It's Monday, so these must be the terracotta warriors.

[shinytoaster]

Today, to the uncharted depths of Heathrow airport to deliver the parentals to Terminal 3 for their evening flight to Beijing. They're doing one of those Voyages Jules Verne style packages so beloved of the English middle classes, 'Treasures of China,' I think it's called, which means a succession of luxury hotels and guided tours and just enough contact with actual people to make you think you've travelled somewhere without puncturing your Western-Er-Bubble TM. I guess it's probably actually as good an introduction to a country as far removed from our way of doing things as China, but I can't help feeling it misses something. Who am I to talk? With my feet, something like that would probably be ideal for me. I wanted very much to go off backpacking independently at one time in my life, but reasoned I'd probably wind up slipping on rocks and hurting myself unneccessarily.

Heathrow is beginning to bear more than a passing resemblance to a fortress. The last time I was at Terminal 3 it seemed quite laid back, but today there was a huge jam to get into the drop-off zone, there were guards doing kerbside luggage searches, there were policemen marshalling the traffic, there were at least six people in blue Kevlar packing some serious firepower. One hopes they were police as well - the regular cops didn't seem to be making any effort to stop them so I assume they weren't mingling terrorists.

As for Ken Livingstone, argh. I like the guy because he got his revenge on the Dread Harridan Thatcher in the end and that's always a good thing, but sometimes he comes out with the most outrageously offensive shit and you just want to smack him in the face. Friday's shooting at Stockwell is not collateral to chalk up to the baddies, I think rather it's the result of inadequate training and inexperience, and for Livingstone to suggest otherwise is really quite distasteful. One thing I do admit is I'm curious as to why this guy ran. By all accounts he was here legally and spoke good English, so there's no reason for it, unless he thought they were onto him for something else. I have a bad feeling the enquiry is not going to change matters any.

It all makes me feel like I wasn't actually scared before last Thursday. I really wasn't. And now I kind of am.

Comments

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

#snuggles you# I don't want my kids growing up it's OK to shoot people.

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

One thing I do admit is I'm curious as to why this guy ran.

It's felt too weird for me to comment on this for the most part (the American attitude toward police procedure and firearms, and perhaps most especially the Western attitude I grew up with, is so much a part of my background and my set of basic assumptions about this stuff that I'm not sure how well I can comment on a set of attitudes so different - I think there's a lot lost in the translations, here) but I did want to say - yes. That was a rather unfortunate response, all things considered, and I'll be interested to see if they ever figure out why.

[benjj.livejournal.com]

It is tragic, and you could argue that there's a whole guilty until proven innocent trend now. Although, if that were the case they wouldn't have been watching the suspects' house, but would've gone in and shot everyone.

But. If the whole situation were to happen again, with a different man?

A man leaves a building that is suspected to contain terrorists linked to suicide bombs on the tube,
wearing clothes that can contain suicide bombs and are very much at odds with the weather,
runs away from police, vaults over barriers into the tube station - a prime terrorist target...
He jumps on the tube and you shoot him and make sure he's dead so he can't detonante his bomb?

Is there another reasonable course of action at this point?


[There may have been an intelligence failure and everyone in the house is innocent? Or it's not completely certain who in the house could be guilty? Though this isn't the fault of the firearms officers]
[it's also possible that he didn't know it was police who were chasing him?]

I was carrying a rucksack on the tube at the weekend. And was fiddling with it at my feet (getting a bottle of water out) and people were looking worridly at me - I think it'd be a lot worse if I looked stereotypically muslim

[katiemorris.livejournal.com]

I think I understand why you're scared now. I feel the same. Right up until I heard on the news that police had thrown a suspect down and put five (FIVE?) bullets in his head I felt my feet were on firm ground. I was totally shocked at the incident, even before I realised they had killed an innocent man. I don't like this feeling one bit.