| A Terrible Blunder Comment
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair strikes one as a meek
man who, until the events of recent weeks in London, had espoused with gusto
the principle of community policing. Sir Ian oversaw the expansion of uniformed
community support officers in the capital and preached the gospel of neighbourhood
policing in the suburbs.
Immediately after the London bombs of July 7 Sir Ian declared once again
his belief in the principle that it would not be the police or the intelligence
services who would defeat the terrorists, but the public and the communities
of whatever colour or creed.
To say, therefore, that the killing of an innocent Brazilian man going
about his lawful business by eight shots to the head and body delivered
by Sir Ian’s plain-clothes officers last week is a setback, smacks as something
of an under-statement.
Public trust in the police among the ethnic minority communities that
Sir Ian says would be the key to defeating terrorists has been badly dented
indeed.
The police acted with speed at the weekend to issue a statement that
the man they had killed had no connection with the events of the previous
Thursday when attempts were made to plant bombs in four more places on London’s
public transport network. There was an immediate apology to the family of
the Brazilian man involved and an expression of regret. But what else could
the police do?
Now there are to be at least two inquiries into the incident as well
as the Coroner’s inquest. What we know so far is that the block of flats
in south London where the Brazilian man was living was under surveillance
because of evidence found at the scene of one of the failed bombs. When
he left his flat last Friday, the Brazilian was followed by armed plain-clothes
police. He took a bus to Stockwell tube station in south London. Then police
ordered him to stop. Instead of doing so, he appears to have panicked and
ran into the station. Then he was shot.
But why was the Brazilian suspected in the first place? How good was
the intelligence? How did the police identify themselves before they opened
fire? If he was such a threat, why was he allowed to travel on the bus?
Irish people understand better than other communities the principle and
workings of a “shoot-to-kill” policy. They had experience of it during events
over recent years in the North of Ireland. Curiously, Sir Ian Blair’s predecessor
Sir John (now Lord) Stevens understood it too during his period of duty
there.
Few people would disagree that a shoot-to-kill policy is necessary to
protect the public when a suicide bomber looks set to detonate a bomb.
More of us need to be reassured when police get it wrong as they did
with an innocent Brazilian.
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