How not to get shot in the head

I hate it when my fears are confirmed. Last week I wrote about the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting in London. Today Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post reports that the International Association of Police Chiefs is affirming shoot-to-kill policies for dealing with suspected suicide bombers. Evidently that State is getting ready to justify taking a citizen's life without due process, without even probable cause, but simply in the interest of stopping someone who "fits a certain behavioral profile." According to the IAPC, you can be shot in the head if you exhibit "multiple anomalies":

• wearing a heavy coat in warm weather
• carrying a briefcase, duffel bag or backpack with protrusions or visible wires [watch where you put your I-Pod]
• displaying nervousness
  
• avoiding eye contact [evidently we are always supposed to look cops straight in the eye]
  
• sweating excessively [work out at the gym and cool down completely before stepping outside]
• bearing chemical burns on one's clothing or stains on one's hands
• mumbling prayers [perhaps you are safe if you shout your prayers? or should you simply keep the Holy Ghost at bay in public places all together?]
• pacing back and forth in front of a venue [don't wait for anyone in a public place]

I thought that maybe the United States would take a more Constitutional approach to dealing with suspects in public places than the British police, that maybe we would show a little more restraint and respect for the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." But the Post article offers this grim quote from Miami Police Chief John F. Timoney:

I can guarantee you that if we have, God forbid, a suicide bomber in a big city in the United States, 'shoot to kill' will be the inevitable policy.... It's not a policy we choose lightly, but it's the only policy.

The only policy? I will grant the Scylla-and-Charybdis dilemma police face in dealing with suspected suicide bombers:

"The police standard operating procedure of addressing a suspect and telling them to drop their weapon and put their hands up or freeze is not going to work with a suicide bomber," said Bruce Hoffman, author of "Inside Terrorism" and a terrorist expert at the Rand Corp. "You're signing your own death warrant if you do that."

...but the dilemma is still a di-lemma -- i.e., the police have two choices. Police, like all humans, will always make errors; they must choose which sort of errors they will more likely make. Again, the question boils down to whether police should err on the side of liberty or security.

Let's put the moral dilemma this way: Imagine you are a police officer. Which moral responsibility would you rather bear:

1. Indirect responsibility for the property damage, injury, and/or death caused by a suicide bomber whom you fail to subdue; or
2. Direct responsibility for the death of an innocent person whom you mistake for a suicide bomber and shoot dead?

Better yet, put faces on that dilemma: To which parents/spouses/children would you rather have to explain your actions: those of the suicide bomber's victims, or those of the innocent victim of your shoot-to-kill policy?

By the way, for those of you looking for other historical examples to enliven the debate, Page 2 of the Post article does mention Amadou Diallo ("41 Times").