And you know what? The police had been watching his house, as it was apparently where a suspect lived - but they didn't realise the house was divided into flats, so when he came out of his flat, having nothing to do with anything, they just assumed he had something to do with the suspect. I mean, Christ, what kind of 'intelligence' are they working on? About 60% of houses in London are divided into flats, and in cheaper areas like Stockwell it's probably more like 80%....
Also, they let him get on a bus from his house to Stockwell station... what???
People might not be aware that in San Paolo, where this guy had lived, the government operate Death Squads, plain clothes guys who go around shooting poor people to 'clean up the streets'. I mean, he's not going to have thought that there were death squads in England, but it's still gonna make you jumpy when a load of guys pull guns on you and start chasing...
It proves why the British police shouldn't be allowed to carry weapons - they can't be trusted with them. US cops can be trigger happy, but at least they're used to carrying a gun, keeping it safe, knowing when to use it etc etc. The British guys have just done a few weeks' training, they don't usually carry a firearm, so when they've got one they get jumpy and nervous and tend to shoot way too easily. You also get stuff like pumping seven bullets into the head of a restrained man - if that guy shooting wasn't just in a blind panic, then why did he not stop after, say, the third bullet? I'm not just saying all the London police are meatheads - my mate's brother is in the Met and he says exactly the same thing. It's to do with being put in a situation you're not properly ready for.
Sure, they've got to carry guns if there are suicide bombers on the loose, but giving them a shoot-to-kill policy is madness. The last time this was tried was in Northern Ireland, and it was a total disaster, even by the admission of the security forces there. You end up killing people's grannies and stuff, while the blokes you're actually after get away. But it seems the lessons of British history are being ignored, because the UK government is taking security advice from the fucking Israeli security forces.... I mean, even leaving aside the politics of Israel/Palestine (to avoid the inevitable argument about THAT), you can hardly argue that the way the IDF operates has been a roaring success...
