Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Man shot dead at tube station
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Man shot dead at tube station
The witness said one officer brought out a pistol in his left hand and “unloaded five shots into him”. He said the shooting happened “five yards” away from him.
Asked what condition the man was in, Mr Whitby said: “He’s dead … I’ve just seen a man shot dead, I was distraught.”
There was speculation the man may have been a would-be suicide bomber who had been followed by police. Mr Whitby said he did not see a bag, but the man had worn a bulky winter-style coat, and there may have been “something underneath it”.
He said he then left the train where he saw 10 to 15 police officers armed with handguns and sub machine guns on the platform.
He said: “One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He’s dead, five shots, he’s dead.”
Obviously all I can do is speculate as to the reason as to why a man was shot at such close range, seemingly surrounded as he was by armed police. Seems a bit excessive, unless the police had absolute proof that he was covered in semtex or something, in which case does that make it dangerous to shot someone?
The witness comment that the shooter almost looked down on the person before seemingly calmly unloading 5 bullets into him makes it sound more like an assasination than a police pursuit. Surely he could not have been that dangerous, and surely it would have been of far more value to arrest him, rather than shoot him dead. From that distance they could have easily wounded him in the legs to capture.
Something about this doesn’t seem right, to want someone dead rather than as a witness makes me very suspicious. Something is afoot, I just don’t know what…