[lbo-talk] Shot dead in London

[Gar Lipow]

On 7/27/05, Richard  Harris <rhh1 at clara.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> It seems to me that if in the circumstances as the police believed them to
> be (will say they believed them to be), they thought killing was necessary,
> it makes no sense to question the amount of force used in the killing (one
> shot, five shots, eight shots).
> 
> Many contributors to this threat have pointed to many anomalies in the
> police account that we currently have.  In the light of those, it seems that
> there are some grounds for wondering whether the police did have an honest
> belief that they were following a suicide bomber, as opposed to being
> paniced when the victim did a runner at a tube station and the police then
> shot him to stop him.

Not a lawyer, and not  British - so the police may be completely
untouchable legally on this issue; I'm not in a position to know that
one way or another. But their actions were not reasonable.

There have been a number of really horrible blame-the-victim
accusations made (to be mostly not by you or on this list.) But I just

 wanted to post this link, because  it pretty much answers any claims
that there was a shadow of moral  justification for what  was done:

http://tinyurl.com/8w9e3