I am turning into an evil old lady

I think many of the public think our judiciary are too soft. I’m cynical as it costs a great deal of money to incarcerate someone! Justice on the cheap anyone?

The police officer thought he was reaching for a gun. What would you have done?

Don't play with fire if you don't want to get burnt.

When my poor son was attacked and kicked in by a group of young men I wanted to have a 'discussion' with their mothers!!
I'm sympathetic towards policemen who have to put themselves in harms way. So easy to make a split second mistake with the best of intentions. Sometimes they get it wrong but it's thoroughly investigated. They don't get away with it.

Jane10

You are not evil, Lucky, but sometimes we do get a tad fed up with crime and criminals. On the positive side, you have the wisdom to question your initial thoughts and that is a skill worth possessing. Well done for doing that.

anniebach, I was responding to a single comment in this thread, the one about everyone being someone's baby. I thought it rather soppy and responded accordingly.

I did not say anything about approving of people being shot.

Hear, hear, gonegirl and jane10.

What goes around comes around. I thought that this week when I read that a chap in Australia ate a Gecko for a bet. The man died an unpleasant way a couple of days later. If he had left the helpless alone it wouldn't have happened.

Jane10 when was a police officer ever charged with a death ? What about Ian Tomlinson?

The many who have died in police custody?

I have to agree with M0nica Fri 12-Jul-19 16:12:59

Having agree I do feel your thoughts were pretty vicious ones towards the poor man and his family luckyrose62

Anniebach I was talking about on the street shooting.

Well put Parsley3

Gonegirl the reason the police officer thought he had a gun was because the raid on him was ill prepared on inadequate information, which was later proven to be entirely wrong.

Read the inquiry report.

A police force was to blame for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man, a public inquiry has concluded. A judge said the shooting was legally justified, but said the operation had been organised and planned "incompetently". Senior officers "failed to authorise, plan or conduct the firearms operation in such a way as to minimise recourse to the use of lethal force"

The officer who shot him told the inquiry he fired as he thought Mr Grainger had reached down to pick up a firearm. The judge said the officer,"honestly but mistakenly believed Mr Grainger was reaching for a gun". He jumped to that wrong conclusion because of the "misleading way his superiors had briefed him beforehand", according to Judge.

The judge said if firearms commanders had planned, briefed and conducted the deployment competently, Q9 "would have been less likely to misinterpret Mr Grainger's actions and might not have shot him".

All the responsibility for this killing lies entirely with the police.

The man was driving a stolen car. How was the police officer to know that Grainger hadn't been armed given that a robbery had been planned using the Audi-----a favourite car of criminals.

What was he doing with a stolen car anyway ? Not exactly squeaky clean was he ?

Not exactly squeaky clean was he ?

True enough. But the penalty for driving a stolen car is not yet to be shot and killed.

Ellen read the summary of the conclusions the judge reached at the end of the enquiry. I put them in my last post. He made it clear that there was no evidence he would use gun, or that he had access to one.

There are plenty of petty criminals in the UK, the vast majority of whom would no more risk using a gun than fly. You cannot assume just because someone commits a minor crime they can be shot because they might have a gun.

Just don't find myself welling up over it.

Now that little black kid in America, shot because he was waving a toy gun. That's heart breaking.

I am just the opposite. As I have aged I cry and worry more easily at injustice, always look for reasons for an action. You don't know the full story of that shooting. I would think the policeman is traumatised, it's a split second decision in heightened circumstances. He has to live with that. He us most likely a family man and they are not issued with guns except in exceptional circumstances. The victims family know the victim as a loved member of their family, or he could never have been loved and had been homeless, an addict or mentally ill. As for your initial gut reaction, I would think a lot of people would act that way, but when you thought about it come to a different conclusion. That us why it is so difficult for our security forces, they have a make split second decision and there will be fierce scrutiny of their move afterwards.

Peonyrose- I entirely agree with you ?

Every week in my newspaper there are reports of violent attacks, people are helpless watching this escalation of crimes here they live.

I quite agree Peonyrose we can't arm the police then vilify them when someone is shot.
Of course there is scrutiny of the incident to see if it was preventable and to learn from it.
The police are damned if they do and damned if they don't it seems.

What I hate is that the mega criminals get away with murder/genocide while poor individual victims get no justice.
But please don't read the daily mail! It feeds your dark side.

My understanding is the investigation found the whole operation to be completely mismanaged and thoroughly incompetent. The police officer who shot the man was, it is said, acting on information that the victim was armed, so it appears he is not individually to blame.

Criminals deserve punishment (and a chance to rehabilitate) and to be imprisoned if their crimes involve violence but I don't believe even the worst rogue should be shot, unless he is armed and is poised to harm someone. This man was, as I understand it, in a car and he was not armed.

In the case of a violent criminal who is killed because he/she did pose a direct threat to others, I would not mourn but I would not celebrate it either.

When we look at the wider world it seems to be such an evil place and no-one could blame you for thinking that. "Serves him right." If you work in the police force you see these things at closer quarters so it's perfectly understandable. I don't know how they keep their faith in humanity when the bad stuff is under their noses. We can only hope that the good outweighs the bad, by and large.