WHEN an alert flashed to the control room of Operation Kratos at Scotland Yard last week that a suspected suicide bomber was entering an Underground station, a senior officer was asked to make a snap decision.
His judgment that the London public were again under threat led to advice to officers at the scene that the man should be “neutralised”.
Seconds later three officers jumped on a man on a Northern line train and one pumped five bullets from an automatic pistol into his head.
The action was hailed as a success, ruthless but necessary. Scotland Yard indicated it was confident that a bomber had been shot dead.
Yesterday, 18 hours later, the Yard admitted that it had made a mistake and shot a man unconnected to the bombings.
Last night the officer who fired the bullets was facing investigation and possible criminal charges. So, too, is the “gold commander” — a deputy assistant commissioner or above, according to police sources — who gave him the instruction to open fire if he felt it was necessary.
Last week even Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, admitted that police had to have a shoot-to-kill policy to counter the terrorist threat in London. But today, in the cold light of a tragic mistake, the whole policy is under review.
Police sources said the officer who fired the shots would almost certainly be relieved from firearms duties during the inquiry but would not be suspended from a specialist counter-terrorist section of the Metropolitan police SO19 firearms wing which is trained by the SAS.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) will tomorrow begin an official inquiry into the Stockwell shooting.
Scotland Yard insisted at first yesterday that it was not a case of mistaken identity because the dead man had been seen leaving an address in south London where police had been carrying out surveillance.
A Yard spokesman said yesterday morning: “The man who was shot was under police observation. He had emerged from a house that itself was under observation in connection to the bombing incidents.
“He was followed by surveillance officers to the station. His clothing and his behaviour at the station added to their suspicions.
“The investigation into the circumstances of the death is being pursued and is subject to scrutiny through the IPCC.”
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, was all smiles when he met a television camera crew. “The Met is playing out of its socks. I am very pleased with what is happening,” he said.
By late afternoon the awful truth had dawned. Not only was the dead man not a bomber; he was believed to be a Brazilian.
Whether by coincidence or to provide a smokescreen, newspapers were tipped off about an impending raid on a house in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill, south London. Police fired teargas into the house and moved dozens of people from the area in a show of force.
An hour later, just before 5pm, Scotland Yard released a statement saying the dead man had no connection with the terrorist investigation.
The IPCC said its inquiry into the death would be carried out by its own force of 80 investigators and not by an outside police force, the normal process in high-profile cases.
The inquiry team is likely to submit a report to the Crown Prosecution Service which can decide if any charges are to be brought. If not, a coroner will hold an inquest into the death which could return a verdict of unlawful killing.
Most of the guidelines on police use of firearms have been in force since 1983 after Stephen Waldorf, a film editor, was shot five times in an ambush in Kensington, west London, when he was mistaken for a fugitive gunman. He survived and was awarded £150,000 compensation.
The guidelines allow for a police commander to direct that shots may be fired in incidents such as those involving suicide bombers but do not exempt either the senior officer or the man firing the gun from responsibility.
“To sum up,” say the guidelines, “a police officer should not decide to open fire unless that officer is satisfied that nothing short of opening fire could protect the officer or another person from imminent danger to life or serious injury.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said any officer who used such force, including any commander who authorised such force, “must be able to justify their actions to any subsequent inquiry”.
However, Acpo’s terrorism committee in the past two years has developed new “operational tactics to help police respond swiftly and effectively to such threats” as suicide bombers.
The Acpo spokesman said; “We can say that they do include specialised tactics for both response to the sudden appearance of such a suspect and for surveillance of suspects identified through intelligence. They are designed for use in relation to suspects on foot, in buildings and in vehicles.”
This has led to suggestions that a shoot-to-kill policy, similar to the one that sparked controversy in Northern Ireland is in existence.
In the past, shooting at someone’s body was considered the most effective way of disabling them. However, this could detonate explosives strapped to the body, so officers have now been advised to shoot to the head.
Lord Stevens, Blair’s predecessor as Metropolitan commissioner, said last night that he had introduced a “shoot-to-kill-to-protect” policy.
He said: “We are living in unique times of unique evil, at war with an enemy of unspeakable brutality, and I have no doubt that now, more than ever, the principle is right despite the chance, tragically of error.”
But Imran Khan, a solicitor who has just won a judicial review in another case in which Derek Bennett was shot dead by police in Brixton, south London in 2001 while running from officers and brandishing a gun-shaped cigarette lighter, said: “If the police were mistaken it was clearly bad evidence or a bad assessment of the situation.
“Everybody has been in a state of high alert. One may have an itchy trigger finger but the fact is you have to assess a situation as it is on the ground.
“It is really going to need a full-scale inquiry. That is not a fashionable thing to say but it is necessary because the fear in the community is that it could happen again.”
In 2003 Blair, then deputy commissioner, attempted to dismiss a report by the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), the IPCC’s predecessor, which accused officers of being too quick to start shooting. The PCA examined a rise in police shootings and found that the London force was twice as likely as others to open fire on a suspect. Blair, then deputy commissioner, described the PCA’s findings as “inappropriate and ill-advised”.
The PCA looked at 24 police shootings, including 11 fatalities, between 1998 and 2001 and concluded that many of those shot were mentally ill or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The report noted that 55 shots had been fired by police and no suspects fired back.
