Make your land like ours!

[Tarbicus]

Apparently, without being able to get advice, they had orders to shoot?

They couldn't get advice from the specialist, but they could from Central Command who changed the operation from Surveillance to something like Code Red which makes it an armed response operation.

And since they weren't the officers that were able to make a good call, does that not mean that every cop with a gun and unable to get good advice on the spot, can and will shoot anyone of which he has a notion they might be suspect?

Probably, to be honest. And if an armed policeman believes someone is about to blow up a busy train then more than probably. In the UK the police aren't actually required to give a warning, but always will if no lives are immediately at stake.

Sincerely? Maybe, but based on what intelligence? Remember, there was apparently just one officers who actually knew anything, they were just the support team. Remember, there was apparently just one officers who actually knew anything, they were just the support team. The criticism about this case is this that - they acted without prpoer intellingence. What remains unclear is what their orders were exactly, because a 'shoot to kill any suspect' standing order would be very damaging to the police, not to mention the ministry of the interior or the justice department (correct names?).

Now, I think I have to disagree with you. What that means is the police must forsake split second decisions for the sake of PR. And don't forget that hesitation could cost many innocent lives instead of just one.

The whole thing was a no win situation. Jean Charles de Menezes was damned if they did, but the police felt that many many others were damned if they didn't. All it took was for a specialist needing to answer the call of nature, and unfortunately that kind of thing happens, and always will. Even if that kind of problem is addressed something else will happen that nobody would ever expect, it's Murphy's Law - "If something can go wrong it will, and at the worst possible time."

Yet if we can't trust the police to keep a clear head and not start shooting when they panic, can we be safe at all? The police have the monopoly on legal violence, yet these days it's apparently normal that innocent civilians may be arrested, held without trial, even tortured and shot, if that saves the lives of other innocent civials. A hard choice to make.

I don't think that applies in this individual case, although I agree about other aspects of what you say. If the terrorists hadn't blown people up in trains and a bus, and then tried again, Jean Charles de Menezes would be alive today. Likewise, if the terrorists hadn't done what they did, and I believe even if the house had been under surveillance anyway by armed police, he would also be alive today - The terrorists were the root cause of his very tragic death.