanation that investigators had followed Menezes because he emerged from a residence that was under surveillance in the investigation of Thursday's incidents. Menezes' clothing -- witnesses said he wore a padded coat and cap despite the mild weather -- and behavior added to suspicions, the statement said. But police did not explain why Menezes disobeyed commands to stop and led officers on a chase into the station, hurdling a barrier to reach the train, according to witness accounts. Menezes was reportedly a legal immigrant.
May I also ask you a question here? As a plainclothes policeman, during a state of war, with a suspected individual fleeing onto a train the day after additional bombing efforts by terrorists, with clothing that covered what was beneath, in a split second, what would you have done? I'd like to ask since you and others seem to be questioning the police response, from their subjective and very difficult position.
LOL! "Due time" isn't exactly a term I'd use in conjunction with immediate action.
I haven't seen it demonstrated. Indeed, seems a lot of attitudes are he had it coming to him.
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