2 men hack soldier to death in UK, are then shot and wounded by police

[Jed]

I am beginning to alter my long held a policy of moderation opinion, to that of the Isrealis. A much more, hit hard and show no mercy, approach.

 

[Jarnhamar]

We have women police? GTFO

 

[Kirkhill]

Who needs coppers when Akela is handy?

Question:  Tell me again why it was necessary to shoot these two poor excuses for humanity?

Not that I have anything against killing them - it just seems "peculiar" that in the land of the Bobby (and the Akela) - that when the coppers showed up they suddenly found it necessary to start shooting. 

Ms Loyau-Kennett seemed to have the situation well in hand... with the assistance of some other women.

A mother-of-two described tonight how she put her own life on the line by trying to persuade the soldier’s murderers to hand over their weapons.
Cub scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett selflessly engaged the terrorists in conversation and kept her nerve as one of them told her: “We want to start a war in London tonight.”
Mrs Loyau-Kennett, 48, from Cornwall, was one of the first people on the scene after the two Islamic extremists butchered a soldier in Woolwich, south east London.
She was photographed by onlookers confronting one of the attackers who was holding a bloodied knife.
Ingrid Loyau-Kennett
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Mrs Loyau-Kennett was a passenger on a number 53 bus which was travelling past the scene, and jumped off to check the soldier’s pulse.
“Being a cub leader I have my first aid so when I saw this guy on the floor I thought it was an accident then I saw the guy was dead and I could not feel any pulse.
“And then when I went up there was this black guy with a revolver and a kitchen knife, he had what looked like butcher’s tools and he had a little axe, to cut the bones, and two large knives and he said 'move off the body’.
“So I thought 'OK, I don’t know what is going on here’ and he was covered with blood. I thought I had better start talking to him before he starts attacking somebody else. I thought these people usually have a message so I said 'what do you want?’
“I asked him if he did it and he said yes and I said why? And he said because he has killed Muslim people in Muslim countries, he said he was a British soldier and I said really and he said 'I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan they have nothing to do there.”
Moments earlier, the killers had hacked at the soldier “like a piece of meat”, and when Mrs Loyau-Kennett arrived on the scene they were roaming John Wilson Street waiting for police to arrive so they could stage a final confrontation with them.
She said: “I started to talk to him and I started to notice more weapons and the guy behind him with more weapons as well. By then, people had started to gather around. So I thought OK, I should keep him talking to me before he noticed everything around him.
“He was not high, he was not on drugs, he was not an alcoholic or drunk, he was just distressed, upset. He was in full control of his decisions and ready to everything he wanted to do.
I said 'right now it is only you versus many people, you are going to lose, what would you like to do?’ and he said I would like to stay and fight.”
The suspect in the black hat then went to speak to someone else and Mrs Loyau-Kennett tried to engage with the other man in the light coat.
She said: “The other one was much shier and I went to him and I said 'well, what about you? Would you like to give me what you have in your hands?’ I did not want to say weapons but I thought it was better having them aimed on one person like me rather than everybody there, children were starting to leave school as well.
Mrs Loyau-Kennett was not the only woman to show extraordinary courage. Others shielded the soldier’s body as the killers stood over them.
MPs praised the “extraordinary bravery” of the women and raised concerns about why it took armed police 20 minutes to arrive at the scene while people’s lives were at risk.
According to a security source the delay in the armed police response is “particularly surprising” because there is a heavily armed police presence at Woolwich Crown Court, which is just two and a half miles away.
Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, said: “We are all grateful for the local people who responded so quickly.
“I do want to pay tribute to them [members of the public] – I think what
they have done is extraordinarily brave and courageous.
“It shows the spirit of London that people are just not prepared to allow an attack of this kind. I pay tribute to what they have done.”
Patrick Mercer MP, a former army officer and former shadow counter terrorism minister, paid tribute to the people who shielded the body of the soldier.
He said: “This is courage of the highest order, it sounds as if these members of the public are not soldiers, not policemen, not people whose duties demand this, they are extremely courageous people and that courage deserves to be recognised at the highest level.”
Robert Buckland, a Conservative member of the justice select committee, said: “It it is the case [that police took 20 minutes to arrive] it is very worrying. If there was any unwarranted delay then that that needs to be investigated.”

 

[Towards_the_gap]

Who needs coppers

I'm sorry but how dense are you?

I'm never shy of criticizing inappropriate LEO use of force, however if I were the copper turning up on scene, having had reports of 2 armed (one of whom was reported as carrying a pistol) males and 1 VSA, in a city that has a burgeoning gun crime problem, I do not doubt that in this case, they made the right choice. These scumbags are not worth a coppers life. I'm sure the investigation will bear out the full facts.

 

[Kirkhill]

Had the coppers shown up in a "reasonable" period of time (20 minutes outside of Woolich Arsenal in London seems a bit excessive) then I would have no problem understanding the immediate use of deadly force.

In this instance, in this particular, individual and unique instance, even allowing for the fact that these wastes of oxygen were looking to pick a fight and were armed.... in this particular instance it seems hard to follow that a middle aged woman was capable of engaging the miscreants in conversation for the span of 20 minutes and them not going off killing everybody in sight.

I have no doubt that there is more to this story than meets the eye and I expect to be enlightened.

Equally, when I posted that item on the Akela and made the comment about the coppers my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek.

But, despite that, it does strike me as strange that the circumstances changed that radically with the arrival of the police.  I am sure there were Health and Safety concerns.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Who needs coppers when Akela is handy?

Question:  Tell me again why it was necessary to shoot these two poor excuses for humanity?

The world is a fraction of a better place now.

 

[cupper]

Saw this on the NBC news tonight. They had video from British TV news. Two things that didn't appear to be mentions so far is that they first ran the victim down with their car. And that the victim was deliberately targeted because he was a soldier.

The incident is / was being treated as a potential terrorist act.

I wonder if it really was, or if these two wastes of procreative effort played it up to look that way.


Regardless, condolences to the family, mates and fellow unit members who have to deal with the shock of this tragic thing.

 

[Jed]

Saw this on the NBC news tonight. They had video from British TV news. Two things that didn't appear to be mentions so far is that they first ran the victim down with their car. And that the victim was deliberately targeted because he was a soldier.

The incident is / was being treated as a potential terrorist act.

I wonder if it really was, or if these two wastes of procreative effort played it up to look that way.

Regardless, condolences to the family, mates and fellow unit members who have to deal with the shock of this tragic thing.

Pretty fine point there, Cupper. I assume you wonder if there are other A holes that warmed them up for the job.

 

[cupper]

Pretty fine point there, Cupper. I assume you wonder if there are other A holes that warmed them up for the job.

I can understand the Gov't taking the stance they did to treat it as a terrorist incident, particularly with the militant radicals that are living within Britain, first and second generation youth that have been radicalized from the same militant clerics that stirred up the London bombers of a few years back. Until they do a full investigation of these two, better to air on the side of caution.

But I also wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be two f'd up whack jobs bent on killing someone for the hell of it and claiming to be Islamic radicals avenging the wrongs done by the West, just to stir up some twisted race riot.

That's all I was trying to say.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Jamie Bartlett of the UK think-tank Demos offers some thoughts in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jamie-bartlett/woolwich-attacks-are-not-new_b_3323858.html

The Woolwich Attacks Are Not New

Jamie Bartlett

Posted: 23/05/2013

All the evidence now strongly suggests that yesterday's knife attack in Woolwich was a terrorist incident, and the two culprits were al-Qaeda inspired, or motivated by similar violent ideas. Beyond that, caution is required. There is still much we do not know (although Twitter, predictably, has already named one suspect, and I won't repeat it here). It is being reported as a new departure, a new style, of terrorist activity. Assuming it is an al-Qaeda inspired attack, that is wrong on three counts.

First, it would not be surprising if the victim was a serving or former soldier. Soldiers have always been the most 'legitimate' targets in the minds of al-Qaeda inspired terrorists - wherever they are found. There was a foiled plot to behead a British soldier in 2007. Soldiers have long been the targets of attacks, from the Jewish resistance movement in 1945-6 to the IRA: it is not just from Islamists.

Second, this gory murder - butchering someone to death in plain daylight - is not that surprising either. In 2004 Dutch playwrite Theo Van Gogh was shot to death by Mohamed Bouyeri while on his way to work. After shooting Van Gogh, Bouyeri tried, and failed, to decapitate him as horrified members of the public looked on. I have argued for some time that this type of brutal street attack is in many ways the natural evolution of the al-Qaeda inspired threat in the UK. That, in part, is because of the incredibly good job security services have done disrupting major cells and arresting targets, which means those interested in violent activity are often small, amateur, self-starting groups, unable to launch spectacular attacks that require technical know-how and precision planning. Note, for example, earlier this year that violent, but very incompetent, Islamists were convicted for attempting to set off explosives at an English Defence League rally. Almost impossible to predict but capable of generating enormous attention because of the fear it produces.

Third, it appears the culrpits filmed the attack, and maybe asked passerbys to take photos. Certainly one of the men spoke for some time to one person filming. This is not a new departure either. Many al-Qaeda inspired individuals have tried to record their endeavours for posterity, often aimed at the YouTube generation. You may recall the celebrity-friendly martyrdom videos made by those convicted of plotting to blow up passenger jets over the Atlantic Ocean in 2006. They were filled with images of graphic, mindless violence and self-indulgence: Abdula Abdel Ali planned to "decorate" streets with body parts. The acting was cardboard - an impromptu cameraman even urged them to "give it some" - and the aim was narcissitic. In my detailed study of modern Islamist networks, I found that many young home-grown al-Qaeda terrorists are not attracted by religion or ideology alone - often their knowledge of Islamist theology is wafer thing and superficial - but also by the glorification of violence, the horrible infamous glamour that al-Qaeda type groups purports to offer.

Our response now should also be familiar: calm and measured. Not creating a sense of panic - this it what these people want - but not underestimating the threat either. And everyone should take some strange comfort from the fact that this types of mindless violence is almost impossible to stop: because that also shows how very few people in our country want to do it.

It is, indeed, "strange comfort," but I agree with all three of his points.

 

[The Bread Guy]

UK MoD releases a name ....

Drummer Lee Rigby or ‘Riggers’ to his friends was born in July 1987 in Crumpsall, Manchester. He joined the Army in 2006 and on successful completion of his infantry training course at Infantry Training Centre Catterick was selected to be a member of the Corps of Drums and posted to 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (also known as the ‘Second Fusiliers’ or ‘2 RRF’).

His first posting was as a machine gunner in Cyprus where the battalion was serving as the resident infantry battalion in Dhekelia. Having performed a plethora of tasks while in Cyprus, he returned to the UK in the early part of 2008 to Hounslow, West London. Here, Drummer Rigby stood proudly outside the royal palaces as part of the battalion’s public duties commitment. He was an integral member of the Corps of Drums throughout the battalion’s time on public duties, the highlight of which was being a part of the Household Division’s Beating Retreat – a real honour for a line infantry Corps of Drums.

In April 2009, Drummer Rigby deployed on operations for the first time to Helmand province, Afghanistan, where he served as a member of the Fire Support Group at Patrol Base Woqab. On returning to the UK he completed a second tour of public duties and then moved with the battalion to Celle, Germany, to be held at a state of high readiness for contingency operations as part of the Small Scale Contingency Battle Group.

In 2011, Drummer Rigby took up a recruiting post in London where he also assisted with duties at the regimental headquarters in the Tower of London.

An extremely popular and witty soldier, Drummer Rigby was a larger than life personality within the Corps of Drums and was well known, liked and respected across the Second Fusiliers. He was a passionate and lifelong Manchester United fan.

A loving father to his son Jack, aged 2 years, he will be sorely missed by all who knew him. The regiment’s thoughts and prayers are with his family during this extremely difficult time. ‘Once a Fusilier, always a Fusilier’ ....

UK MoD news release, 23 May 13

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Wtf, I couldnt imagine being a bystander and just staying idle.

I can understand your sentiments, but remember these are ordinary civilians; they have no training in unarmed combat and more importantly no access to any type of weapons, not even pepper spray. On the other hand, you got two psychos who just butchered a fellow human being in front of your eyes and who are armed with a machete and possibly a handgun.

The only thing I can think of is jumping into car, putting it in gear, peddle to the metal and try to run the s.o.bs over. Mind you, I'm sitting comfortably at home and have had time to think the situation over; not standing on a street curb watching some more soul getting slaughtered.

And after writing all of the above, I just remembered a lady did step in and try help the poor guy, but it was to late.

 

[leroi]

Totally sickening act of pure evil. :'( I worry about CF personnel self-identifying as military when off-duty and in public. 

Just watched this documentary set in Britain. Rather long but well done. I thought it was relevant but Mods please move, if misplaced. The doc leaves me with the feeling there's no hope for the human race.

"My Brother the Islamist" (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LorhdNH1C34

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Totally sickening act of pure evil. :'( I worry about CF personnel self-identifying as military when off-duty and in public. 

Just watched this documentary set in Britain. Rather long but well done. I thought it was relevant but Mods please move, if misplaced. The doc leaves me with the feeling there's no hope for the human race.

"My Brother the Islamist" (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LorhdNH1C34

Sorry. We've already done that stupid exercise of riding buses and changing into uniform at work. Not being seen in uniform in public places, etc.

Dumb, degrading and nothing more than politically expedient for some useless decision makers that never left a building anyway.

Soldiers are what they are. It's in the job description.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Reproduced, without comment, under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330180/Woolwich-attacks-Two-men-arrested-offensive-Twitter-comments-Lee-Rigbys-death.html

Two men arrested over ‘offensive Twitter comments about British soldier’s death’  
A 23-year-old and a 22-year-old held under the Public Order Act
Complaints made to Avon and Somerset Police about remarks on Twitter
Police say people should be careful about what they write on twitter as the 'consequences could be serious'

By JAYMI MCCANN

PUBLISHED: 24 May 2013

Two men have been arrested for making alleged offensive comments on Twitter about the murder of a British soldier.

Complaints were made to Avon and Somerset Police about remarks that appeared on the social networking website, which were of a racist or anti-religious nature.

A 23-year-old and a 22-year-old, both from Bristol, were held under the Public Order Act on suspicion of inciting racial or religious hatred.

Detective Inspector Ed Yaxley said: 'On Wednesday evening, we were contacted by people concerned about comments made on social media accounts.

'These comments were directed against a section of our community. Comments such as these are completely unacceptable and only cause more harm to our community in Bristol.

'People should stop and think about what they say on social media before making statements as the consequences could be serious.'

Police confirmed the two men were later released on bail pending further inquiries.

 

[George Wallace]

Sorry. We've already done that stupid exercise of riding buses and changing into uniform at work. Not being seen in uniform in public places, etc.

Dumb, degrading and nothing more than politically expedient for some useless decision makers that never left a building anyway.

Soldiers are what they are. It's in the job description.

Just a point:  The murdered soldier was in civilian clothes.

 

[George Wallace]

Would I be wrong in believing that this comment is about two non-Muslims commenting on Twitter?

'These comments were directed against a section of our community. Comments such as these are completely unacceptable and only cause more harm to our community in Bristol.

It seems that the UK, like Canada, is doing itself in by censoring comments against Islam, yet allowing Islamists to openly preach their vitriol messages.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Just a point:  The murdered soldier was in civilian clothes.

Thanks for being obvious George, I'm quite aware of that.

My point being it's not our nature to hide or skulk around because of our profession.

Nor should it be, nor should we return to those days that were imposed on us at one time.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Would I be wrong in believing that this comment is about two non-Muslims commenting on Twitter?

It seems that the UK, like Canada, is doing itself in by censoring comments against Islam, yet allowing Islamists to openly preach their vitriol messages.

Nice opening salvo in the 'fan the flames of speculation' department.

 

[George Wallace]

Thanks for being obvious George, I'm quite aware of that.

My point being it's not our nature to hide or skulk around because of our profession.

Nor should it be, nor should we return to those days that were imposed on us at one time.

I agree.  Just emphasizing your point on the knee jerk reaction.