And, shot him in the head to avoid exploding any vest-bomb. In Great Britain, when armed police tell you to stop, you better do it...and be liberal with the word "Sir"!

When Israel does that sort of thing, it is diplomatically chastised for being barbaric, violating human rights, etc. But when the rubber meets the road, suicidal Europe does come to its senses and realize that such things are the cruel necessity of dealing with a people and ideology that sees civilians as equivalent to enemy soldiers.

Don't bleed the issue for the convenience of unthought and knee jerk. If the UK police officer had no immediate grounds to believe there was a bomb before he or she shot, he or she will be arrested themselves. There is no such thing as "cruel justice" - just justice. Remember that the UK is running a trial against its own soliders for war crimes for actions in Iraq.

Given the rarity of British police being armed I wonder how long it has been since the last time they used fatal force.

I know. Whenever I think of British police, I think of that old Robin Williams routine... "In Britain, the police don't have a gun, and you don't have a gun. "Stop! Or else I'll say 'stop' again!'"

Today's incident sort of, um... blows away that image...

Rather then British police, plain clothes special forces are suspected to have taken this piece of crap down...and probably were watching him, hoping to be led to his other 3 buddies(Even bobbies trained to use firearms might flinch at having to take that necessary headshot - SAS guys would not hesitate, and Scotland Yard knows it).When he made a move to the tube, the jig was up. With this example of how they will be treated, the other 3 pose a real high risk to London right now...very dangerous time there.

Much as I might theoretically deplore the fraying edges of civil rights, I think we've moved beyond what would be nice in a perfect world, in into the reality that hey, we really ARE at war and our expectations of the extent to which the niceities of human rights are applied ought to be adjusted. If this kind of thing happens enough, sooner or later they're going to tip the body over with a toe and see it's a young kid ... with a rucksack full of science fair project. And that will be tragic. But life has changed, and my family's safety is more important to me than somebody else's outrage over being searched because he looks a certain way.

Slippery slope? Possibly. Alternatives? None. Can't even say "Let's just give them what they want," because what they want is for innocent people to die.

Five shots to the head? Make it ten, thanks. And God, if you're listening ... a lil tsunami action down around Guantanamo Bay would be kinda like a long, satisfying flush.

Shoot first, get court-martialed or charged later.

Much as I complain about it, the justice system does work things out in most cases.

<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1697662_3,00.html" target="blank">FYI</a>:Explaination of the new rules of engagement.

Interesting. I have not seen reference again to the report of an Anthony Larkin I quoted above about the wires on the man shot in the head. The Times now says this:<blockquote class="smalltext">When they drew their weapons and shouted "Stop, armed police", the man looked over his shoulder and bolted. He was described as being very fit and agile. After the suspect had been shot police sent a robot to examine the man, because of fears that any device could still prove a danger. But it is understood that no device was found. Police are describing him as an "intimate accomplice of the cell". His name and address were thought to have been found among the possessions left by the would-be bombers on Thursday. </blockquote>

Maybe I'm too liberal; I've never been in a violent situation and only ever once have I seen somebody get hurt in front of me. But once a guy is down on the ground, is shooting him five times really necessary? I suppose he might have had a trigger device in his hand... was there anything else they could have done? I don't know, and I'm not in a position to know. I find myself reflexively sort of shocked though, and I'm sorry Nils, but I can't shrug off this sort of thing: human rights are <I>rights</I>, not just some vague concept that can be altered with the circumstances. If lots of people were going to be hurt, or if the police seriously believed that this guy was a bomber who was at that moment going to detonate himself then I can see that their actions were justifiable. But I will not stand up and applaud them.

Hooray for the good guys. Let's all engage in some nice comfy online back-slappery, shall we? What's that? He wasn't a terrorist? Oh. Well he shouldn't have run anyways. Right? If he had nothing to hide, then there is no reason to run. Unless, of course, you count the exponetially higher chance of getting five slugs in the head just because your skin is the wrong colour and cops happen to make you nervous. Come to think of it, there's some damned compelling reasons to run. But hey, it's not like they're going to do it to me. I'm white and avoid public transit. SO a hearty thumbs up! What the hell, it's a small price to pay for freedom. Or something.

I'm with 'nee here. When I heard about this I thought, doesn't sound like they had time to find anything out about this guy. That means a lot of car thieves, dope smokers and people who panic easily could find themselves in the same situation, which also means some are going to get shot to death because they looked the part and they ran. But now I guess I'm thinking: this is somebody’s precious boy we were happy to see killed for no reason. That's pretty bad.