Shoot to kill: A policy that was DOA?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Alright, let's get everyone up to speed on the embarassment that is Britain's shoot to kill terror suspects policy:

After the first subway bombings in London, British police enacted a shoot to kill policy for anyone they credibly felt was a suicide bombing threat. Shortly after the second bombing attempt, that policy was put into use...with embarassing results.

A man was shot and killed in the London Underground by police. Tony Blair quickly came out and said that he was "directly linked" to the failed bombing attempt. Well, it turns out that he was Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent electrician from Brazil. But wait, it's okay, because the police have a plausible explanation for why they shot. He was observed leaving a location that had been under surveilance because the address was on a paper in one of the backpacks recovered at the scene of the failed bombings. He was wearing a heavy jacket, despite rather warm weather. He hopped the turnstyle, was acting susiciously, and failed to respond to officers when they confronted him and told him to stop. Clearly a threat, right?

Well, surveilance footage from the underground tells a different story. The footage shows wearing a simple denim jacket not a large bulky one, buying a newspaper, walking through the turnstyle quite legally, and getting onto a train. And some eye witness accounts say he was sitting in his seat, not running away.

So hmm, even if only some of that is true, it differs quite a bit from the "official" story.

But wait, there's more. The question still remains why they thought HE was a suspect. Well, the address they had was for a location with several units, and they weren't sure which unit to be on the lookout for. So, wisely, they set up surveilance. The wa it was supposed to work was that an officer would be watching the place, and any time someone came out, he'd start recording them on video and determine if it was a suspect or not (I believe they had some idea of who they were expecting to see). Well, when mr. Menezes came out of his unit...the officer on duty was reportedly taking a piss! He came back in time to see that SOMEONE had left, and sent the message ahead that he thought it might be someone they were looking for.

And then de Menezes was shot dead. Because a guy was taking a leak. And then the police covered their asses with a series of lies. Ugly.

So, does anybody think now that the shoot to kill policy is a good idea?