The following is cobbled together from several comments I've made on the Stockwell shooting. I'll say that this topic has special interest for me because I live in Brazil currently and it has been all over the papers.
Here are the facts of the case as most news sources tell it:
-- The man emerged from a building that was under police surveillance for terrorist connections.
-- He was wearing a bulky, heavy jacket on a summer's day when few other people were wearing such jackets.
-- When challenged by police, who ordered him to stop, he ran from them, and tried to get on a subway train.
All this just one day after four attempted attacks. Any responsible person in the officer's position would believe very strongly that this man was indeed about to blow up everyone on the train; indeed, his behavior is difficult to explain otherwise. Imagine yourself in the position of the officer, charged with protecting innocent lives. All signs point to terrorist, and a moment's hesitation will mean 25 innocent deaths. Though it later turned out the man was not a terrorist, the officer acted correctly given the information he had at the time.
Many have asked: why shoot the guy once he had tackled him? Because he was believed to be wired with a bomb! He could still detonate it, even from the ground. One very unfortunate thing about suicide bombing is that the only way to stop a suicide bomber is shoot to kill. Anything less will allow time to detonate.
I remember reading an account written by a reporter following the new police force in Afghanistan (sorry, can't find a link). He was at a police recruitment center talking with the guard at the door. A man approached saying he was a new recruit from a nearby town, and asked for entry. To the reporter's shock, the guard shot him three times at point blank range. They opened his shirt and found him wired with bombs -- the guard probably saved 50 people that day. Why did he shoot? The man had the wrong accent.
These situations are extremely difficult. There is always a chance that the guard, or the police officer, will be wrong, and that an innocent man will be killed. But the stakes are simply too high to allow much leniency. Given extremely suspicious behavior (and I believe the Stockwell incident fits any reasonable definition of extremely suspicious behavior) it is the right decision to shoot to kill.
Many people have suggested that the shooting was racially motivated, describing the victim as "brown" or "dark-skinned." A picture is worth a thousand words:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-07-24-london-shooting_x.htm
Here is Jean in all his pasty white glory. Brunette, sure, but so are a lot of people.
Some too have suggested he couldn't speak English and so couldn't understand the officers' warnings. Rio's main newspaper, O Globo, has this quote:
"Ele fala inglês muito bem. Não tem como ele ter confundido alguma coisa, não ter entendido o que os policiais estavam conversando com ele", diz a amiga de Jean, Aline Fernandes.
Translation:
"He spoke English very well. There is no way he could have been confused by anything, or not have understood what the police were telling him," said a friend of Jean, Aline Fernandes.
Some have even suggested that because he was Brazilian he must have been cold in the English summer! But he'd been there 4 years. I grew up in northern New England and handle Brazilian heat just fine. Heat/cold tolerance is not genetic, it's learned. People adjust.
But all these objections distract from the real point: whatever the reasons for Jean's behavior (and we will never really know), he was doing a very convincing terrorist impression last Friday.
The police are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Shoot and you risk killing an innocent man, as lamentably happened this time. Don't shoot, and you risk allowing a trainload of innocents to be blown to smithereens, as has happened so many times before all over the world. What would you do? Weigh the evidence, and act.
Sadly, the evidence weighed against poor Jean last Friday. But the act was just.