Boston Marathon: Is terrorism ever justified?

[amateur51]

1). Menezes shouldn't even have been in the country, so if he'd obeyed the law in the first place and got out when he should have done he wouldn't have been shot.

2). That apart, if an armed police officer believes that there is the slightest risk that a person is about to detonate a bomb in a crowded place, s/he has a duty to shoot to kill. Or is it better to wait for the detonation and then decide what you should have done? No doubt someone here will think that is right...

3). The chap in the taxi was believed to have had a gun. In fact he did have a gun, although he managed to get rid of it just before he was stopped, presumably to try to convince some gulllible yooman rites lawyer that he was actually a rather nice, gentle chap. Why did he have a gun? Do innocent civilians have guns?

QED. No amount of naive, woolly anti-police stuff can hide the facts.

1) Ah blame the victim - splendid start.

2) You're happy with a shoot-to-kill policy that kills an innocent man?

3) We don't know why Mark Duggan had a gun because he's dead. As Richard Barrett has already pointed out, your contention that he got rid of the gun is wrong. It was a copper who put the gun over a wall afterwards.

Not a clever post but possibly the best that can be expected under the circumstances.

[Bryn]

1) ...

3). The chap in the taxi was believed to have had a gun. In fact he did have a gun, although he managed to get rid of it just before he was stopped, presumably to try to convince some gulllible yooman rites lawyer that he was actually a rather nice, gentle chap. Why did he have a gun? Do innocent civilians have guns?

QED. No amount of naive, woolly anti-police stuff can hide the facts.

Um:

"At a pre-inquest hearing this week Ashley Underwood QC, counsel to the inquest, laid out the facts as known. No trace of Duggan's DNA has been found on the gun or sock in which it was contained, nor his fingerprints. There is no meaningful gun residue on him or his clothes."

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/ja...ery-gun-arrest

[Richard Barrett]

No amount of (...) stuff can hide the facts.

Indeed, and your post is "stuff" from start to finish. If you'd read my post and/or done any research into the subject you'd know the business about the gun, concerning which am51 has given us a helpful reminder, always assuming you trust the legal reports of the Guardian; Menezes was only followed at all (and killed) because of a failure in police intelligence, so the officers who apprehended him may well have thought he was going to set off a bomb but in fact they had no reason at all to believe that, apart from the fact that he lived at an address where some suspected terrorists (supposedly of African origin, unlike him) were resident; Menezes was lawfully in the UK at the time of his death regardless of whether his papers were in order since the law states that "a foreign citizen entering the UK through the Republic of Ireland has an automatic right to remain for three months". Anyway, are you really saying that illegal immigrants deserve whatever happens to them even if this involves being shot in the head by police? I don't think even Nigel Farage would say something like that. Shame on you.

[Mr Pee]

Indeed, and your post is "stuff" from start to finish. If you'd read my post and/or done any research into the subject you'd know the business about the gun, concerning which am51 has given us a helpful reminder, always assuming you trust the legal reports of the Guardian; Menezes was only followed at all (and killed) because of a failure in police intelligence, so the officers who apprehended him may well have thought he was going to set off a bomb but in fact they had no reason at all to believe that, apart from the fact that he lived at an address where some suspected terrorists (supposedly of African origin, unlike him) were resident; Menezes was lawfully in the UK at the time of his death regardless of whether his papers were in order since the law states that "a foreign citizen entering the UK through the Republic of Ireland has an automatic right to remain for three months". Anyway, are you really saying that illegal immigrants deserve whatever happens to them even if this involves being shot in the head by police? I don't think even Nigel Farage would say something like that. Shame on you.

I don't particularly trust the legal reports of the Guardian, since they have their own agenda and obviously skew their reporting to suit that agenda. But it is a fact that shortly before he was shot, Duggan took delivery of an illegal firearm;and that he had that illegal firearm in his possession at the time he was shot by the police. Some might say that if you are a known violent criminal who wanders the streets of London with an illegal fire arm then you must be prepared to face the possible consequences.

You contradict yourself when you talk about Menezes. On the one hand you say that he was only followed because of failures in police intelligence, and you then say that the officers involved believed he was about to set off a bomb as a result of that dodgy intelligence. Therefore, with the information they had at the time, they took the only course of action available to them to prevent what they believed to be a repeat of the 7/7 attacks.

And I don't really know how somebody can be lawfully in the UK "regardless of whether his papers were in order". If his papers weren't in order- although I'm not sure what papers you are on about- then there are reasonable grounds to assume that he was here illegally.

[amateur51]

I don't particularly trust the legal reports of the Guardian, since they have their own agenda and obviously skew their reporting to suit that agenda. But it is a fact that shortly before he was shot, Duggan took delivery of an illegal firearm;and that he had that illegal firearm in his possession at the time he was shot by the police. Some might say that if you are a known violent criminal who wanders the streets of London with an illegal fire arm then you must be prepared to face the possible consequences.

You contradict yourself when you talk about Menezes. On the one hand you say that he was only followed because of failures in police intelligence, and you then say that the officers involved believed he was about to set off a bomb as a result of that dodgy intelligence. Therefore, with the information they had at the time, they took the only course of action available to them to prevent what they believed to be a repeat of the 7/7 attacks.

And I don't really know how somebody can be lawfully in the UK "regardless of whether his papers were in order". If his papers weren't in order- although I'm not sure what papers you are on about- then there are reasonable grounds to assume that he was here illegally.

And the police who made so many mistakes and executed an innocent man don't have an agenda?

Part of the reason for the police's misidentification of de Menezes was that one of their number who was staking out the block in which de Menezes rented a flat was taking a comfort break in a bottle at the moment that de Menezes left his flat and it was panic thereafter. The police account of events leading to ther shooting changed and changed again. This has been demonstrated. The only certainty was that an innocent man was the victim of a state execution by the persuance of a shoot-to-kill policy on the London Underground :sadface:

[Richard Barrett]

I don't particularly trust the legal reports of the Guardian, since they have their own agenda and obviously skew their reporting to suit that agenda. But it is a fact that shortly before he was shot, Duggan took delivery of an illegal firearm;and that he had that illegal firearm in his possession at the time he was shot by the police. Some might say that if you are a known violent criminal who wanders the streets of London with an illegal fire arm then you must be prepared to face the possible consequences.

You contradict yourself when you talk about Menezes. On the one hand you say that he was only followed because of failures in police intelligence, and you then say that the officers involved believed he was about to set off a bomb as a result of that dodgy intelligence. Therefore, with the information they had at the time, they took the only course of action available to them to prevent what they believed to be a repeat of the 7/7 attacks.

And I don't really know how somebody can be lawfully in the UK "regardless of whether his papers were in order". If his papers weren't in order- although I'm not sure what papers you are on about- then there are reasonable grounds to assume that he was here illegally.

You aren't paying much attention, are you.
(a) Either the gun and the sock it was in bore Duggan's fingerprints or DNA, or they didn't. They didn't. It doesn't matter which newspaper you read, but if you prefer the Daily Mail you can read the same thing here.
(b) For the second time, Duggan had no criminal record. Therefore it is quite incorrect to refer to him as a "known criminal."
(c) I do not contradict myself about Menezes. The police officers who apprehended him appear to have believed he was dangerous, but they believed that because they had been given orders based on faulty intelligence (ie. based on the erroneous supposition that he had something to do with some people living in the same building whom the police had under observation). Even so, nothing in his behaviour seems to have suggested that he should be wrestled to the ground and shot eleven times.
(d) I explained what I meant about Menezes not being illegally in the UK at the time of his death. He may or may not have had a forged stamp in his passport giving him indefinite leave to remain in the UK; but at that particular time he had entered the UK from the Republic of Ireland not long previously, which meant that under the Common Travel Area agreement he was in the UK legally regardless of whether the stamp was a forgery. This is not a matter of "reasonable grounds" but of facts and law.

[Pabmusic]

1). Menezes shouldn't even have been in the country, so if he'd obeyed the law in the first place and got out when he should have done he wouldn't have been shot...

Unbelievable. Instead of acknowledging that this was a terrible case of mistaken identity (even if you don't agree that it was a reprehensible one) you seek to disparage the victim. The wholly innocent, unarmed, unsuspicious victim. You are blaming him for somehow being responsible for the incident. "If he'd obeyed the law in the first place and got out when he should have done he wouldn't have been shot." If he'd not gone out of his home that morning... If his mother'd never given birth to him...

The fact is, he was there. He was not a suspect. He was not armed. He did not run from police (as initially reported). He did not jump the barrier (as initially reported). He was not wearing a bulky jacket that might have concealed a bomb (as initially reported). But he was killed nonetheless. And it was his own fault for being in the country illegally (if he was).

Shameful.

[Richard Barrett]

he was there. He was not a suspect. He was not armed. He did not run from police (as initially reported). He did not jump the barrier (as initially reported). He was not wearing a bulky jacket that might have concealed a bomb (as initially reported). But he was killed nonetheless. And it was his own fault for being in the country illegally (if he was).

Which at that moment he wasn't.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally "anti-police" about suggesting that the Menezes incident was the reault of catastrophic incompetence on the part of the officers involved. I'm sure we would all prefer to live in a situation where we feel we can trust the police to do their job, and that isn't going to come about by making excuses for disasters like that,

[Pabmusic]

Which at that moment he wasn't.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally "anti-police" about suggesting that the Menezes incident was the reault of catastrophic incompetence on the part of the officers involved. I'm sure we would all prefer to live in a situation where we feel we can trust the police to do their job, and that isn't going to come about by making excuses for disasters like that,

Exactly. :ok:

[MrGongGong]

I don't know
you turn your back and the squire comes back peddling the same old nonsense :yikes:

It's obvious that we should arm the police and give them instructions to shoot on sight ANYONE who breaks ANY law
so cycling on the pavement
paying you council tax bill a day late (lets have some death squads to mop up those folk)
why not kill everyone who listens to Jazz while you are at it ?

The simple (for the Amber Valley squire and chums) fact
is that an innocent man was murdered by the police on the tube
who then were allowed to get away with it with no prosecution

it' shames our whole system
it doesn't make you "anti police"
and it doesn't mean that people who commit other terrorist acts are somehow right
but it's simply wrong to allow murderers to get away with it regardless of who they are........

I seem to remember another incident in the North of Ireland where the state murdered innocent people and was allowed to cover it up with no prosecution and look how much peace , understanding and goodwill THAT generated .......

[Boilk]

I realise this is a bit offtopic, but since arming the police in the UK often comes up when terrorism is being discussed: in 2011, one person (Mark Duggan) was shot dead by police in the UK; in 2012, 583 people were shot dead by police in the USA.

And last week Amercians in the Boston suburb of Watertown probably did NOT get shot at by police because they subjected themselves to the humiliating treatment of SWAT team-enforced door-to-door searches of their homes ... twenty blocks' worth of homes as the entire town was placed under orders to stay off the streets. And business were forced to shut down because a teenager was on the loose. Evidently the American Constitution is a worthless bit of paper.

This resident-shot video shows "law" enforcement personnel barking orders at families, ordering them (at gunpoint) to raise their hands above heads, identify themselves, and get out of their own homes. They are then ordered to run up the street and be frisked by police as militarized cops look on. Was it much different to this in 1940s Nazi Germany?

http://youtu.be/2LrbsUVSVl8

And Mr. Obama says: "The American people refuse to be terrorized"
Some of them didn't have a choice last week.

[MrGongGong]

"Nothing to hide, Nothing to fear" (Edward Peester 2012)

[Serial_Apologist]

And last week Amercians in the Boston suburb of Watertown probably did NOT get shot at by police because they subjected themselves to the humiliating treatment of SWAT team-enforced door-to-door searches of their homes ... twenty blocks' worth of homes as the entire town was placed under orders to stay off the streets. And business were forced to shut down because a teenager was on the loose. Evidently the American Constitution is a worthless bit of paper.

This resident-shot video shows "law" enforcement personnel barking orders at families, ordering them (at gunpoint) to raise their hands above heads, identify themselves, and get out of their own homes. They are then ordered to run up the street and be frisked by police as militarized cops look on. Was it much different to this in 1940s Nazi Germany?




And Mr. Obama says: "The American people refuse to be terrorized"
Some of them didn't have a choice last week.

Pretty brave to have taken that footage, under the circs. One glance up by the uniformed boys and they would have found some excuse.

[eighthobstruction]

On all the news reports I have heard (and I only listen to radio for news), there seemed to be a real overkill of lethal ordinance at the time of the final arrest....

[Russ_H]

And last week Amercians in the Boston suburb of Watertown probably did NOT get shot at by police because they subjected themselves to the humiliating treatment of SWAT team-enforced door-to-door searches of their homes ... twenty blocks' worth of homes as the entire town was placed under orders to stay off the streets. And business were forced to shut down because a teenager was on the loose. Evidently the American Constitution is a worthless bit of paper.

Given a free hand, and assuming you were responsible for law enforcement in the town in question, how would
you have tackled the problem?