Today our newspapers are full of two things. Cricket, which ended in disaster and defeat, and the shooting of an unarmed and innocent Brazillian man on Friday.
My feelings about the shooting are mixed. Obviously I’m disturbed that an innocent man was shot in such a way, but I am also supportive of the action taken by the police in very trying circumstances. They are now facing a storm of criticism here from some quarters (I find the criticisms by the Brazilian government very strange considering the police in their own country are notorious for having death squads) but the police are damned if they act and even more damned if they don’t. If the man had been a bomber and they had hesitated …
Anyway, lots of people are criticising when they don’t know the full facts, so we shall just have to wait to see what the investigation can pull together out of the following information from eyewitnesses …
An Asian man who might have been of African appearance, wearing a heavy coat, or a belt with wires coming out of it or maybe even a t-shirt and jeans, ran into the tube from the street or was standing in the ticket queue alongside a woman, before running when challenged. He was chased by armed men or undercover police or the SAS who shouted warnings to stop, or didn’t but were wearing baseball caps with POLICE on them. The man jumped a barrier and ran down the escalators to the platform, where he fell, was pushed, or fell AND was pushed onto a train, where he was held down, sat on or pushed to the ground and shot five times, or twice, in the head or the body, while being held down, or from the doors of the carriage as he lay on the ground. All this after attempting to take a hostage, grabbing onto someone as he fell (or was pushed, or both) or trying to grab someone for help. And during all this, the tube driver himself was held at gunpoint. Or not.
Clear as mud. No doubt CCTV will show a lot more of what happened and the story will become clearer. Maybe.
Scary times for Londoners.