They think it's all over - and it's about time too.
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The east London siege, where a lone gunman has held police at bay for 15 days from a bedsit in Hackney, has been nothing short of embarrassing. It has shown the British state at its most helpless, hapless and risk-averse. And for this, it seems to be facing remarkably little criticism.
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The siege began on Boxing Day (26 December 2002), when police prepared to tow away a car belonging to the gunman - presumed to be Eli Hall, described by the London Evening Standard as 'a Yardie with a record of violence and drug dealing' (1) - and he started threatening them. A dozen residents were evacuated to local B&Bs, and about 40 were confined to their homes, dependent on the police to bring them 'essential supplies'.
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A couple of days after Boxing Day, police discovered that there was another man being held hostage in the flat. The hostage eventually escaped on Sunday 5 January. The standoff continued. Having begun by sending the gunman Tesco's groceries (apparently courtesy of a credit card belonging to the Women's Royal Voluntary Service), the police gradually cut off food supplies, and electricity to the flat. The gunman retaliated by burning furniture to keep himself warm, and starting a fire that the police had to put out with hoses borrowed from the fire service.
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Eventually, police fired CS gas into the flat, and the siege ended at 9.30pm on 9 January, when the gunman was found dead. It is not known - or at least, not said - whether he died at his own hands, burning to death in the fire, or as a consequence of police tactics.
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The siege's end has sparked much discussion about the specific tactics used by the police. Police contend that it's a happy resolution - nobody got hurt except the gunman, who never intended to come out alive in the first place. Locals are understandably cheesed off, after spending the best part of the first two weeks of the new year effectively under house arrest by the authorities, for their own safety. But the tactics used to resolve this particular situation aren't really the point. This is an issue of self-respect.
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The predictable media round-ups of the UK's longest sieges have brought comparisons with the six-day-long 1980 siege of the Iranian Embassy, by terrorists demanding the release of 91 political prisoners in Iran (2); and the six-day-long siege of Balcombe Street, London, by the IRA in 1975 (3).
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But deliberately orchestrated political sieges are hardly the same thing as the decision by one lone criminal to hole himself up in a Hackney bedsit after the police come knocking on his door. And the kind of British state that sent in the SAS to resolve those sieges by force is very different to the state that plays the waiting game with an individual gunman because, as Mick Hume has put it, it fears that 'decisive action might trigger dangerous side-effects' (see Why Blair wishes us a gloomy New Year).
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Throughout this bizarre standoff, we've heard nothing but earnest discussion about the need to ensure that the hostage was not harmed, that police officers were not harmed, that the fire service should not man the hoses in case they got harmed, that local residents must not go out in case they got harmed, that the gunman himself should not get harmed - certainly not by the police.
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You'd think that, having played cat and mouse with the British state for over two weeks, the Metropolitan Police might derive some satisfaction from the fact that the gunman has met his maker. Instead, great pains are taken to emphasise the likelihood that the gunman's death was self-inflicted, even though the death is being officially reviewed, just in case the cops had anything to do with it.
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This is not the approach of a police force that says 'Don't mess with us' and means it. It's the approach of a body of armed men in denial, cautiously tiptoeing around a situation in case it does anything to make things worse, preferring to stand back and let events take their course than do anything to resolve the situation.
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No matter that this approach has consequences - keeping residents in the surrounding area in a state of siege and fear, effectively cordoning off two weeks of people's lives. And no matter that the message this sends out, about the ability of law'n'order to impose some law'n'order, is hardly one that inspires awe, even confidence.
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I'm no fan of the police. I would like fewer police to hassle fewer people - for the vast majority of us to be left alone. I would like fewer petty laws, and less petty officialdom. But when lone criminals with guns start taking people hostage for no apparent reason, I'd like somebody to be able to sort it out.
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When the authorities are obsessed with putting their own safety first, and prepared to sacrifice dozens of other people's freedom and livelihoods to do that, the antics of a dangerous criminal, which once would have been easily contained, can dominate. Meanwhile, the authorities show themselves capable of only two things: policing the petty misdemeanours of the largely law-abiding, and making a hefty contribution to the culture of fear.
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(1) Siege gunman was yardie, Evening Standard, 10 January 2003
(2) Siege at the Iranian Embassy, BBC News
(3) Balcombe Street gang's reign of terror, BBC News, 9 April 1999
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