Ethical Backflips

This news that Jean Charles de Menezes, the man shot in the head 5 times by undercover British officers the day after the failed July 21 Tube bombings, is troubling:

LONDON, Aug. 17 - The British press, lawyers and campaigners reacted with outrage on Wednesday after leaked reports from an official investigation contradicted police accounts of the death of a Brazilian man who the police may have thought was a suicide bomber.

The report from the investigation, made public in Britain by ITV News, suggested that Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, the Brazilian, was already being restrained by the police on a subway train in south London on July 22 when he was shot eight times.

The report, from an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, includes accounts by witnesses, interviews with police officers and film from the surveillance system. The findings indicated that contrary to earlier reports by the police, Mr. Menezes seemed to be unaware that he was being followed from his home and into the Stockwell subway station, that he was not wearing a heavy jacket that could have concealed explosives and that he did not run from the police or jump over the subway station's ticket turnstile.

This is, on the surface, the result of panic from British surveillance, and a classic coverup by the London police. The guy started running to catch the train, which is what pretty much anyone in the subway station who hears the car come pulling in would do. A report on NPR claimed that the man assigned to watch the house from which Menezes came, a house purported to be one used by the July 21 bombers, was taking a leak when Menezes emerged from it, and was unable to properly match him to the bomber's profiles.

A mistake. A tragic mistake. And the police coverup is pretty abhorrent.

But worse than that is this attempted apology for the police, from Ann Althouse, a law professor no less, that makes the chilling claim that the murder of innocents is nothing more than a means to an end:

Is it not true that yesterday's sad mistake has already solved the problem it represents? In fact, a further good has been created: as ordinary persons change their behavior and drop the bulky clothing and unnecessary running, the real terrorists will stand out more. Indeed, if anyone ever behaves like Jean Charles de Menezes again, the presumption that he is a terrorist will be so overwhelmingly strong that the police really must kill him.

The problem is that Jean Charles de Menezes didn't behave like Jean Charles de Menezes (a fact she notes in a follow-up, without changing her view that maybe killing this guy to keep everyone else in line was OK). And that Ms. Althouse is basically advocating that we all change our behavior at gunpoint, or else. "No running" signs should be changed to "No running under penalty of death." It's unbelievable how easy it is for some on the right to give up their liberty for security.

This was a moment of fear for Althouse, and her instinct was to immediately grasp at straws to justify an extrajudicial killing. This from a law professor. I fear for what our next set of laws will bring.