Jean Charles de Menezes verdict

I'm sure a lone man would have been able to defend himself against the police by shooting at them in the London Underground. That would have saved his life and have cost no other lives. Shooting at a group of armed and trained marksmen is a wonderful way to calm any situation down and ensure the safety of the public.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I wasn't proposing I would be thinking of calming the situation down and ensuring the safety of the public. I have been in approximately similar situations before and that was on my mind incidentally. Calming a situation down is a paramount survival tool.That to one side, what I was proposing was that if we were to decide on policy regarding self-defence, the dangers of escalating violence to the public will definitely be something I keep in mind. My wishes are irrelevant - I might wish that I had a device that would instantly kill ten people that surround me whilst preserving my own life. That doesn't mean that if such a device were invented, it would be a good idea for everyone to have one. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I wouldn't accuse the men of being well trained. They are however, skilled and trained in firing weapons, holding people down and shooting them. That's more than is true for your average guy walking down the street. So - one person with no training in firefighting, and a group of people who although possibly incompetent, at least have much more experience in handling weapons and firing them in life/death scenarios.Do you honestly think the individual has any hope of surviving if he comes That might be the case in the US, but most police here don't carry firearms so for them the handgun is not simply more damn weight to carry...it's something that those other guys are allowed to carry but not them. The training is carried out by people like the SAS, who believe it is not lack of firearms skill that causes the problems, but the lack of psychological testing to route out the gung-ho types.

I think you'll find that this isn't an example of the training being given - unless you think the SAS would regularly carry out acts like that?It is, as the trainers argue, not a question of training, but one of psychology. Some police officers simply shouldn't be given access to weapons, and there are some officers that do have guns that the trainers do not believe should have - but they are powerless to fail the officers because being a crazy lunatic is not grounds for failure.That, if true, is very discouraging.

The SAS are trained to not establish risk, to not adequately identify targets, to wait until the last possible moment and then shoot to kill a suspect without adequate warnings or attempts to establish contact?Wow - that's a low opinion. I assume you feel the same way about the American special forces squads?

I thought these were the kinds of things you referred to when you implied they were poorly trained. Are you saying that the problem wasn't lack of training, or poor training - but instead that it was just that they were wrong? Actually I agree, and that any problem in training would be in decision making procedure. This is going away from my original point which was nothing about decision making training but 'the ability to fire a weapon and hit a target'. I was trying to suggest that the skill levels of your average Joe to take out one police officer are much lower than the corresponding skill an armed officer has of taking out your average Joe and the average Joe was outnumbered.

Agreed. So you'd agree that the average man in the subway with a firearm would be very likely to get killed if he attempted to defend himself against a group of armed and trained police marksmen using said firearm?Cos that's all my point was. How often has this 'not giving a warning' thing been tested in a crowded public place? Do the SAS do a lot of actions in this kind of scenario?

No question. But then firing thousands of rounds a month would make you exceptional, not the norm. The norm in Britain would be less practice (nill will be the modal amount of practice) than a British Armed police officer, yes?

I'm confused. The Belgrano incident was perfectly legitimate activity in war for one (the exclusion zone is just for neutral vessels). However, assuming that the Belgrano incident was bad - do you think that this is a similar incident to Tony Martin at a governmental scale? Do you think they are equally bad or equally good acts? Or do you think Tony Martin was OK, but the British government was not? And also justified as legitimate war action by the Captain of the Belgrano, and the Argentinian government as well as the Rear Admiral in charge of the group the Belgrano was part of. You could probably do with finding a better analogy.The point is that self-defence requires an imminent threat to yourself or to other people. The police officers at the scene were advised that this man presented an imminent threat, which is why they were not charged with murder, because it is reasonable for them to trust their superiors.The police force in general failed to establish correctly that he was an imminent threat, which is why they were found guilty. I am appalled that Blair has not resigned over the matter.

Well, to be fair, the two young thieves would at best pose a risk to a few lives. A battleship in a time of war poses a greater risk, and it had been heading in a threatening direction until it was chased away. No I do not suggest two strangers breaking in do not present an imminent threat. I suggest that two strangers that had broken into your house that are now fleeing from you do not pose an imminent threat. I am not arguing that the police have been adequately punished, I was arguing that the officers on the ground should not be prosecuted. The question is, who specifically? You cannot prosecute all of them, some of them made no mistakes based on the information they had been given...it was the information that they were given that was erroneous. Maybe there is one person, or group of people who should bare the ultimate responsibility for the mess. Unfortunately, I don't know the inner workings of the police, so I can't say who is ultimately culpable. Neither could the court (who presumably know a lot more than I do). That's why I think Blair should step down at the very least.

I don't think a thief presents a greater risk to an armed farmer than an enemy battleship presents to an armed force during wartime. Given that he didn't know what was happening, I don't think a good precedent would be to assume that people running away from you pose such a threat as to warrant lethal force. Of course, if they had firearms themselves, I'd be inclined to agree that lethal force might be justifiable. I'm not sure of hypocrisy, but it does not set a favourable precedent, I agree.

It was the juries job to decide if Tony Martin's actions were reasonable force given the situation, and what Mr Martin believed to be the situation. As the court said:

quote:

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# In judging whether the defendant had only used reasonable force, the jury has to take into account all the circumstances, including the situation as the defendant honestly believes it to be at the time, when he was defending himself. It does not matter if the defendant was mistaken in his belief as long as his belief was genuine.

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# Accordingly, the jury could only convict Mr Martin if either they did not believe his evidence that he was acting in self-defence or they thought that Mr Martin had used an unreasonable amount of force. These were issues which were ideally suited to a decision of a jury.

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# As to the first issue, what Mr Martin believed, the jury heard his evidence and they could only reject that evidence, if they were satisfied it was untrue. As to the second issue, as to what is a reasonable amount of force, obviously opinions can differ. It cannot be left to a defendant to decide what force it is reasonable to use because this would mean that even if a defendant used disproportionate force but he believed he was acting reasonably he would not be guilty of any offence. It is for this reason that it was for the jury, as the representative of the public, to decide the amount of force which it would be reasonable and the amount of force which it would be unreasonable to use in the circumstances in which they found that Mr Martin believed himself to be in. It is only if the jury are sure that the amount of force which was used was unreasonable that they are entitled to find a defendant guilty if he was acting in self-defence.

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The facts of the case are recorded here. The essential details being that Tony Martin had said in public that the best way to stop burglary was to shoot the bastards and that if he was burgled he'd shoot the burglars heads off. The thieves entered the house and without warning were shot at. The jury was to decide if Mr Martin had laid in wait and deliberately tried to kill the man, or if he reasonably felt he was in danger. Mr Martin's claim was that he fired his shots whilst stood halfway down the stairs and he saw a light and he decided that the wielder of the light could represent a threat so he opened fire a number of times.Expert witnesses testified that the shots could not have been fired from halfway up the stairs, but one expert witness said that there was some evidence of a stairway shooting.It's quite interesting reading actually. I learned quite a lot in a short amount of time.

His words and actions previously were a material fact in establishing whether or not it he could have intended to kill Barras out of vengeance rather than intending to defend himself. ie., is the defendent the kind of person that would lie in wait? The answer is, based on the evidence, possibly. It's called establishing motive. He wouldn't necessarily feel in the requisite amount of danger if he was armed and waiting for them. He could have felt the requisite amount of danger if he was awoken by thieves who shone a bright light into his face. That is what the jury system is for. Two people on the jury agreed with you on at least some issues, but ten people did not. Because nobody disputes that the police killing De Menezes were lead to believe that he posed a danger to them and to others, and thus reasonably believed that to be the case. Or do they? Any evidence of a suggestion of this? No, it was deemed unacceptable because the ballistics showed all of the shots were not fired from the staircase, one might have been, but the other two were not. The position of the casings indicated that there was no movement between the shots, thus Mr Martin's story didn't add up. No. It would have to be shown that he had reason to believe that (say, a commander telling him that he was, and a policy of shoot to kill) the burglar was a suicide bomber. If he just thought he was a burglar he would hopefully be prosecuted. Only if you believe Mr Martin's side of the story, disbelieve the forensic evidence, and disbelieve that the officers were acting on what information they had been given. Maybe the officers that did the shooting were wrong, but just saying they were won't convince me. Perhaps you can point to some evidence that would lead to this conclusion?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Because victim and aggressor are not two sides of the same coin. Let us say the circumstances turned out a little differently - and the lies the surviving thief initially told were actually true. They are walking around and they discover an old abandoned looking building. You are chased by stray vicious dogs and you judge the best way to avoid getting attacked is to get inside the building. It looks like an old dilapidated building and you find what you think is the shed. Quickly checking you see that it definitely looks abandoned and without thinking any further you break into the building to seek sanctuary.Whilst there you decide to take a look around and then without warning get shot - your friend is killed.Who is the aggressor and who is the victim? Can the shooter know for sure that the people in his rundown property mean him harm? Well, maybe we should side on the property owner's side - but what justice would that be? Especially if those dogs turned out to have been allowed to roam around by the property owner.If most burglars flee upon discovery never to return and if most injuries inflicted by burglars on people are as a result of that person blocking their escape route (or attempting to tackle them) - it would be reasonable to assume that burglars do not pose significant risk to the person.For instance, if Mr Martin had woken up to a disturbance, gone to investigate with his illegally owned firearm, and fearing for his life upon being dazzled by a light from an unidentified intruder - it might be considered reasonable force to open fire at the intruder. That was why the case centred around the circumstances of the shooting. If Mr Martin's testimony turned out to be supported by the forensics the jury may have decided that his actions were reasonable. If the circumstances were as the prosecution put forward, it might be considered unreasonable force by the jury.The jury decided that the evidence pointed towards the prosecutions version, and pointed away from Mr Martin's, and that Mr Martin's actions were unreasonable force.

No, you establish motive for a person who is in a court being accused of perpetrating a crime. Mr Marting was being accused of perpetrating a crime. So the police shouldn't have investigated into a human death any further than that? They were criminals, so it was OK to kill them? Sounds foolish to me. Fortunately the police investigated further and found sufficient evidence to bring forward a court case accusing Mr Martin of murder. The CPS agreed, and the case went forward. If they didn't have enough evidence to in principle find Mr Martin guilty of murder beyond doubt he might have faced different charges. There was reason to think that the killing wasn't clearly self defence, that another hypothesis could reasonably be put forward. You reject the evidence because I'm trying to establish the legality? No, I am presenting the evidence to show that Mr Martin's story of defending himself was falsified by the evidence. That the alternative story of him shooting in vengeance was much stronger was because of its supporting evidence.If he was defending himself - he shouldn't be in jail for murder. If he was not defending himself then he should be in jail for murder (unless of diminished capacity). In this case, the evidence showed that he might not have been acting in self defence. In the De Menezes case no evidence showed that the officers were not acting in defence of the public.Surely you see that the two cases are sufficiently different that to draw the conclusion of hypocrisy is premature? I'm not asking what makes you think the police were mistaken, but wrong in the moral sense.Turning to my example in Message 77, what if it turned out that the burglars were merely seeking shelter from aggressive dogs? I'm sure you would defend Mr Martin the same, assuming his story to be true.But what if Mr Martin's story wasn't true? What if he had maneouvered around the house, waited for the thieves to come to him with the intention of killing them out of vengeance only to find out that they weren't thieves but a lost boy and his older brother investigating an abandoned house they found whilst seeking shelter from aggressive dogs?Would you defend Mr Martin as using reasonable force then?To answer your question of Message 83, the landlord should not feel be found guilty or not guilty based on whether the people he perceived to be imminent threats to his person actually presented threat. If he was honestly defending himself having been startled in the middle of the night and fearing for his life, I would not consider him a murderer.