Should British police have the right to shoot to kill?

Published on Friday 29 July 2005 01:19

YES: Haim Watzman

One tragedy of this age is that the correct thing to do is sometimes a horrible thing

IN THE summer of 1984, as we manned a hilltop observation post during my first stint of reserve duty in the Israel Defence Forces, I heard an awful story from a friend whom I'll call Eldad.

Like the story of the police officer who killed an innocent man at the Stockwell Tube station in London last week, this one had elements that got my liberal hackles up.

Western democracies are supposed to defend the individual against the power of the state. When someone dies at the hands of an agent of the state, citizens are justified in asking: did the killer abide by the law? Were his motives pure? Was death really the only choice? All too often, the answer to these questions is no.

Eldad's story took place in Lebanon, where he and I had both served the bulk of our regular army service. He was stationed at a roadblock in southern Beirut. A car pulled up and three men jumped out and started spraying bullets at him and his comrades.

Within a split second the Israelis were returning fire and, before they had time to even think through what was going on, two of the assailants were shot dead. The third was also on the ground, badly wounded but conscious.

"I went up to him and raised my rifle and switched it to automatic," Eldad told me. "He put up his hands as if to fend me off, or maybe beg for mercy. But I just pulled the trigger and filled his body up with bullets."

But you killed a wounded and disabled man, I objected. That's against orders. It's also immoral.

"He could still use his hands, and he might have had a grenade," Eldad said testily. "He was going to die anyway. And he deserved it."

Eldad's last two arguments were specious. He had no way of knowing how badly the man was wounded, nor was he authorised to mete out judgment.

"You would've done the same thing." He glared at me.

I didn't know whether I would have done the same thing. I half thought I wouldn't have. But what I realised at that moment was that, if I hadn't, I would have been wrong. The man had control of his hands and could have had a concealed and deadly weapon.

A terrible thing happened in London last Friday. On his way to work, Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, was chased down by suspicious police officers. When he tripped and fell, the officers asked no questions and gave him no warning.

One of them fired eight bullets point-blank into his head and shoulder, and that was that.

Just two weeks before the killing, four suicide bombers had blown themselves up on Underground trains and buses in London. Just the day before, there were all the signs of another co-ordinated attack - and the police had reason to believe that the bombers were still at large. The police acted under express orders to shoot in the head someone they thought was about to commit a suicide bombing.

Suicide charges are usually built to be set off with the flick of the bomber's finger. The terrorist can be disabled, flat on the ground, and surrounded by heavily armed men and still blow up everything around him.

So the officer who killed Mr Menezes did a horrible thing. But he also did the right thing. One of the tragedies of this age of suicide bombers - indeed, of any war - is that the right thing to do is sometimes a horrible thing. Remember: there's an essential distinction between us and the suicide bombers. The suicide bombers perpetrate gratuitous horrors. We do terrible things only when it is necessary to prevent something even worse from happening.

• Haim Watzman is the author of Company C: An American's Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel.

NO: Massoud Shadjareh

We don't execute people we try in a court and who are found guilty by a jury of their peers

JEAN Charles de Menezes. Age 27. Innocent of any crime - his whole life ahead of him. Greatly loved and much missed. His personal tragedy is also the catastrophe of a nation and should be in itself enough of a reason to oppose what is now admitted to be our police forces' shoot-to-kill policy.

Sadly it seems that this alone is not enough to convince would be policymakers - many of whom incidentally had no idea or at least an idea but no input into an executive decision made by an enforcement agency rather than parliament, which has undermined not only the democratic process but the nature of the state, shifting even more power out of the hands of the people's "representatives" into the hands of an ever decreasing few.

The scenario repeatedly presented to us as a justification is simply, what if it was you, sitting in that Tube train carriage. Wouldn't you want police officers to "take out" the suicide bomber sitting next to you? The answer, when posed in this way is probably a universal "yes". There are two huge flaws, however, with this policy - the first concerning the operational capability of the police, the second on the wider moral issues that this policy raises.

What the shooting of the young electrician has shown is that operationally the police have almost killed another seven people in the last few days and that in all cases the man targeted was innocent of any crime.

When a 21 July suspect was arrested he was disabled despite carrying a back-pack (and being identified as highly dangerous) with use of a stun gun. Why this disparity, we may never know, however, if the latter works isn't this the method of choice that needs to be developed to ensure that there are no slayings of innocent civilians?

Many concerns have been raised by the behaviour of the actual police officers involved - notably the fact that they followed Mr de Menezes for some time, including during a bus journey, undermining any notion that they may have had to make split-second decisions in a possible crisis.

Other concerns include the effectiveness of the policy itself, given that the execution-style method used could well have still detonated any potential device, or conversely the fact that the way they had spreadeagled the man would have been sufficient to prevent any detonation. I can continue, but what I am trying to raise is that from a practical point of view there is enough reason to revisit what is at best an ill-conceived policy.

Being effective or not, however, is not my main concern. We live in a society which abolished the death penalty, and while I have some sympathy with the idea of an "eye for an eye" - I can't see a legal system anywhere in the world that can boast of never getting it wrong.

That's a good reason why we don't execute people we try in a court of law and who are found guilty by a jury of their peers. How is it then that we can simply hand over to police the power to execute someone on the basis that they "fear" or "suspect" that that person is something, which as in the case of Mr de Menezes he clearly was not. "Fear" and "suspicion" are sadly highly subjective and in the context of police forces that have institutionalised problems including racism and Islamophobia the likelihood of more such victims seems high.

I pray that Jean Charles de Menezes' name is remembered. Not only as a victim of grotesque police incompetence, or the first victim of Britain's shoot-to-kill policy. I pray he'll be remembered as the last, and that his death at least will have stopped other innocents being mowed down - murdered and brutalised by the security services of a state that used to at least pretend it was something better - at least at home - than those that would terrorise it.

• Massoud Shadjareh is the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission.

YOUR VIEWS

Protective laws

If ever there was an argument for Tasers, armed police and other methods of control, this is it. Our police are being forced to do things they've never been asked before and they need our support and our backing. We're a long way from the friendly beat bobby and the "ask a policeman" world I grew up in. We need laws that protect the innocent and the victim, and ways to make sure they are enforced.

Why should the guilty, cowardly few get away with terrorising men, women, children, whatever race or creed they be? More power to the police.

CAROLINE MACKENZIE

Veterinary Laboratories Agency

Make things clear

Whatever policy is adopted must be clearly stated and publicised. The public must understand that a shoot to kill policy will inevitably lead to the death of the person targeted by the police. Indeed, if the person is removed from the scene of the shooting in an ambulance to a hospital, rather than to a morgue, there might well be an internal police inquiry as to what went wrong, even if the target was subsequently found to be innocent. Rules of engagement must also be clearly formed.

SANDY GEMMILL

Edinburgh

Different world

Even if our police force never were the "cherished" PC Murdoch or Dixon of Dock Green that kept us safe, sorted out local rowdies and dealt with the aftermath of road accidents, we were never afraid of them. A policeman with a gun was something you saw on holiday. Now local "bobbies" travel at speed in squad cars, with body armour and a utility belt which makes Batman seem lame. We are now asking them to be terminators and that is not fair.

If highly-trained police can shoot dead someone with a chair leg in a plastic bag and not be held responsible, we can't go down this route. My nine-year-old asked: "Why did the policeman shoot nine times?" I want my children to trust, respect and help the police, but this isn't easy when they see police "armed for combat" with orders to "shoot to kill".

GRAEME MCKENZIE

Edinburgh

Reasonable measure

It is my opinion that the "shoot to kill" policy is a reasonable preventive measure to safeguard the public as well as the responding officers.

CARL L BARNUM III

Ex-US Navy master technician

Split-second choice

I think if a person is seen in a threatening way and is a threat to many others the police have to make a split-second decision. The police have to do what they must - after all we are at war with an invisible enemy.

MARGARET CULBERTSON

Wallop with pillows

Of course they shouldn't shoot to kill. I think they should have pillows with which to give them a good wallop. Take them home to their mummies for a good tongue lashing and make them stand in the corner afterwards. Just be careful not to trigger any unexploded bombs while walloping.

JOHN ENGLAND

Florida

A fool or a crofter

In the present climate, anyone who does not support the right of the police to shoot to kill is either a fool or resides in a croft in the Highlands and is adopting a very selfish attitude.

WA CRAIG

Troubled times

Yes, I think the police have the right to shoot to kill in these very troubled times. Until now I would have called myself a pacifist, but no longer. You cannot reason with these people that think it is all right to die in a (doubtful) cause and be in paradise as a martyr after.

MARGO MCINTYRE

No margin for error

I would not generally support a shoot to kill policy, but in the case of suicide bombers, the police cannot afford to make mistakes. Maiming the perpetrator would allow them to still detonate the device, potentially causing many other deaths. The nature of suicide bombing also means police would also be unable to identify themselves before shooting.

KAREN RENNIE

Perth