I'm not sure that a clear warning would have made a difference; even before the incident on Friday (which was a tragedy, make no mistake, for both the man and the police) there was a lot of speculation about so called 'shoot to kill' orders & the way to deal with suicide bomber in the papers & on TV.

We will never know for certain WHY this man ran from the police under the circumstances he found himself in. So even if there had been a clear policy statement, we will never know if he would have seen it and/or heeded it.

I agree, a clear policy statement should be issued now, if it is felt one is needed, but it seems pointless to speculate on whether it would have happened if one had been issued.

> I'm not sure that a clear warning would have made a difference

Hardly the point. If someone fails to react to your warning, that's their fault; if you fail to warn them, it's yours.

Let's be clear guys, this dude was not an illegal immigrant, he was not wearing a heavy coat, he did not jump over the ticket barrier (but entered with a regular ticket). The police has admitted all this in the course of changing their story several times over the last week.

After entering the underground system at some point he was "attacked" by a group of 3 men brandishing guns (not in uniform) and bolted for it - not surprising as it is in a rough part of London and given he had been mugged a few weeks earlier.

(Incidentally the train driver also thought it was a gun crime and made a dash for it and came within a split second of being killed as well, presumably it dawned on the goons at the last minute that he was wearing a train driver's uniform.)

The police were watching someone in the flat above de Menezes, a Pakistani. de Menezes was Brazilian not Asian and not that dark skinned. (I assume the Asian being watched has been lost track of - no one seems to have picked up on this).

The police seemed to have assumed an olive skinned guy emerging from the block was the suspect simply because he vaguely fitted their description and lived in the same block of flats which is why they trailed him on a crowded bus for 20 minutes?

General view seems to be that when he arrived at the station the police tail sent message to his control that suspect was at the station and they somehow relayed this to gun squad in Stockwell station itself that he was a possible suicide bomber.

Gun squad (placed there as known haunt of suspects) then leapt out in plain clothes brandishing their guns. No wonder the poor sod was terrified. He ran to the train, tripped over the sill and fell on the carriage floor then one of them unloaded his gun into him from the back in front of the terrified passengers.

Not a nice story is it? Who is safe in London on that basis? (Just to say that before this happened we did not even know the police are not routinely armed and do not routinely rush about with guns in plain clothes. If a shoot to kill policy had been put in place after 7/7 or as I turns out 2 years earlier, we should have been told. In fact it is not at all clear that it was legal to put it in place in the way it was done, in secret, 2 years ago. )

Infact they could have stunned him with a taser - UK police have tasers which work from 21 feet and shoot darts which do not explode on entry. Explosive experts interviewed on TCV after the Birminghan suspect was arrested earlier today said firing tasers into the suspect would not normally set off a suicide bomb.) , Word on the block is that it is a monumental foul up and not really the fault of the marksman who was given wrong information by his commander via his ear piece.

It was hushed up initially for around 3 hours after it happened until they could brief the Moslem leaders, but de Menezes's cousin's courageous stand has dragged the real facts out into the open. Now every respectable under 30 male with an olive skin in London is in fear of his life on the underground and elsewhere too.

Yeah, I think I agree with all of that, apart from your opening comment about his not being an illegal immigrant — I don't disagree with the fact, but I disagree with your implication that it's in any way relevant to the case. If he had been in the country illegally, would that make this mistake less bad?

The police have badly fucked up their first attempt to act on a policy which is nevertheless essentially right.