You Can Wait

I wouldn’t want to be of an ethnic minority and late for work in London anytime soon.

London plain clothes policemen shot and killed a man running for the subway this past week. Can’t you just hear the civil liberties people taking a deep breath? The wailing and bellyaching? The tearful mothers, the bewildered community? "He was such a nice guy."

Here are the facts - a young, foreign gentleman was being tailed by 4 plainclothes policemen, when he entered into the London Metro system. Given the state of affairs in London right now, I have no doubt that the heartbeats of those policemen increased 5 fold. He was told to stop, at which point he began to run, jumped the turnstile, and attempted to get on the Metro. He was shot, 5 times, and killed.

The London Police have since apologized, as he appears to be without connection to anyone they were looking for. But with this mornings news - a raid on a house, which just happens to be the same house that this young man was living in. Coincidences like that.. Aren’t coincidence.

They’ve got a shoot to kill policy. They’ve advised the public of this - you will not be getting shot in the arm, in the leg - you will be killed. If you’ve got a bomb in your backpack, we do not want to disable your legs.

I think they did what they were supposed to - if that guy had gotten on the train, and had had a bomb, and had killed dozens of people - the uproar would have been incredible at those four policemen.

So maybe - just to be safe - catch the next train. Do you really need to run?