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I'm sorry to bring this up in the forum but this has been all over the news over here... So London Police shot a Brazilian in the head, five times, thinking he was a wacko suicidal terrorist?

The guy was from my State, apparently he was an electrician and was mistaken for a south asian, or as the Brazilian press has been shouting, 'not white'.

The quotes we've been getting here are the worst possible, this from an eye witness on the BBC has been translated:

"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. "

Maybe his English wasn't that good and he, well, tried to get on the train without paying or something? BIG BIG mistake, then again we've never had to deal with terrorism so everyone in Brazil is a bit too quick to pass judgement on what happened.

This just sucks...

afaik, story goes:

1. left a house which was under surveilance following this thursday's failed bombs and was followed to stockwell tube station.

2. was wearing a heavy jacket in really hot weather + on the underground, which is always considerably hotter than above ground.

3. responded to police's instructions by jumping the ticket barriers and running for a train.

4. got shot.

I think the police may have been a little bit too quick and somewhat too "enthusiastic" (I mean, surely a live but damaged terrorist is far more useful than a dead one), but in light of the man's response and the current climate they are explainable. The Police Complaints Commission always run an inquiry when shots are fired, so this will be examined in due course.

Another thing to point out is that - as I'm sure you're aware - armed police in the UK are rare and when you do find them on foot (you should have seen how many there were in Glasgow airport yesterday!) they are extremely intimidating. There's no way anyone in their right mind would react in the way this guy did. They're saying that this guy had been in the UK since 2002 and Sky news are interviewing his cousin (as I write this), and he's speaking perfectly fine English, so we can assume that the man concerned could also do so.

One thing that's not entirely clear is whether the police involved in this incident were actually police. There seems to be some doubt was to whether they were uniformed (which prompted speculation that they were actually MI5 and is backed up by the fact that they were following this guy), and some witnesses stated that no warning was shouted before the shots were fired.

All this is to be the best of my knowledge.

Deek.

I'd leave this alone if i was you u mate.

Not sure anyone 1 knows exactly what happened but best to leave it to the authorities.

I'm from Scotland and everyone knows you don't mess with the Scots, but u don't f*** with Londoners and if shots were fired the u can be sure there was i damn good reason for it.

I dunno Del, the armed police in this nation have a bit of a habit of capping anyone who even looks at them in a dirty manner... they're not used to having to use weapons in public and go all jittery and light-headed. I think we need to import a few vacationing sherriffs from the more trigger happy side of the atlantic to show them how it's done!

However the story is well dodgy however you look at it - had a minor argument with my mum about it even.

points 1-3, fair enough, and it could be argued that it led to point 4 because it was a twitch-reaction situation, and the copper reasoned that if he dropped the guy with a non-fatal wound that would give him enough of a chance to hit the big red button --- after jumping the barriers smack into a crowd of panicking commuters and tourists.

on the other hand, 1 their intel could have been faulty, 2 maybe he had a fever, 3 doesnt speak much english and is already on edge just like everyone else - thinks he's going to get framed, doesn't expect to get shot... 4. five times in the head is just a little excessive - whats wrong with once in both arms or the top of the spine?

(actually, its not been that warm the last couple days round these parts - how has it been in london? i was wearing a jumper on friday..)

what's really dodgy is how this particular, sure-to-cause-controversy story has been swept right under the carpet... I didn't even know about it until seeing something else on the internet about how the BBC reported on it once and then basically squashed it - no follow-ups, no retractions, nothing, not even a statement that they can no longer report on it due to police restrictions - and carried on reporting the other details from the days and weeks previously as if it never happened. (Not even a word in the 20-minute special report that was on radio 4 that i heard earlier)

which is..... yknow.... wierd..... and warranting of investigation.

leave it to the authorities to sort matters out without any scrutiny? nahhhh.... come on! that sort of thing is what starts genocides and cold wars (terrorists are, after all, the communists of our generation).
They're human just like the rest of us - just as capable of error, failure, madness, greed and power trips. Just as they're capable of acts of kindness, charity and decency... sometimes.

(What the hell actually happened with the G8 anyway? the entire reporting system up in edinburgh seemed to collapse into a small puddle of apathy once the bombs went off. Did africa get it's much needed debt relief to stop that same 57 people dying every 19 minutes (why would their lives be worth any less)? Fair trade? Any move on climate control? Middle east peace proposals? Anything?)

The way I see it is, maybe the police were overreacting, almost certainly they shouldn't have fired 5 times at close range, but absolutely definately you do -not- run off and try to board a tube train when a group of armed officers shout an order to remain exactly where you are whilst pointing a gun at your head. Let's face it, if you were an armed cop, you had your suspicions that someone was about to blow up a train, and then they made a dash for the train when you challenged them, wouldn't you take them out rather than even risk them blowing up an entire carriage full of innocent passengers?

all over the newspapers - or the supermarket tabloids at least - today that he was totally innocent....

in other news the guy whos backpack didnt blow up broke into someones house whilst escaping or summink.

first one is two people in a stressful situation both panicking, and one unfortunately legging it right into a position where the police had little choice but to drop him - not quite such a clear cut cock-up as the previous ones of people being shot dead whilst brandishing chair legs and the like.

the other is a bit more obvious kind of criminal activity

Del_GTi wrote:I'd leave this alone if i was you u mate.

Well, I only wanted to listen to the British perspective on all this. We're only getting the Brazilian perspective on this incident over here, and it's fast becoming a very "emotional" issue with the press interviewing relatives and so on.

Also, I'm a journalist and by profession I don't tend to "leave things well alone". Unless that puts me in a blacklist or something.

Anyway I understand the whole of the UK is on edge right now, and I was careful enough to point that out in my post...

Now, back to the subject, back on friday (before it became known that the man shot dead was from Brazil) I thought it was pretty strange that there was no further inforation on the shooting. I mean, if he was carrying a bomb, we'd have heard all about it and how the police had prevented a tragedy.

When facing demented suicidal terrorists I agree the police should shoot first, with lethal intent, to prevent the loss of innocent life. No-one would argue with that. But I also think that the police should be EXTREMELY careful about who they follow. Because an innocent life was lost anyway.

This guy was an immigrant. Suddenly a group of men start pursuing him, in the midst of a very strange climate of heightened security, terror alerts and all. And this guy is from Brazil, not Israel, so he's not obliged to know "what to do in that sort of situation" (I won't get political as to why this is so, but I for one wouldn't know how to behave if people started chasing me on the street in the UK. Over here, with our history of political violence, I'd sure throw away my journalist credential and run like h*ll. We get reports in Brazil about people being held in the U.S. without trial or being able to contact anyone for years, I'm quite sure this is not the case *yet* in the UK, but most folks don't know that).

So, I tent to excuse him for not knowing what to do. I'd be pretty terrified myself. He did the most stupid thing he could do, but he was also in a very stressful situation. He was sot in the had five times for being stupid. Fair enough. Now if the Police were to shoot every stupid person in the world, we'd have a bloodbath of massive proportions in UK and US government circles.

The race card is being played a lot over here. He was shot because he was dark-skinned and ran from plain-clothes police officers. That's an easy card for Brazilian journalists to play because, well, that's the way things work over here: if you're black and you're running, the police will probably shoot you first and ask questions later. It's tragic, but most folks can relate to the situation. It's an accusation we're used to make against our own Police.

Anyway. This sucks. He was dark, he was wearing a coat, he ran from the Police, there's a terrorist alert on, the police had strict orders.

What I think is VERY dangerous, especially in a country that now has a significant immigrant presence, is that the British public (obviusly terrorized, but still...) seems to be all too willing to let this sort of thing happen and not ask too many question about it.

I decided to ask you guys - the few British I have some sort of regular contact with - because the facts *will* get distorted by the time someone interviews this man's mother or auntie or something, and besides I already know what's the view this side of the Equator ("some people deliver bombs to civilians by air, some people deliver bombs to civilians by ground"). While I don't agree with it, it's a very very dangerous thing to pass judgement (on a life sentence!) too quickly. Innocents will die.



One last thing in small print: to suggest this guy was connected to the bombing because he went to a house under surveillance is ridiculous. Especially since he was an electrician. And besides, HE WAS BRAZILIAN and we are not in habit or blowing ourselves up for any cause AT ALL, and especially for someone else's. The Police didn't know he was Brazilian, that's certain. But to imply, post-mortem, that he was involved is just plain offensive. Or prejudiced: he was dark, and he was chubby. Hence a terrorist fully loaded with explosives. Give me a break.

I just realized I made two big mistakes in my post, I'm sorry about them:

1. I've been too quick to assume the person was innocent because he was Brazilian. There's nothing to indicate he was innocent (yet), just press accounts that were just as hasty as my judgement I suppose.

2. I didn't check my sources on the appearence of this guy. One witness said he "looked south asian" and I assumed it was so. I've just seen a picture of him and he doesn't look much like someone from India or Pakistan etc. He was chubby though.

One other thing: I understand these are really strange times for everyone in the UK, shouldn't have brought this up, but my curiosity won me over. I don't agree with what happened. Then again I don't need to worry about making it alive to the ofice in the morning.

Still, this whole incident should be thoroughly investigated. Its a dangerous precedent. You can do pretty much anything to a country once a sense of terror is installed.

Some people bomb civilians by ground... others by air

amen - whats the difference?
incidentally another 25 people died in iraq today because a van PACKED with explosives was detonated outside a police station. i dont see any minutes of silence going on for them or all the roads outside their police stations being cordoned off.

Its a dangerous precedent. You can do pretty much anything to a country once a sense of terror is installed.

indeed. in other news, the jews were responsible for sending post-ww1 germany into deep financial depression........ or so that was the media angle, and a sh*tlot of people went along with it. not that im suggesting things could get as bad in the uk, but you have to be on your guard for herd-mentality BS..

I'd be interested to see the brazilian angle on all of this once it fully crosses the atlantic - given some of the differences you can see in british and american reporting by flicking cable channels to CNN or Fox from News24 and Sky (or indeed, as SkyPlus now allows for no easily explanable reason, to Al-Jazeera to get the arabic perspective) there may be some interesting changes in angle. Any good websites that would have english language feed or be fairly understandable to a web-robot translator?

i really have to get out of the habit of alternately referring modern media b*llocks back to what happened in WW2 and vietnam, i know.... but its just so easy and so powerful an allegory, made worse by it all being true

Babe RuthLess wrote:
I've just seen a picture of him and he doesn't look much like someone from India or Pakistan etc. He was chubby though.

i know this is a serious discussion, but i had to laugh at that little bit

I don't blame your curiosity, but the main thing you have to realise is that none of us over here have the faintest clue what went on. We've been told bugger all about any of it. We know that someone who looked faintly middle eastern was challenged by police, ran for a train, got shot and then was found innocent of any involvement in terrorism. That's pretty much all we know, once you strip away all of the media slants that get thrown at it.

This guy was an immigrant. Suddenly a group of men start pursuing him, in the midst of a very strange climate of heightened security, terror alerts and all. And this guy is from Brazil, not Israel, so he's not obliged to know "what to do in that sort of situation" (I won't get political as to why this is so, but I for one wouldn't know how to behave if people started chasing me on the street in the UK.

Can you seriously say that if you were challenged by police pointing guns at you you would try to run away rather than just standing and surrendering? I would have thought that's a fairly standard response to that kind of situation, wherever you come from..

He reacted stupidly, the police reacted over zealously and will be sure to suffer the consequences. Everyone's tensions are running a bit high at the moment with regards to the public transport system, if you have any suspicion at all that someone is going to detonate a suicide bomb you don't wait around to ask questions. That's the nature of a suicide bomb, you can't talk them out of it or threaten them in any way because they believe they're dying for god. Giving them a second chance isn't really an option..

a discussion of that sort of thing this afternoon led to the realisation that such methods of dealing with terrorists could easily be thwarted by the kind of reverse trigger so employed in terminator 2 and various other sci fi scenarios..... its also the "speed" bus-bomb principle

when the guy reaches the target area or gets spotted by police, he presses down the plunger (on a triggering device hanging down his sleeve much like a kid's mitten) ..... that irreversibly arms the detonator, and releasing the button fires it.

so possibly the only way to take him down is to taser him and have someone prise the trigger from his grasp - keeping the button held all the while - whilst his muscles are in tetanus... restrain him with cuffs etc... and try to disarm it in-situ.

with a bomber smart enough to figure out this method and its implementation (if there are any with sufficient IQ?), a shot to the head pretty much guarantees an explosion if the gear is in working order and his hand doesn't spasm directly into rigor mortis with the impact of the bullets. (and then even so, it may get knocked from his cold, dead fingers when the body hits the floor)

hmmmmmmmm this aint the end of it i think we can be sure of that

GroovyCarrot wrote:
Can you seriously say that if you were challenged by police pointing guns at you you would try to run away rather than just standing and surrendering? I would have thought that's a fairly standard response to that kind of situation, wherever you come from...

AFAK (and as far as the Metropolitan Police's statements are concerned) the policemen weren't in uniforms. Also, there seems to be a policy of not warning "suspect terrorists" - as they might pull the triger when they hear 'Police! Stop!'. It's not like a terrorist would care if he/she is going to be shot for not complying, and as the current police rationale goes you're better off shooting without warning. And the man who was shot was already lying on the floor.

Tahrey1043 wrote:a discussion of that sort of thing this afternoon led to the realisation that such methods of dealing with terrorists could easily be thwarted by the kind of reverse trigger so employed in terminator 2 and various other sci fi scenarios..... its also the "speed" bus-bomb principle

Precisely. A reverse-trigger thing could make the terrorists even encourage such Police action. I mean, they're suicidal anyway.

pettsy wrote:i know this is a serious discussion, but i had to laugh at that little bit :Laughing:

Hehe well that has been suggested in some media reports (that his, hmm, "extra wheight" was mistaken for a bomb-belt), and the guy's photo is all over the news. One extra reason for Brazilians to justify their fitness and plastic surgery obssessions then.

Tahrey1043 wrote:I'd be interested to see the brazilian angle on all of this once it fully crosses the atlantic - given some of the differences you can see in british and american reporting by flicking cable channels to CNN or Fox from News24 and Sky (or indeed, as SkyPlus now allows for no easily explanable reason, to Al-Jazeera to get the arabic perspective) there may be some interesting changes in angle. Any good websites that would have english language feed or be fairly understandable to a web-robot translator?

TV news have shown the man's family in a small town about 300km from where I live, they were poor and the man lived in a São Paulo shanty town for years before emigrating (which might explain his reaction to being chased by armed men).

The press is showing cases of Brazilians and South Americans in general who have met tragic ends in exile (Mexicans, Brazilians, Argentines who have drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande into the U.S., Brazilian jews who died in terror attacks in Israel, that sort of thing).

As the Brazilian press is completely right-wing (think about a country where every newspaper and TV station belongs to Rupert Murdoch's soulmantes) they're also criticizing the government for "not reacting strongly enough"/"not solving the case"/"not being able to ressucitate the man" (well they really try to throw anything at Lula, not matter how ridiculous it may sound).

I've just got back from my girlfriend's town - it was her birthday yesterday and the conversations at the party basically dealt with the shooting and violence in general, with some xenophobic comments here and there, which was very nice as you might imagine - so I haven't had the time to check anything but the BBC's Brasil pages and BBCnews.com itself (my main source for all my comments here).

It's 01:47 now, I'll check the major newspapers here and PM you (Tahrey) the links. Robot translations don't work very well with Portuguese but still that's better than nothing... There seems to be a "Brazilian Times" or something like that - an English-language newspaper covering Brazil - but I'm not sure if this could offer a truly Brazilian angle.


I should just add that the comments page on the BBC website shows some people saying that the terrorists are to be blamed for this tragedy, not the police. While this may ultimately be true**, life and death matters should never be as simple as that. If the threat of terrorism justifies abandoning the western institutional framework by allowing stressed-out policemen to trial, convict and execute an innocent man while literally "on the run" - while both were running in fact - then we're all heading for a kind of society that's not so different from a facist-extremist islamist's dream.

Of course, I live in country where the police have been shooting first and asking questions later, indiscriminately. Then again, as my mother-in-law pointed out yesterday, "we're not bombing other countries to make them follow suit". Ours is a situation no-one is proud of, and we've been fighting this and other problems for years now (well since we've been allowed to fight again, which was barely 20 years ago).

Maybe the problem is not the (sad) fact in itself, but what the world public opinion make of it. If people start thinking that the shooting of an innocent man is OK or necessary or an "unfortunate accident" (which it most certainly wasn't), then we're all in serious trouble.



** I'm EXTREMELY skeptical about that, people don't just blow themselves up for "God" or no reason or because they don't like some foreign country's political system as Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair seem to imply. However, Latin Americans are all too aware that innocent people DO die or get tortured when a foreing government doesn't like the idea of a particular political system in a country, and can count on that country's corrupt political elite to "do what's necessary to protect democracy" (military dictatorship-style democracy that is).

Not every religious zealot is willing to die for their cause. It could be argued though that zealots tend to be rather, hmm, "liberal" on the whole matter of loss of life on the perceived "other side". You can interpret that however you want.[/i]

It's coming out that the police didn't exactly act in a commendable manner - not being in full uniform, not giving him a proper warning before drawing weapons, etc

and just exactly what kind of superman needs EIGHT shots to the head from nearly point-blank range? surely one is enough?
(and why the hell, if their agenda was to stop him blowing himself up, did they get in so close?????????????)

5 officers - each firing a 'double-tap' as trained - some shots missed. Thats why the OTT killshots.

Hitting a moving arm/leg isn't as easy as it is on Time Crisis.

The flat was under surveilance anyway, guy leaves house overly dressed, you've had 4 bombs go off and 5 further bombs discovered unexploded, guys trys to get onto a crowded train at the same station the last 4 terrorists used, why so desperate to get on a train? Why not run to station security? Why do cries for help? - I really feel for the police (as tony blair said) what would have happened if a bomb had have gone off and it would have come to light that armed officers could have stopped it?

Was this his local tube station? Could have going to a different station saved his life?

It has also been mentioned that his student visa expired months ago.

Why should it matter what country he comes from? He could still be a bomber. Bit of reverse racism there - i.e. he's not from the middle east, he wont be a bomber.

The whole event reminds me of Bloody Sunday. This discussion could go on for years.