# Here is hearty FU to London Murderer (warning "colorful" language)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 25, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988 "2005-07-25T02:14:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/1 "2005-07-25T02:14:38Z")
Linky link: [http://www.ioerror.us/2005/07/24/shoot-first-ask-questions-later-jean-charles-de-menezes-killed-for-nothing/](http://www.ioerror.us/2005/07/24/shoot-first-ask-questions-later-jean-charles-de-menezes-killed-for-nothing/)
Who ever you fuckheads were, damn you to hell. The guy was scared of you bunch idiot dumb ass thugs probably because you were not uniform police officers and there had just been a terrorist attack in the underground. It is entirely possible that I would have run too!
Of course then you probably would have taken me down to the ground and shot me in the head 5 times execution style. You sons of bitches, you MURDERED an innocent guy.
Another hearty fuck you to the breainless pricks who’s brilliant idea this shoot first ask questions later policy which is likely to instill nothing but fear in the general populace, and perhaps cost a few other families their loved ones.
But who gives a shit right? After all they will all get a sincere apology from Mr. Ian Blair.
Oh yeah, fuck him too.
Oh another question you wastes of skin, what do you think would be more vlauable? A dead terrorist, or a live one who can answer questions?
And if you suspected this guy of being a terrorist in the first place why in holy fucking hell would you WAIT until he got to a subway station before confronting him?
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### Author:  [@Domokun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Domokun)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/2 "2005-07-25T02:23:07Z")
So what are they supposed to do? Ask suspected suicide bombers very nicely not to blow themselves up while they arrest them? Sure it fucking sucks, but this is what it’s come to. If he had been a bomber and they’d not killed him then the consequences would’ve been very much worse.
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### Author:  [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/3 "2005-07-25T02:52:52Z")
> [@Domokun](#):
>
> Sure it fucking sucks, but this is what it’s come to. If he had been a bomber and they’d not killed him then the consequences would’ve been very much worse.
I hope you remember those words when a bunch of plainclothsed cops grab **you** , wrestle **you** down and hold an automatic to **your** head. Just another sacrifice to make in the War On Terrorism.
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### Author:  [@Domokun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Domokun)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/4 "2005-07-25T03:02:32Z")
Well if a bunch of guys with guns challenge me entering public transport you can be sure I won’t try and make a run for it into even more crowded areas. What should they have done, with four known suicide bombers on the loose?
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/5 "2005-07-25T03:03:16Z")
Well, we don’t know if it was ‘execution style’ shooting.
We don’t know if they identified themselves as cops. They probably did.
This sort of thing is extremely rare in London.
Who is Ian Blair?
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/6 "2005-07-25T03:04:42Z")
Oh, he’s the police commish for London.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/7 "2005-07-25T03:06:35Z")
> [@Domokun](#):
>
> So what are they supposed to do? Ask suspected suicide bombers very nicely not to blow themselves up while they arrest them? Sure it fucking sucks, but this is what it’s come to. If he had been a bomber and they’d not killed him then the consequences would’ve been very much worse.
This is what scares me more than terrorism. People who shrug and say “so it goes,” when the government kills innocent people.
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### Author:  [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/8 "2005-07-25T03:09:08Z")
It’s all very well to be enraged when one does not have the details, and to accuse people of being murderers, but there really is a point where there is enough probably cause to indicate that if one does not take extreme action you are putting many lives at risk. The question becomes, has this line been crossed?
My understanding is that this guy came out from a house being watched for terrorist related activities, wearing a bulky and out of place coat, and he ran from police into a subway station. Under the circumstances, I can understand the cops being very, very afraid, and their actions may be completely justified. Maybe there is more to this story and they were overly aggresive. But if you’re suggesting that it is never permisible to do what they did, no matter what probably cause you have, then in practical terms you are basically saying the cops have to let the bombers detonate their bombs.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/9 "2005-07-25T03:14:39Z")
“If he had been a killer, and they hadn’t killed him, it would have been worse.” Welcome to the world of absolute qualification. Er, yes. “Well, I might have run over your dog, but that tame chihuahua could have torn the throat of a toddler.” “Yes, sir, I did rob that bank, but the bank might have invested the money in tobacco and killed who knows how many people.” “I ran over your daughter, but if she’d grown up and given birth to the next Hitler it would have been much worse.”
“But if you’re suggesting that it is never permisible to do what they did, no matter what probably cause you have, then in practical terms you are basically saying the cops have to let the bombers detonate their bombs.” Er, yes. “Either you support the indiscriminate killing of innocent people by the police OR you support rampant terrorist activities.”
Christ, you people scare me.
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### Author:  [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/10 "2005-07-25T03:15:08Z")
I’m really surprised he managed to apparantly slip by them - I don’t understand how they let someone _under surveillance_ get in to the subway system they were presumably trying specifically to protect.
On Law & Order, whenever a handful of officers go to pick someone up, the guy turns around to run and there’s a cop standing right there to head him off. With advanced warning and a much larger police precence, I don’t see how they didn’t do just that.
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/11 "2005-07-25T03:34:21Z")
What you see on Law & Order is applicable to the real world of law enforcement to the same degree that Backdraft accurately depicts structural firefighting.
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### Author:  [@xcheopis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xcheopis)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/12 "2005-07-25T03:47:32Z")
> [@Zebra](#):
>
> Well, we don’t know if it was ‘execution style’ shooting.
>
> We don’t know if they identified themselves as cops. They probably did.
[It is not true to say that police officers must identify themselves or shout a warning when confronting a suspect believed to pose a grave and imminent threat.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4708373.stm)
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/13 "2005-07-25T04:45:49Z")
According to an eyewitness:
> [@BBC](#):
>
> "I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun.
>
> “He half tripped… they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him,” he told BBC News 24.
>
> "As [the suspect] got onto the train I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox.
>
> "He looked absolutely petrified and then he sort of tripped, but they were hotly pursuing him, [they] couldn’t have been any more than two or three feet behind him at this time and he half tripped and was half pushed to the floor and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand.
>
> "He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him.
[Link to rest of story](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm)
From that account it seems the guy was pretty much under control when they shot him. I am sympathetic to the nearly untenable situation the London cops are in, but this eyewitness account seems pretty damning to me.
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### Author:  [@mza662](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mza662)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/14 "2005-07-25T04:51:02Z")
None of us know the whole story, nor could we know what was running through the officer’s minds at the time. I’d have to say that in the same situation, if I was chasing a suspected suicide bomber into a train, i’d shoot to kill also. Why the hell would you run from a gun? 99.9% of innocent people would surrender immediately, knowing they have nothing else to do. The thoughts through my mind would be that if he’s running to a train he wants to take some people with him, so i’d do everything I could to protect myself and the people on the train. If he’d set off a bomb because the officer’s tried to restrain him without killing him you lot would probably be complaining they didn’t do everything they could to stop him.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/15 "2005-07-25T05:07:38Z")
This is what I can’t understand. People who say they wouldn’t run from four guys with guns and not wearing any kind of distinguishing uniform.
This would be my thought process:
Shit, those guys are chasing me, they have a gun! If I stop they will kill me.
Sure, if they were uniformed officers, I’d stop, pop my hands up and say, “excuse me officers but you appear to be mistaken” Without the uniforms though, I’d run.
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### Author:  [@xcheopis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xcheopis)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/16 "2005-07-25T05:28:57Z")
> [@mza662](#):
>
> None of us know the whole story, nor could we know what was running through the officer’s minds at the time. I’d have to say that in the same situation, if I was chasing a suspected suicide bomber into a train, i’d shoot to kill also. Why the hell would you run from a gun? 99.9% of innocent people would surrender immediately, knowing they have nothing else to do. The thoughts through my mind would be that if he’s running to a train he wants to take some people with him, so i’d do everything I could to protect myself and the people on the train. If he’d set off a bomb because the officer’s tried to restrain him without killing him you lot would probably be complaining they didn’t do everything they could to stop him.
An actual suicide bomber would have already detonated the bomb.
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### Author:  [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/17 "2005-07-25T05:36:15Z")
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> “But if you’re suggesting that it is never permisible to do what they did, no matter what probably cause you have, then in practical terms you are basically saying the cops have to let the bombers detonate their bombs.” Er, yes. “Either you support the indiscriminate killing of innocent people by the police OR you support rampant terrorist activities.”
>
> Christ, you people scare me.
I’m not sure you understand the word “absolute”. I’m not sure of the details of this specific case. But my point remains. At some point, the threat is imminent, and it would be criminal not to take action. What if you were in that situation, and everything you saw made you convinced that to let the person continue their actions meant the deaths of dozens of people? Would you be so judgemental in that case, or do you reserve your judgement for the comfort of your cable news facing sofa?
The trick is to set the level of evidence required, and try to maximize it’s accuracy, so you avoid the London situation. If practical, making sure uniformed officers were doing the chasing would be a good idea.
To take an extreme example, if a guy took what was clearly a bomb out of a suitcase and yelled “You’re all gonna die, God is great!”, would you a) disable him as quickly as possible or b) say “Well, he might be joking, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt”. Now somewhere slightly below that level of probable cause is the cut off point. Unfortunately, I don’t think that cut off point is very easy to determine.
Basically, you are dealing with someone who has to make a very tough decision in a very small amount of time. I sympathize with the victim in this case, I really do, but I also sympathize with the office who had to make a judgement call in very trying conditions.
It may very well be that the police were criminally negligent simply due to lack of procedure, and that better procedure could have more correctly weeded out the innocent from the imminent threats. But to call this office a murderer from the comfort of one’s armchair? That is unacceptable.
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/18 "2005-07-25T06:03:16Z")
Normal police policy is to aim for the torso, since it’s what you have the best chance of hitting - they shot him in the head so as not to hit any explosives may have been packing, and to make sure he didn’t get the chance to detonate anything - they’re playing Israeli style now, for keeps. OK, it was a mistake, and I’m sorry for the victim and his family, but what were the cops supposed to do when a suspected terrorist they’re trailing runs when challenged into a station and onto a train? Supposing his bag _had_ been packed with C4 - what kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth about police ineptitude would there be?
When all of London is on alert for Underground bombers, if a bunch of cops, armed and probably hyped to the point of paranoia, tell you to stop you do _not_ make a run for, especially into a packed station and onto a train: you _stop_ and very slowly and carefully do what they tell you - let’s face it, especially if you look even vaguely Middle Eastern {the guy was Brazilian}.
You’ll probably face a very unpleasant few days while they interrogate you and tear your house, your hard drive and your life apart looking for evidence you’re a murderous fanatic, but at least you’ll be alive. To do otherwise is suicidally stupid, and the guy is at least partially to blame for his own death.
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/19 "2005-07-25T06:39:39Z")
> [@mza662](#):
>
> Why the hell would you run from a gun?
Because it’s a **gun** , dumbass.
Oh, well, he _thought_ the guy was a terrorist so it’s OK to just shoot a guy multiple times in the head after he had already been captured. Yeah, that makes perfect sense… if your brain is already shot full of lead that is, but to people with functioning grey matter it’s obviously not something that can be condoned.
Here I thought it was bad with the us government detaining people on the flimsiest of suspicions and taking away constitutional rights and trying to justify it by some blanket anti-terrorism justification, but, wow, these guys have managed to outdo even that. Screw the locking them up for a year without lawyers or charges, let’s just execute them on the spot.
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### Author:  [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2005, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/here-is-hearty-fu-to-london-murderer-warning-colorful-language/313988/20 "2005-07-25T07:38:54Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#):
>
> What you see on Law & Order is applicable to the real world of law enforcement to the same degree that Backdraft accurately depicts structural firefighting.
I’m sure it matches a real-life take down at least 1000 times more than CSI matches anything.
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