[notigar]

As you stated, these are heightened awareness times. I would have prefered they acted much sooner. Evidence of leaving a watched apartment complex with a big coat, if true, would have led me to question him the minute he was out of sight of the place so as not to compromise the investigation. In any event, I would have made it physically impossible for him to take mass transit. I'm not willing to let anyone die, which is why I would have taken those steps. And yes, I agree they have to make snap decisions without all the information. But that is why you try to keep those situations to a minimum. Why wait till the only two alternatives are: (1) him stopping for a guy in plainclothes or (2) killing him? Would they have had to shoot him on the street, if they surrounded him? Wouldn't the public have been better protected? He rode a bus to the subway! If he was a suspect, those cops should be suspended for letting him do that! How does the story play out when all the facts are the same, he gets on a bus, and blows himself up? You'd be calling them incompetent.

[garbanzo]

Evidence of leaving a watched apartment complex with a big coat, if true, would have led me to question him the minute he was out of sight of the place so as not to compromise the investigation.

No it would have led you to question him in hindsight. Post facto judgements are meaningless. At the time of the incident, he was being surveilled, probably to see where he was going and who he was going to see. In other words the police had no idea what he was up to when he left the apartment and got on the bus. It was only after he began to behave strangely near the subway that the police moved and he ran. In other words the police did more less what you wanted them to do but since the result was bad the intention had to be bad as well in your eyes.