The problem is Don, someone's lying and it's either the police or the eyewitnesses.

"If any here think I'm shying at shadows, go tell it to the 2000 plus who died on 9/11, or the 52 in London on 7/7. Do you think THEIR kinfolk would have wanted the cops to refrain from shooting the terrorists, given the chance?"

If our response to these acts is a shoot to kill policy that makes the killing of innocent civilians acceptable then the terrorists will win. No sane person would say those who committed the atrocities you mentioned would suggest action not be taken to stop the bombers, but this man was on his way to fix a fire alarm, not carrying a rucksack of explosives or flying an airliner. On the days of those outrages, should the powers the
at be have been given free reign to shoot down all airliners in the sky or fire upon everyone carrying a rucksack?

""Certainly, had their target been a terrorist, and they failed to prevent his detonation of a bomb, a very different argument would now be taking place here, and the people who are yelling about murder would still be blaming the same officers, for NOT shooting him."

Had the man they were supposedly been watching been a terrorist with a bomb who left after Menenzes he might well have been successful - the police had misidentified him and were pursing an electrician in fatal error.

"Is there anyone here, stupid enough to believe that we have any police officers in this country who WANT to go out and shoot an innocent man?"

Well, either their warnings were insufficient or, as appears the case, they were non-existent and the police have lied in court to protect themselves. They might not have wanted to shoot him, but something's not right about all this and I suspect it might be there was a policy of shoot first and ask questions later. Either way, it's utterly unacceptable these officers are returned to duty after this tragedy. The police must be fully accountable to the society they serve.

Someone's lying in a court of law, and it looks very much like it's the police.