Reassuring

I'm not sure why anyone should feel safer now as they travel around the UK. On the one hand there are terrorist cells plotting to blow you up and on the other hand there are highly trained law enforcement officers who are prepared to dish out summary execution if they suspect that you pose a threat to them or the people around you.

The eye witness reports that followed the shooting of an innocent 27 year old Brazilian on the Underground last Friday were horrendous. Two men pin him down while a third fires five shots from point blank range into his head.

Today UK residents are told that they should put themselves in the position of the police officers before they judge them. Yes they can do that but they can also put themselves in the position of the innocent victim.

You are an electrician. On Friday morning you leave home and travel by bus to Stockwell Tube Station. A group of up to 20 armed men in jeans stop you outside the station. They are armed but not in uniform. You decide to run and seek safety in the station. The end result is well documented. Eventually the police issue a statement establishing your innocence and regretting the tragedy.

Presumably the police were acting on intelligence information. Intelligence in the UK seems to be based on the principle of "I think something might be true, therefore it is". I think that guy looks suspiciously like he might be a suicide bomber because he is wearing a baggy fleece in the middle of a UK Summer and might have bombs strapped to his body so I will shoot him five times in the head, just in case.

The biggest and swiftest moving investigation ever carried out by police in Britain. One innocent and terrified 27 year old Brazilian male, shot five times in the head in front of horrified passengers on a London tube train, by the most highly trained and experienced members of SO19. Reassuring?

If the guy was thought to be a potential suicide bomber and a serious threat to the police and to people around him, why was he allowed to leave the building and then, unchallenged, to board a London bus to travel to Stockwell station?

If I had been a passenger on that bus, I would not feel reassured at all.