If nothing else, it does show a certain change in attitude on the part of London law enforcement -- very "cowboy" like, to use the derogatory term so many in Europe seem to throw out when referring to the American strategy of using violence in a pre-emptive manner.

Didn't the British issue a shoot-to-kill directive after 7/7 to minimize the damage that a would-be suicide bomber could do?

Whether it is good or bad police training, it is one more dead terrorist who didn't have the chance to kill innocent people. That is good enough for me.

Having a suicide bomber down and surrounded, and then shooting him, is good training. Having some poor schlub down and surrounded, and then shooting him, may not be so good. We'll have to wait and see.

David - Then it's not the quality of training, but the quality of officer's judgment, which is in question. Surely the training calls for shooting suicide bombers and sparing schlubs.

"I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."

I suppose it's possible he was just some poor schlub on his way to a really early Halloween party. Or a performance artist with a really, really poor sense of the police's appreciation for his art. Or a would-be suicide bomber.

there are reports that this man was one of the people invovled in yesterday's bombings, and that the police had been following him from his home. he had many chances to stop and not get shot, but chose to have his brains splattered instead.

"He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him."

I had wondered about the atypically low shots to kill ratio and whether the London police were that much better shots than Chicago's finest.

What's different about suicide bombers is that, in a crowd, you have to shoot them even if they're down. That is contrary to every other bit of training the police are given. So, this may mean that they've been retrained specifically to deal with terrorists, or it might mean that in the heat of the moment they lost sight of their basic police training.

b: The other witness, who claims to have been closer, says he didn't see any bomb and that the man had on a heavy winter coat, which was closed. I wouldn't bet anyone's life on either one of them, given the unreliability of eye-witnesses in this sort of circumstance. Note, for example, the difference in the number of shots fired.

Rick -- Although I'm not sure about their antiterrorism force, most London cops are not armed. Only certain officers can carry guns, and they can carry them only in certain situations. In other words, unlike New York or Chicago, probably only one or two of the Bobbies had guns, and thus we have only 5 shots rather than 40.

i would not be surprised if the shooters in this case were sas members and not the general police. this has many similarities to the operation against the ira, in gibraltar, after the ira went after the tory leadership at brighton.

"but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox"

Fox hunting has been banned in England, but they may have found a superior substitute.

Patrick:

only fox hunting using dogs. Using the old bill its fine.

David:

A further clarification from telecon with London this morning. He says that that over there they are only issued a few bullets and not only have to account for them all but extract them from the b*st*rd, pound them back into shape and load them up again. ;-)

The old rule from cops and robbers movies was the order: stop or I'll shoot. If the suspect doesn't stop, they shouldn't surprised if they get shot, preferably not shot dead, but sometimes that can't be helped either.

I hope law enforcement people who are putting their lives on the line aren't hauled before some politically correct IA kangaroo court and disciplined for discharging their weapon, but I wouldn't be surprised by it either.

I believe that's what they call threat neutralization. Bravo. BTW, the specificity and detail of this piece was wonderful and serves to highlight what drab crapcan journalism we Yanks put up with.

the armed police have been given shoot to kill orders.

I don't want to ride this too hard, because I'd bet that the police did everything right (though if they really had his house staked out but still let him get into a train, that might be a problem). The BBC story, however, makes it sound like the guy tripped, was on the ground, was surrounded by cops, and then one of the cops reached down with his gun and killed the guy. If you don't have good reason to believe that he's wearing a bomb, that's murder. (And haven't these bombers ever heard of a dead-man switch?)

Mr. Cohen;

How would a dead man switch work, exactly? Heart rate monitor? I think that standard type dead man switches would be a net negative from all of the premature detonations.

Why not just a switch in his hand that detonates the bomb if he stops squeezing. Sure, you'll get some premature explosions, but there are likely to be at least some infidels around.

"If you don't have good reason to believe that he's wearing a bomb"???

What does it take to have a good reason? It's July for flip's sake. And he's wearing a winter jacket. He was a suspect and he ran from the police onto a crowded train. Sounds good enough to me.

Who would wear an overcoat in July?

A homeless person.

Who would run from the cops?

Ditto.

Or a bomber.

David's reticence is admirable but not very useful if you're a cop in London.

Gotta fish where the fish are. They're not in tube stations.

The officers were plainclothesman. What would you do if men in street clothes pulled guns on you? Invite them to tea? Or run?

Rick,

You mean after they say 'POLICE! Stop you're under arrest! And then they produce the appropriate documentation.'

But then I suspect you light candles for Mamadou Diallo.

If he didn't have a bomb, then he was a decoy sent out by his handlers for who knows what reason.

Er, put my hands up and not run. Is this a trick question Rick?

KB and he was "asian"

Excellent work by the Metropolitan Police, in taking this guy down. In my own experience while living in the UK was that most of the armed officers are prior service from Her Majesty’s Forces. A friend of mine who retired from the Royal Marines is a weapons instructor with the Met.

A perfect war: they want to die, and we want to kill them.

One less Brazilian to threaten civilization.

David's circumspection was prudent.

They'll never control terrorism this way, even if they had gotten a real one. Got to clean out the mosques.

The reaction of the peace-loving mullahs was diagnostic, wasn't it.