It sucks, but I don't know if the police officers acted wrongly.

From what I've read the police approached him, identified themselves, issued commands, and he ran toward a full train. What else would the police think? After one successful and one failed terrorist attacks on their subway system, people should be smarter than to try to run away from police toward a crowded train. If I were one of the officers, I probably would have thought he was a terrorist as well.

Moral of the story? Don't run from the police.

That's a bummer. Assuming is an accident, I'm sorry for him and the cop that shot him, living with something like that would be tough.

~ K

Another article gave more detail about how the suspected bomber actually died. Apparently one officer tackled the suspect and another opened fire while he held the suspect down. He was wearing a very heavy jacket on a hot day and I don't think it was unreasonable to conclude that he had a bomb on given the context of his actions. If I thought someone was about to blow himself up and take me and others with it I wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger either. And I definately wouldn't wallow in self-pity or regret afterwards.

If the officer hadn't pulled the trigger and the suspect had turned out to be a bomber we wouldn't be worried about the officer's feelings; we'd be worried about his widowed family and others. I think your head is in the wrong place if all you're thinking about here is emotion and feelings. It's a common liberal stigma that doesn't really help in a situation like this. Sometimes you've just got to make a decision with cold logic. You can't hesitate when lives are on the line.

Edit:

Well, I thought about writing something, but I might as well not even bother.

Since when has concern for officers been construed as liberal?

~K

It's the natural liberal response to think of any issue in terms of the emotional impact on those involved rather than the cold hard reality of it. As long as everyone FEELS good, or FEELS confident, the actual truth is irrelevant. Not to say that we should completely ignore the emotional side of an issue either; there are situations that merit both responses. It was meant as more of a general observation on the political spectrum than a specific attack. But please don't hold yourself back regardless.

Personally I think it's interesting that I naturally assumed you were a liberal when I found out a few minutes ago in the Border thread that you claim to be a moderate when responding to similar assumptions.

Indeed, it is interesting that you assumed I am a liberal, as I am clearly moderate. How did what I say conflict with the actual truth? It was probably an accident, which I don't know about most people, but I for one would feel terrible for killing an innocent person, just stating that.

Conservative on fiscal policy (at least I was, it seems now that both sides of the aisle want to spend and cut taxes), liberal on certain values (death penalty, abortion), conservative on certain values (right to free expression of religion, controlled immigration).

~K

See, that's what initially triggered my response. You seem to assume that the officer should feel guilty for what he did; that he did the wrong thing. He shouldn't because he didn't. And it was definately not an accident. The suspect was shot five times at close range with at least one hitting in the head. They shot to kill with the intent to stop him from detonating a bomb. Every sign pointed to the imminent danger of the situation and if they had merely shot to disable the suspect he would have been an even greater danger given the assumption that he was a bomber. There is nothing here to feel terrible about.

As for the rest of your post, you actually sound somewhat like a libertarian.

The point wasn't that he should feel guilty about what he did, he was doing his job. To later find out that the guy wasn't a suicide bomber though had to be a real bummer, as his job is to uphold the law.

Terrorists seem to have a nasty habit of doing damage even after their attacks.

~K

Well I might be off on this but I don't think the officers will lose much sleep over it. Maybe I'm just a heartless bastard, but I think the guy was asking for it. They asked him to stop in the first place because he was on their watchlist. He lived in the same apartment building as the previous suicide bombers. That doesn't make him guilty of anything, but the combination of recent news, the way he was dressed, and his blatant disregard for the police as they chased him over a turnstile and onto a subway platform culminated with the justifiably bloody end of a very suspicious incident. And these weren't rent-a-cops with batons, either. They were carrying submachine guns. When a man with a machine gun orders you to stop running or be shot, you stop.

If nothing else, this was Darwinism in action.

Indeed. That I can agree with.

~K

I would like to point out that at the bottom of the article it does say that they were plain clothes cops. Hopefully they still said they were cops, but if not, you can't really fault a guy when some random stranger comes up to him and says stop. Does anyone else have links to other articles?

Of course, he could have been a "feeler" to determine how aware the police were, whether there were plainclothes police at all, or to cause them to doubt themselves so the next terrorist attack may succeed while the officers dither deciding whether or not to shoot.

Well, newer reports have confirmed that the guy was in the UK on an expired visa.

So now you have a motive for running from the cops. "If they catch me, they'll deport me."

Personally, I don't think they would have been so quick to shoot the guy if his skin wasn't brown. Just a thought.