London Police Shoot Suspected Terror

London Police Shoot Suspected Terror Network Member

London plainclothes police were on the trail of a suspected member of a terror network when he bolted in a subway. He was wearing a thick coat in the middle of a humid summer day, and it appears that the police were afraid he might be concealing a bomb. When he tripped–or in some reports they tripped him– they shot him several times. Eyewitnesses say that he had a “horrified” look on his face when he tripped and fell. He was not one of the four bombers police are seeking from the failed July 21 bombing attempts. He turned out not to be armed, and the incident has raised alarms among the British Muslim community.

For anyone who knows the UK, this incident is startling. Most British police are not armed, and the shooting of unarmed but suspicious persons is infinitely less common there than in the United States.

British authorities also released photos of the four July 21 bombing suspects. They are a clone of the July 7 cell, with three South Asians and one Caribbean or African.