Police acting in a calm and controlled manner…

It is nice to know that if I am ever shot by the police, they will not be jumpy, panicked or frenzied when they do so.

“Everybody is human and we all get excited occasionally but it is the training that enables us to carry out the duties as happened on this day in a calm and controlled manner.”

So says Chief Inspector Vince Esposito. Almost makes you forget what it was they did in such a responsible and public-spirited manner. Shot a man as he was pinned down. Seven times, at close range.

The BBC website has a timeline of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes , which has one very interesting snippet that had passed me by. At 9.47, more than a quarter of an hour befor Jean Charles was shot, a “senior firearms officer” told the Operations room that surveillance teams had said that the man they were following was not the suspect Hussein Osman. Yet still he was shot, and still lies were told afterwards about how it came about.

Eyewitnesses on the train have told the inquest that they heard no warning given and in fact thought that the police were terrorists. And indeed, if the police are free to act like this, then Terror has won a victory over Freedom and Democracy.