Terrorism, de Menezes and the presumption of innocence
(Written on the aeroplane to California.)
I see that there’s renewed kerfuffle in the English press about the awful fate of de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician who got his head blown off on the London subway after armed police mistook him for a terrorist.
One of the hottest points of debate is how much blame should be placed on the officers who pulled the triggers. Personally, I have considerable sympathy for them. London was still shocked by some particularly nasty suicide-bombers, and the police were told that there was another on the loose. They could well believe that de Menezes was two panicked heartbeats away from blowing himself up, taking them and dozens of innocents with him. Pressure much? Where men with guns have to make split-second decisions, this kind of thing is sorrowfully inevitable.
As more evidence accumulates, it doesn‘t look like any single person was to blame for de Menezes‘s death. It was a system failure-a series of minor errors and misjudgements that accumulated to a tragic conclusion. So for the sake of argument, I’m going to take it as read that nobody was wilfully or grossly negligent, and that nobody shot de Menezes just for shits and giggles.
Our legal system, and often our sense of right and wrong, don’t really recognise this. It’s so tempting to believe that one person must take all the blame, and that a detailed investigation will sniff them out so we can punish them. But this is wrong whichever way you look at it: not only do you doom some poor scapegoat, but you let a dozen other errors go unacknowledged. All you get is a vast round of arse-covering and no real resolution.
A lot of people reckon that the front-line police were doing the best they could and they shouldn’t face prosecution. I tend to agree with that. I would rather say that you should try the police force as a whole. Maybe the investigation would show that it was one person’s fault, and so you’d find the force innocent and put the person in the dock instead. But otherwise, I must regretfully disagree with the poor bereaved family when they claim that someone specific must be found guilty for their son’s and brother’s death. The error lies with the Force, and it is the Force that should make penance and reparation.
÷
Some (notably the bereaved family) would hang the shooters; some people would agree with me. Others don’t recognise the idea of a system failure, but agree that no individual bears full responsibility. And some go just a little further, and say something like:
“At some stage, a police marksman will have to make the same decision in the case of a real terrorist. We don't want him hesitating for fear of being dragged through the courts.”
The argument is that if a terrorist is in our midst, then a policeman might hesitate to shoot him for fear of being found guilty of murder, giving the terrorist the crucial initiative to light up his special tank-top. I find this an incredibly fucked-up, twisted and stupid idea.¹
The first reason it’s stupid is because if you’re that goddamn sure that someone is a terrorist-if they’ve bared the Semtex and they’re screaming “PETAAAAA!” in the middle of Crufts-then you already have a perfectly good right to shoot them, and that right has nothing to do with whether you’re a policeman or not. It’s basic, obvious, unimpeachable self-defence.
The second reason this idea is stupid is that terrorists are incredibly, vanishingly rare. It is not unlikely or suspicious for people to sweat, jitter, run, vault barriers, or (sure sign of guilt, right?) run away from men with guns. It is extremely rare that such people have bloody-minded intentions and a backpack full of explosive. It’s basic probability: even if they look suspicious as hell, if you’re not completely sure whether someone’s a terrorist then they’re practically certainly not, and it doesn‘t make sense to shoot them.
Now, in between these two cases, there’s a margin where the argument is actually correct. But I’m pretty sure it’s an incredibly fine margin. So I lay down a challenge. If you believe the police as a whole should get some special dispensation for killing bystanders, then show me just one real-world case where your argument has ever applied. That’s to say, where
Normally I don’t make this kind of argument. On the Internet, "show me the numbers" usually means, "I’m too lazy to do my own research to refute your point." But in this case, if you’re advocating special dispensation for killing innocents, then the burden of proof is very clearly on you.
That’s not to say you won’t find that one special case. It’s a fine margin but it’s there; it’s imaginable; it’s possible. But how many innocent lives were lost? And where is the strong argument that those lives outweigh the ones the security forces would inevitably take instead? And even then, is it worth the cost to our whole society, the loss of trust and cohesion, when every one of us knows that the police will not be impartially judged if they gun down us or our loved ones?
÷
And now consider my final argument: to put ourselves in the shoes of one of de Menezes’s killers in those last fateful moments on the Tube. I’ve never been in such a situation. I hope with all my heart that I never will. But let me try:
You’ve just sprinted deep into the Tube system, vaulting barriers, skidding down escalators, barging through crowds. You’re chasing a man who you believe is as dangerous as any you’ve ever met. You’re sobbing for breath and you have sweat in your eyes. Everything’s happening in slow-motion on a stupendous surge of adrenaline, fuelled by the icy awareness that you could die hideously at any moment. And you see the quarry entering a carriage with commuters who’d all die too, and you’ve got to weigh your uncertainty against his life, your life, the lives of all the innocent folk, most of whom are are still only beginning to gape at the sight of a drawn gun. Behind you,- one of your mates screams, "That’s him, get him!"
In those frozen moments between life and death, do you really think you’re worrying about the law?
÷
¹ To you who recognise these words as your own: whatever I think of your idea, I definitely don't think you're stupid or fucked-up. I fondly reserve judgement on the 'twisted'.
I see that there’s renewed kerfuffle in the English press about the awful fate of de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician who got his head blown off on the London subway after armed police mistook him for a terrorist.
One of the hottest points of debate is how much blame should be placed on the officers who pulled the triggers. Personally, I have considerable sympathy for them. London was still shocked by some particularly nasty suicide-bombers, and the police were told that there was another on the loose. They could well believe that de Menezes was two panicked heartbeats away from blowing himself up, taking them and dozens of innocents with him. Pressure much? Where men with guns have to make split-second decisions, this kind of thing is sorrowfully inevitable.
As more evidence accumulates, it doesn‘t look like any single person was to blame for de Menezes‘s death. It was a system failure-a series of minor errors and misjudgements that accumulated to a tragic conclusion. So for the sake of argument, I’m going to take it as read that nobody was wilfully or grossly negligent, and that nobody shot de Menezes just for shits and giggles.
Our legal system, and often our sense of right and wrong, don’t really recognise this. It’s so tempting to believe that one person must take all the blame, and that a detailed investigation will sniff them out so we can punish them. But this is wrong whichever way you look at it: not only do you doom some poor scapegoat, but you let a dozen other errors go unacknowledged. All you get is a vast round of arse-covering and no real resolution.
A lot of people reckon that the front-line police were doing the best they could and they shouldn’t face prosecution. I tend to agree with that. I would rather say that you should try the police force as a whole. Maybe the investigation would show that it was one person’s fault, and so you’d find the force innocent and put the person in the dock instead. But otherwise, I must regretfully disagree with the poor bereaved family when they claim that someone specific must be found guilty for their son’s and brother’s death. The error lies with the Force, and it is the Force that should make penance and reparation.
÷
Some (notably the bereaved family) would hang the shooters; some people would agree with me. Others don’t recognise the idea of a system failure, but agree that no individual bears full responsibility. And some go just a little further, and say something like:
“At some stage, a police marksman will have to make the same decision in the case of a real terrorist. We don't want him hesitating for fear of being dragged through the courts.”
The argument is that if a terrorist is in our midst, then a policeman might hesitate to shoot him for fear of being found guilty of murder, giving the terrorist the crucial initiative to light up his special tank-top. I find this an incredibly fucked-up, twisted and stupid idea.¹
The first reason it’s stupid is because if you’re that goddamn sure that someone is a terrorist-if they’ve bared the Semtex and they’re screaming “PETAAAAA!” in the middle of Crufts-then you already have a perfectly good right to shoot them, and that right has nothing to do with whether you’re a policeman or not. It’s basic, obvious, unimpeachable self-defence.
The second reason this idea is stupid is that terrorists are incredibly, vanishingly rare. It is not unlikely or suspicious for people to sweat, jitter, run, vault barriers, or (sure sign of guilt, right?) run away from men with guns. It is extremely rare that such people have bloody-minded intentions and a backpack full of explosive. It’s basic probability: even if they look suspicious as hell, if you’re not completely sure whether someone’s a terrorist then they’re practically certainly not, and it doesn‘t make sense to shoot them.
Now, in between these two cases, there’s a margin where the argument is actually correct. But I’m pretty sure it’s an incredibly fine margin. So I lay down a challenge. If you believe the police as a whole should get some special dispensation for killing bystanders, then show me just one real-world case where your argument has ever applied. That’s to say, where
- a terrorist
- has killed non-combatants
- because security forces
- were inhibited from engaging in the instants before the attack
- for fear of legal repercussions.
Normally I don’t make this kind of argument. On the Internet, "show me the numbers" usually means, "I’m too lazy to do my own research to refute your point." But in this case, if you’re advocating special dispensation for killing innocents, then the burden of proof is very clearly on you.
That’s not to say you won’t find that one special case. It’s a fine margin but it’s there; it’s imaginable; it’s possible. But how many innocent lives were lost? And where is the strong argument that those lives outweigh the ones the security forces would inevitably take instead? And even then, is it worth the cost to our whole society, the loss of trust and cohesion, when every one of us knows that the police will not be impartially judged if they gun down us or our loved ones?
÷
And now consider my final argument: to put ourselves in the shoes of one of de Menezes’s killers in those last fateful moments on the Tube. I’ve never been in such a situation. I hope with all my heart that I never will. But let me try:
You’ve just sprinted deep into the Tube system, vaulting barriers, skidding down escalators, barging through crowds. You’re chasing a man who you believe is as dangerous as any you’ve ever met. You’re sobbing for breath and you have sweat in your eyes. Everything’s happening in slow-motion on a stupendous surge of adrenaline, fuelled by the icy awareness that you could die hideously at any moment. And you see the quarry entering a carriage with commuters who’d all die too, and you’ve got to weigh your uncertainty against his life, your life, the lives of all the innocent folk, most of whom are are still only beginning to gape at the sight of a drawn gun. Behind you,- one of your mates screams, "That’s him, get him!"
In those frozen moments between life and death, do you really think you’re worrying about the law?
÷
¹ To you who recognise these words as your own: whatever I think of your idea, I definitely don't think you're stupid or fucked-up. I fondly reserve judgement on the 'twisted'.