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back to article The broken terror systems that killed de Menezes

Killers were on the loose and, to quote Friday's Guardian, "terrible risks had to be balanced... it flowed from this that something might go terribly wrong." Except, as the Stockwell One report into the de Menezes shooting makes clear, that's not exactly what it flowed from, and given the systems in place on the day, "might" …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @ "There are only, so far as I can see, two possibilities approaching a suicide bomber ..."

    "There are only, so far as I can see, two possibilities approaching a suicide bomber. He can be dead before the bomb goes off, or dead after it.

    "The only way of even securing the possibility of no bomb going off is to ensure he's dead. After all, it's not like he's going to say, "I was going to blow myself up, but they've shot me. Drat!" is it?

    "I therefore conclude instant death is the only logical possible response by the authorities. How anyone can say this approach is logically flawed is obviously using a different form of logic to any of the forms I'm aware of. Optimistic logic perhaps?"

    Can you put that in your will/final documents? It'll save your family some time in court, to make your stance known should you ever be SHOT DEAD because the police think you are someone you aren't?

    Because, as you said, it is better for the police to not take the chances.

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  2. Mark Rainer
    Flame

    Re:- Dead man switch...

    sure it's trivially easy to make and although it's less easy to make reliable, they don't seem to be too bothered by poor reliability. Considering possible malfunctions brings (as Douglas Adams might have said) a new meaning to the term 'fail-safe' that we haven't previously come across. It may be that the safest way to stop such a device from detonating is what they call a controlled explosion - actually a few hundred ccs of water propelled into the wiring at supersonic speed. This can only be done from point-blank range so it may require insane volunteers.

    Someone hereabouts also suggested that a tazer was less likely to fire a detonator than most people think. I'm sure that's true but again, a tazer detector would be trivially easy to make.

    As to problems of attitudes within the Met, I certainly don't think that the guy who pulled the trigger needs to be singled out for special blame but I have to admit to some disappointment at learning that he's still carrying a gun. Neither do I think that Sir Ian Blair's resignation would be a particularly good thing for two reasons: firstly he was only in post for six months before DeMenezes was killed - having taken over some time after the institution of the shoot-to-kill policy; secondly I can't imagine that any likely successor would be an improvement in any worthwhile way.

    Am I the only one who is annoyed to hear that officers who carry firearms loaded with Dum-dum bullets have been "specially trained"? Disregarding the Mossad thing, WTF does that mean? Who trains the trainers? Does the syllabus include recognising a suicide bomb?

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    One other point, not wholly relevant

    Yep, they held him down and shot him 7 times in the head. Why did it need 7 bullets, btw? And how come there's very little said about the 8th bullet, which from a distance of... holding him down, managed to miss the head and hit his shoulder. Special training? I'll say...

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  4. Brett
    Coat

    hmm add on the side

    Other white papers

    "Hitting the moving target of opperational excelence"

    Oh the AddBot has a sence of irony.

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  5. david Silver badge

    "Tazer does not generate enough current to activate most detonators."

    Not this furphy again!

    M18 Taser: 133mA IRMS, 1.76 J/pulse

    M26 Taser: 162mA IRMS, 1.76 J/pulse.

    That's well over the safe limit for most detonators.

    http://www.tbotech.com/taser-specifications.htm

    http://www.lintonpolice.com/equipment.htm

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  6. Hollerith

    Excitable boys (and girls)

    I've been in a crisis (suspected gunman) and have seen people ramp themselves up, get self-important, mis-hear, want a drama, get swept up intheir own drama, and everyone gets excited and sloppy. Police like to *do* things, take actions, and in combatting terrorism it's mostly a case of listening to snitches. This is not fun. Running around with guns shouting into two-way radioes is fun. Being in a command centre is fun. Weird fun, but fun in the way soldiers can love battle. So it seems that everyone got carried away, got rattled, and did something bad.

    The worst of it was it instant heaping of lies onto the dead Mr Menezes' head. We were left for a long time thinking that he ran, vaulted the barrier, was wearing a suspiciously bulky coat and so on. These were all deliberate lies. This is where the police truly showed that they could not be trusted. I wouldn't give them a water pistol, let alone anything with bullets in it. The only guy who has *really* stopped a 'terrorist' in his tracks was that chap at the Glasgow airport. No command centres there, just a 'no way, mate' and a tackle.

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  7. Simon Lyon
    Thumb Up

    Always enjoy your reasoned take on "security" matters

    As someone who in a past life had a semi-professional involvement in things that go bang (mostly the handheld variety) and things that go boom (generally attached to doors and doorframes or thrown inside after said obstacles have been removed) ...

    It's great to read stories on these matters from someone who understands that the words "gun" and "bomb" mean very little unless you can explain exactly what you're talking about. Which the "meeja" seldom do.

    It's exactly the same as most stories involving drugs: "He was a drug user."

    Fine. Opiates, stimulants, psychedelics, cannabinoids, steroids, what? A couple of lines at the weekend or going the whole Pete Docherty?

    Same thing with your great deconstruction of the "liquids on planes=bombs" debacle. "So exactly what *kind* of bomb could, allegedly, be produced."

    Keep up the good work!

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  8. Simon Lyon

    Mark Rainer - the "dum dum bullets" issue is something of a red herring

    The point of "expanding ammunition/rounds" - dum-dums in the vernacular - is not, as many people believe, that they kill people better. And are therefore indicative of a shoot-to-kill policy.

    The point is that they deliver more instantaneous impact to the target they're aimed at - increasing the chances that said target will immediately lose interest in what they were doing and fall over.

    It's about overloading the nervous system - a-la tasers.

    It's the flipside of another misconception - that "fully-jacketed" rounds are used by armed forces because they're more "humane".

    In an armed conflict, it's much better (from a logistical standpoint) to only wound, NOT kill, as many of the enemy as possible. Thus taking them out of the fighting while causing the enemy to use up valuable resources caring for them.

    Expanding rounds on the other hand are not intrinsically intended to kill/not-kill, wound/not-wound - they're intended to immediately "stop" the target.

    I'm not excusing the entire encyclopedia of screwups that the led to Mr Menezes death in any way. But, IMHO, the choice of ammunition wasn't one of them. Expanding ammo is precisely the right choice if you aim to instantly shut down someone with their finger on a button.

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