"Shoot-to-kill" policy continues unabashed

The London Metropolitan Police has a 100% failure record in its shoot-to-kill policy. The only time it has been used, since its adoption with no public statement earlier this year, it killed an innocent man.

Officers killed that innocent man under incredible circumstances. We now know the only thing which connected the late Jean de Menezes with the July 2005 London bombings was that he happened to live in the same apartment block as the suspect. But we have been fed a web of deceit created by the police force:

• The murdered man was positively identified as one of the bombers: he was not. The police officer who might have given an identification was appartently on a toilet break.
• The murdered man was wearing a long, thick coat which could have concealed bombs strapped around his body: he was not. He was wearing a light denim jacket.
• The murdered man ran from police when challenged, jumped over the ticket barrier and took flight: he did not. He used his season ticket to pass through the ticket barrier. He did not run at all until he found a train already on the platform, from when he ran aboard.
• The murdered man could have set off a bomb had he been carrying one: of course he could not. He half-fell and was half-pushed to the ground by the police officers in pursuit. A falling man puts his hands out to break his fall, and as an innocent man that is undoubtedly what he will have done. In that circumstance it is quite impossible for him to trigger any device. And in any case, we now understand that he was being held by one or more officer(s) at the time he was shot.

The murdered man was shot 7 times to the head at close range; and then the Met' Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair told a news conference they had an air ambulance on the scene, but he was found to be dead!!

And today we are told by an unapologetic Commissioner that his policy stands. He justifies it by saying this is the same policy:

"If somebody was holding a 10-year-old child with a knife to the child's neck and is about to start cutting the child's head off, the only shot available might be to the head, in which case that's what would be done."

It's difficult to see how somebody who can be clearly seen to be a clear and present threat to a child can be compared to someone who has not been seen or effectively judged to be any threat at all. The only thing that John Menenzes did at the tube station that day which in any way distinguished himself from any other passenger on the station was to die a violent, unprovoked and callous death.

Well, it seems that we need to see more murders on the grounds of counter-terrorism... one a day, if possible, for as long as it takes for the public to realise that the next victim of the shoot-to-kill policy could and may well be them. It seems it will take politicians intent on creating a police state the absolute assurance of being flung from office to get any sense back into counter-terrorist policy.