Assisted suicide?

[jediphobic]

This is purely an observation, but over here if a beat cop is similarly negligent, the worst case scenario is a lawsuit for wrongful arrest. We did have the Jean Charles de Menezes atrocity in 2005, in which criminally shitty surveillance coupled with a controversial shoot-to-kill policy (imposed by Sir Ian Blair after he saw it while on holiday or something) resulted in one dead innocent man, followed initially by shabby attempts at a whitewash. However, cases like that can be counted on the fingers of Abu Hamza's bad hand. If our police were to be armed as a matter of course there would probably be an uprising of some kind.

Thankfully, it is not impossible for officers to lose their jobs and go to criminal trial over this sort of thing, when warranted.

Just two examples I pulled up with a quick google search:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Everett-...44127.html

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/20...ouncem.php

One unfortunate part is that sometimes an innocent officer gets tarred with the same brush, just from public outrage. Some are forced to retire, even after being cleared of all charges.

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Actually, I'm not seeing anything in your posts anymore that I really have any opposition to. We're really coming to the same place from two different directions. You say, "not because I think he's guilty, but to bring a greater sense of legitimacy to the investigation." I'd want to avoid premature judgments from the public, so that the investigation has a chance to mean something, instead being lost in confirmation bias.