If a head-shot is NOT a shoot-to-kill policy, it MUST be Operation Kratos!
Somewhere, George Orwell is saying, "See? I told you so," as he dourly takes another drink.
On 22 July 2005, in a tragic case of mistaken identity, a special team of London's Metropolitan Police ("Met" for short), pumped seven bullets into the head (seven to the head, one to the shoulder) of a Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube at Stockwell station in front of horrified commuters, after having first forced the luckless man into a prone position on the floor of the car.
The forces of law 'n' order were turning London upside down due to the horrific terrorist bombings of London's mass transit system on 7 July, subsequently dubbed "7/7" by the professional barkers, gaffers and touts of the media; the various police forces' investigative efforts were understandably redoubled by the failed bombings of Thursday, 21 July. Considering the state of heightened tension that pervaded the City, it's not too surprising that "mistakes were made;" unfortunately so many errors were committed as to have made a fitting plot for the most acerbic of black comedies: in the event, this farce proved to wind up with a positively killing joke. (Indeed, the "crack unit's" misidentification of de Menezes as terrorist suspect Hussein Osman -- or Hamdi Adus Issac -- was prompted in large part by the officer who spotted de Menezes leaving a block of flats being unable to film him for further confirmation because he was taking a curbside piss.)
In the wake of de Menezes's misguided judicial murder, it was revealed that Scotland Yard and the London Metropolitan Police were operating under the auspices of a deadly force program code-named "Operation Kratos," named in honor of a minor Greek deity who embodied physical strength (I mused about the implications and provenance of this name here).
Last Thursday, 30 March, the BBC World Service aired an edition of Assignment which revisited the killing of de Menezes; this edition of Assignment is either a follow-up or a companion piece to the film that Peter Taylor made for the BBC One programme Panorama that aired on 8 March 2006 (the transcript for this programme can be read here). The Assignment piece features a rather astonishing exchange between Peter Taylor and The Met's Assistant Chief Commissioner Steve House, wherein AC House attempts a po-faced bit of shithouse lawyering that makes Bill Clinton's General Semanticsesque "What is 'is'?" monkey-wrench -- which he hurled into the midst of the investigation into his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky -- look positively respectable.
I've transcribed this exchange for your edification, behind the cut.
This exchange begins at 18:57 into the archived audio (which is 23:30 long):
PETER TAYLOR [voice-over]: The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes throws a revealing light on police policy in the face of the new suicide bomber threat. Throughout decades of turmoil in Northern Ireland, the British authorities always denied there was a shoot-to-kill policy in operation against paramilitaries. But now, faced with the threat of suicide bombings, has that policy changed?
PETER TAYLOR, interviewing: When you strip everything else away, Operation Kratos, in the end, is about a shoot-to-kill policy, isn't it? Because the point is, you've got to kill the suicide bomber.
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER STEVE HOUSE: No, I can't agree with that.
PT: But you've got to take out the suicide bomber; the only way to take out the bomber is by blowing his head off.
SH: [Pause] What we train our officers to do is what we call 'immediate incapacitation.' I understand why...
PT, interrupting: Which is aiming for the head.
SH: ...which is aiming for the head. I understand why there's people who say that's a shoot-to-kill policy, but it is not a shoot to kill policy. We do not recruit and train our officers to shoot to kill; that's not what police firearms officers do: they shoot to incapacitate.
PT: But in the end, confronted by a suicide bomber, if the threat is believed to be lethal, the instructions are to shoot to kill to stop the bomber...
SH, interrupting: No...
PT: In that sense...
SH, interrupting: That's not correct, no...
PT: ...that's the end, that's, that's, what's Operation Kratos can result in at the extreme if the officers believe they are confronting a suicide bomber, they have to kill him. Therefore, isn't that, in extremis, a shoot to kill policy?
SH: Well, I think -- I think you're mixing up two concepts there, which is it can end in a person's death, yes...
PT, interrupting: And has, and has...
SH: ...as they are shooting at someone's head. But: the instruction's not to shoot to kill; the instruction is to immediately incapacitate a person.
PT: And in the case of the suicide bomber, immediate incapacitation means shooting him in the head.
SH: Shooting in the head, yes.
Well! I'm glad that's cleared up! Shooting someone in the head just means "immediate incapacitation," not "blowin' 'is fockin' 'ead off," you over-excitable silly-billies!
.....
Excuse me for sounding like a gun-lovin' Yank and everything; but precisely in what kind of world of fantasy and wonderment does a shot to the head with anything stronger than a BB-gun not perforce mean a fatally-intended shot? A bloody Derringer can kill you if you're shot in the head with it; just ask ol' Honest Abe.
I'm reasonably certain that the officers who killed de Menezes were using firearms a good deal more formidable than the Derringer.
I also note that neither Mr. Taylor nor AC House made mention of the fact that the protocols of Operation Kratos call for no fewer than five shots to the head, culminating in the pornographically-evocative "shot of excellence," which is a shot fired into the victim's mouth, with the aim of severing the spinal cord. That's immediate incapacitation for ya, mate. No less a personage than former Met commander John O'Connor admitted to this tactic being officially sanctioned, in a letter to The Guardian published on 5 October 2005; Mr. O'Connor also had the good grace to admit -- as AC House did not -- that, with the adoption of higher caliber firearms, the Met's "shoot-to stop" policy became, ipso facto, a "shoot-to-kill" policy.
One can well understand why AC House might not wish to admit to these homely truths in a public forum; however, one is hard-pressed to fathom just why Mr. Taylor failed to bear down on these points and demand that they be acknowledged, or at minimum, that The Met's representative declare himself unwilling to discuss them.
Since a goodly deal of paramilitary training involves the trainees being subjected to certain non-lethal incapacitating techniques -- the U.S. Air Force goes so far as to thoughtfully arrange for many of its cadets to get bitten by a poisonous snake during survival training -- why can't the men (and women) of The Met and The Yard be on the receiving end of these "immediately incapaciting," putatively non-lethal head-shots, just as they are doubtlessly (if briefly) exposed to tear gas, pepper spray or Mace? Even better, why can't AC House undergo a refresher course in which he is the proud recipient of the (non-lethal, remember!) "shot of excellence"?
There's a very good reason why, of course: 'cause there wouldn't be anybody left in the bleedin' Met or Yard, that's why.
If Operation Kratos's "non-lethal" measures were any more lethal, they'd kill the shooter and the target. Maybe the tactical geniuses will start strapping explosives to their police officers; they could call it "Operation Pyrrhus."
"War is peace." "Freedom is slavery." "Ignorance is strength."
And now: "Four bullets to the head and one through the spinal column do not constitute a 'shoot-to-kill' policy."
Shhyeah; if the target's Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Freddy-freakin'-Krueger.
On 22 July 2005, in a tragic case of mistaken identity, a special team of London's Metropolitan Police ("Met" for short), pumped seven bullets into the head (seven to the head, one to the shoulder) of a Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube at Stockwell station in front of horrified commuters, after having first forced the luckless man into a prone position on the floor of the car.
The forces of law 'n' order were turning London upside down due to the horrific terrorist bombings of London's mass transit system on 7 July, subsequently dubbed "7/7" by the professional barkers, gaffers and touts of the media; the various police forces' investigative efforts were understandably redoubled by the failed bombings of Thursday, 21 July. Considering the state of heightened tension that pervaded the City, it's not too surprising that "mistakes were made;" unfortunately so many errors were committed as to have made a fitting plot for the most acerbic of black comedies: in the event, this farce proved to wind up with a positively killing joke. (Indeed, the "crack unit's" misidentification of de Menezes as terrorist suspect Hussein Osman -- or Hamdi Adus Issac -- was prompted in large part by the officer who spotted de Menezes leaving a block of flats being unable to film him for further confirmation because he was taking a curbside piss.)
In the wake of de Menezes's misguided judicial murder, it was revealed that Scotland Yard and the London Metropolitan Police were operating under the auspices of a deadly force program code-named "Operation Kratos," named in honor of a minor Greek deity who embodied physical strength (I mused about the implications and provenance of this name here).
Last Thursday, 30 March, the BBC World Service aired an edition of Assignment which revisited the killing of de Menezes; this edition of Assignment is either a follow-up or a companion piece to the film that Peter Taylor made for the BBC One programme Panorama that aired on 8 March 2006 (the transcript for this programme can be read here). The Assignment piece features a rather astonishing exchange between Peter Taylor and The Met's Assistant Chief Commissioner Steve House, wherein AC House attempts a po-faced bit of shithouse lawyering that makes Bill Clinton's General Semanticsesque "What is 'is'?" monkey-wrench -- which he hurled into the midst of the investigation into his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky -- look positively respectable.
I've transcribed this exchange for your edification, behind the cut.
This exchange begins at 18:57 into the archived audio (which is 23:30 long):
PETER TAYLOR [voice-over]: The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes throws a revealing light on police policy in the face of the new suicide bomber threat. Throughout decades of turmoil in Northern Ireland, the British authorities always denied there was a shoot-to-kill policy in operation against paramilitaries. But now, faced with the threat of suicide bombings, has that policy changed?
PETER TAYLOR, interviewing: When you strip everything else away, Operation Kratos, in the end, is about a shoot-to-kill policy, isn't it? Because the point is, you've got to kill the suicide bomber.
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER STEVE HOUSE: No, I can't agree with that.
PT: But you've got to take out the suicide bomber; the only way to take out the bomber is by blowing his head off.
SH: [Pause] What we train our officers to do is what we call 'immediate incapacitation.' I understand why...
PT, interrupting: Which is aiming for the head.
SH: ...which is aiming for the head. I understand why there's people who say that's a shoot-to-kill policy, but it is not a shoot to kill policy. We do not recruit and train our officers to shoot to kill; that's not what police firearms officers do: they shoot to incapacitate.
PT: But in the end, confronted by a suicide bomber, if the threat is believed to be lethal, the instructions are to shoot to kill to stop the bomber...
SH, interrupting: No...
PT: In that sense...
SH, interrupting: That's not correct, no...
PT: ...that's the end, that's, that's, what's Operation Kratos can result in at the extreme if the officers believe they are confronting a suicide bomber, they have to kill him. Therefore, isn't that, in extremis, a shoot to kill policy?
SH: Well, I think -- I think you're mixing up two concepts there, which is it can end in a person's death, yes...
PT, interrupting: And has, and has...
SH: ...as they are shooting at someone's head. But: the instruction's not to shoot to kill; the instruction is to immediately incapacitate a person.
PT: And in the case of the suicide bomber, immediate incapacitation means shooting him in the head.
SH: Shooting in the head, yes.
Well! I'm glad that's cleared up! Shooting someone in the head just means "immediate incapacitation," not "blowin' 'is fockin' 'ead off," you over-excitable silly-billies!
.....
Excuse me for sounding like a gun-lovin' Yank and everything; but precisely in what kind of world of fantasy and wonderment does a shot to the head with anything stronger than a BB-gun not perforce mean a fatally-intended shot? A bloody Derringer can kill you if you're shot in the head with it; just ask ol' Honest Abe.
I'm reasonably certain that the officers who killed de Menezes were using firearms a good deal more formidable than the Derringer.
I also note that neither Mr. Taylor nor AC House made mention of the fact that the protocols of Operation Kratos call for no fewer than five shots to the head, culminating in the pornographically-evocative "shot of excellence," which is a shot fired into the victim's mouth, with the aim of severing the spinal cord. That's immediate incapacitation for ya, mate. No less a personage than former Met commander John O'Connor admitted to this tactic being officially sanctioned, in a letter to The Guardian published on 5 October 2005; Mr. O'Connor also had the good grace to admit -- as AC House did not -- that, with the adoption of higher caliber firearms, the Met's "shoot-to stop" policy became, ipso facto, a "shoot-to-kill" policy.
One can well understand why AC House might not wish to admit to these homely truths in a public forum; however, one is hard-pressed to fathom just why Mr. Taylor failed to bear down on these points and demand that they be acknowledged, or at minimum, that The Met's representative declare himself unwilling to discuss them.
Since a goodly deal of paramilitary training involves the trainees being subjected to certain non-lethal incapacitating techniques -- the U.S. Air Force goes so far as to thoughtfully arrange for many of its cadets to get bitten by a poisonous snake during survival training -- why can't the men (and women) of The Met and The Yard be on the receiving end of these "immediately incapaciting," putatively non-lethal head-shots, just as they are doubtlessly (if briefly) exposed to tear gas, pepper spray or Mace? Even better, why can't AC House undergo a refresher course in which he is the proud recipient of the (non-lethal, remember!) "shot of excellence"?
There's a very good reason why, of course: 'cause there wouldn't be anybody left in the bleedin' Met or Yard, that's why.
If Operation Kratos's "non-lethal" measures were any more lethal, they'd kill the shooter and the target. Maybe the tactical geniuses will start strapping explosives to their police officers; they could call it "Operation Pyrrhus."
"War is peace." "Freedom is slavery." "Ignorance is strength."
And now: "Four bullets to the head and one through the spinal column do not constitute a 'shoot-to-kill' policy."
Shhyeah; if the target's Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Freddy-freakin'-Krueger.