Terrible news today that things were perhaps even less incriminating than was first thought. It's now reported that Jean Charles walked into the tube station, bought a newspaper and then went and sat down on the train. After a policeman jumped him and bound his arms to his side another leapt in and fired a volley of shots into his head.
Terrible that an innocent man should lose his life in an accident that was of human hand. Terrible that this should have been anything less than unavoidable. Terrible some may now rightfully feel fear of nervous armed police.
It's also terrible on a different count though too. I'm ashamed of some of our press. Not all of them but definitely some. One of our TV channels is painting a picture of a conspiracy to delay the investigation into the death by Sir Ian Blair. They talk of how he requested the investigation to be delayed and they have testimony from a solicitor saying that such a delay would be very damaging and is very unusual.
This makes me angry.
It seems surprising that people should need to be reminded but on the day before this shooting, five men had proved their intent to blow up tube trains. After doing so, they melted into the streets of London to regroup.
Policemen and women were working round the clock to find those terrorists. Policemen and women were working round the clock to stop five men before they used the lives they had committed to terrorism to tear apart the bodies and the families of more of London's commuters.
Ian Blair wasn't chosing betweent the efficient execution of a police enquiry and a perversion of justice. He was chosing between the lives of the public and a police enquiry. There was no choice to be made. As a direct result of these efforts and only weeks later, all bombers were in custody.
Anyone who choses to paint a picture of Sir Ian Blair as a subverter or criminal should carefully consider the position they are carving for future police commissioners. If Sir Ian has to resign as a result of this we will all be the poorer for the loss of a good man. We will be poorer still for the loss of capacity in a role that exists to protect the public.
To the individual reporters of those networks. You have been given influence. You may have earned your position but that doesn't mean you've earned that influence. You may ignitite calls for resignation and that may get you your fifteen minutes and your position away from daytime TV. Enjoy your new evening slot. Be proud but also know that if people die as a result of our inability to defend ourselves, it will be you who laid the path.
This is a very difficult and sensitive topic and needs to be approached with the balance and restraint that most of the press have shown. To those that haven't, I am ashamed of you.
Webkitchen is Peter Nixey's blog and website.
Originally from the UK, Peter is now in San Francisco and CEO of Clickpass a startup working to make single-sign-on and OpenID both website and consumer friendly.
1 comments:
What intrigues me about the shooting of the Brazilian is how subjective this whole thing is. Someone at some time must have reported that he jumped over the barriers and was wearing a heavy coat. Other people reported that he had wires coming out of his coat. And now we hear that he was basically chilling his way along and was pounced on by a large number of cold-blooded killers.
So who has given the 'leaked evidence', and is it any more or less valid that the first evidence?
It does seem that we believe the story we want to believe; but all the while it is the disgraceful natural media tendency is to cast blame and shame, as if accidents don't happen and errors in judgement are never permitted.
The fact is that the police have very little interest in shooting innocent people - it does no one any good at all. But they did it. There must have been a very good reason, and indeed there was: the armed police who shot him were given a positive ID that the man they were following was one of the suspects.
There is chat in the press today about the policemen being tried for murder. I sincerely hope that that is just more press bullshit, for that is a truly slippery slope. We can not - CAN NOT - go around judging people with the benefit of hindsight. People make the best decisions they can with the evidence available to them at the time. If there is an error in that evidence, let's correct the errors that led to it, and learn how not to make them again.