The Los Angeles Times on Friday’s police shooting in a London subway:

Plainclothes police engaged in the frenetic hunt for fugitives involved in London’s transit bombings pursued a suspect into an Underground train Friday and shot him to death in front of screaming and cowering passengers.

It was not clear whether the man, described as a young Asian wearing a heavy coat despite the summer heat, was one of four men who had tried to set off backpack bombs on three subway trains and a bus Thursday, attempts that mirrored a spate of bombings July 7 that killed 56 people, including four bombers. Police did not immediately identify the man or say whether he was carrying weapons or explosives.

Officials said that plainclothes police had followed the man after he left a house that had been under surveillance and that they tried to stop him as he approached a train station.

and the New York Times:

It was around 10 a.m. on a sunny, summery Friday when London crossed a once-unthinkable line in its unfolding war on terror.

In a city where most police officers do not carry guns, the shock from the shooting death of a man in a subway car was palpable. It raised questions about police firearms practices, kindled uncertainty among Muslims and deepened the anxiety of a city that looks, these days, under siege.

The NYT then proceeds with an eyewitness account of the shooting, then veers into a discussion of Metropolitan Police firearms policy.

The LAT’s just-the-facts piece does an infinitely better job describing what people want to know — what exactly happened?

The NYT story has all the immediacy of an analytical piece. Rather than report news, it seems intent on creating an impression that the shooting might have been unjustified.

But let’s look at what we know. The suspect left a house under surveillance. He was dressed far too warmly — in a heavy coat — for the day; exactly what one would expect a suicide bomber to wear. When police then saw him enter a subway station, they repeatedly yelled at him to stop. Instead, he ran — into a subway car where the push of a bomb’s trigger could have caused perhaps twenty to fifty deaths.

Whether the man had a bomb belt on or not — let’s be thankful the officer didn’t stop to think how his actions would be written up in the New York Times.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 23rd, 2005 at 1:13 am by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Los Angeles Times, Media, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.