Gunman Dies

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As per this article on the beeb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21213789

Like most people, it's usually nice to hear of muggers, robbers etc getting their comeuppance - old lady foiling jewellery thieves or a mugger trying it on with someone who's an expert in unarmed combat.

But there seems something very sad about this one. Although I've got nothing to base it on it sounds like an act of pure desperation from the robber. Then again the people that restrained him would have been in genuine fear of their lives.

Am I just getting soft in my old age?
 
No, I felt the same way and I don't normally give sympathy for people who break the law. Somehow though this poor chap got more than he bargained for and paid with his life. Sad really.:shake:
 
Serves him right. Anyone injured or killed while committing a crime deserves what they get. If a customer had a dodgy heart or something it could have killed them!
 
It's a really difficult situation. If indeed, as suggested, the guy had an imitation pistol then he clearly didn't intend to hurt anyone and was merely using scare tactics but the problem is no-one else was aware of that and they used whatever force they felt necessary to stop him. There are ways of restraining people that will stop them without the risk of killing them, but if you choose to try hold up a shop with a gun, imitation or otherwise, you have to be ready to take whatever gets thrown at you. If that means you die, so be it.

It's a genuine shame the guy died as we don't know the circumstances behind what happened (how desperate/mentally ill/messed up he was), it's a very unfortunate outcome either way. :(
 
One thing to remember, he was a terrorist as well as a robber. He was using the situation to terrify the staff into handing over the till. The sooner we treat 'gangsters' as terrorists the sooner we will stop feeling sorry for them and thinking this is their only option out of financial difficulty.
 
Whether it was a real gun or not, the effect on his victims was the same.
It may be that the position he was restrained in, together with his gas mask, resulted in positional asphyxia.

I'm sorry that he's dead, but not very.
 
tiler65 said:
One thing to remember, he was a terrorist as well as a robber. He was using the situation to terrify the staff into handing over the till. The sooner we treat 'gangsters' as terrorists the sooner we will stop feeling sorry for them and thinking this is their only option out of financial difficulty.
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He may have been mentally ill for all we know, we're all just guessing without really knowing the facts. I'm really not trying to justify what he did; as I said in my earlier post if you hold up a shop you have to be ready for whatever outcome presents itself, all I'm saying is if the guy had deeper problems then I think some sympathy for him is perfectly understandable.
 
The world will not miss someone who chooses to try and rob somewhere at gunpoint.

I am not sad he is not on the earth anymore.
 
yep i'm with joe and simon on this - even if he was desperate / mentally ill or whatever (and we don't know whether he was or not) thats no solace to his intended victims

Speaking as someone who's been held up at gunpoint (when i used to manage a convenience store) its flipping scary, and can be seriously traumatic going forward - one of my staff had a total nervous breakdown , couldnt sleep, wouldnt go out , quit her job - the works ... all because some scrote wanted some easy cash.

I'd say a big well done to those who apprehended him, and heres hoping the police/cps show some common sense and don't charge them with anything
 
big soft moose said:
Speaking as someone who's been held up at gunpoint (when i used to manage a convenience store) its flipping scary, and can be seriously traumatic going forward - one of my staff had a total nervous breakdown , couldnt sleep, wouldnt go out , quit her job - the works ... all because some scrote wanted some easy cash.
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Having never been in that situation I can only imagine how terrifying it must be. My point wasn't really whether the outcome was right or wrong, it's more that if this happened as a result of mental illness (i.e. he wasn't capable of realising it's monumentally wrong to hold up a shop), then his own death and the huge amount of stress caused to others is very sad. Probably unnecessary as well, help is available if people need and want it. :(

If he was perfectly sane and just wanted to feed a drug habit then even it's still a sad situation but I'd have an infinitely lower amount of sympathy for the guy.
 
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PMN said:
He may have been mentally ill for all we know, we're all just guessing without really knowing the facts. I'm really not trying to justify what he did; as I said in my earlier post if you hold up a shop you have to be ready for whatever outcome presents itself, all I'm saying is if the guy had deeper problems then I think some sympathy for him is perfectly understandable.
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I am not guessing when I say that the staff and customers were and would have been terrified.

And the only one guessing is you by bringing a possible mental illness into the equation.
 
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I posted earlier in the thread but I'd like to add, I feel sorry for his family too but most of all I feel sorry for the people who tackled him and who now have the worry of possibly being charged and the anxiety that goes with that.:(
 
PMN said:
Do you know for a fact he didn't have a mental illness? If not then I'm not the only one guessing, if so then I'll happily accept the facts.

Calm down. ;)
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Do you? No? Then you are guessing as you made the statement, I never said he did or he didn't.
 
tiler65 said:
Do you? No?
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No, that's my whole point. If it's the case that he had a mental illness then I have more sympathy for him. I don't know he did any more than you know he didn't, hence why I'm saying he might have had a mental illness, and if he did then I have more sympathy for him. I thought I made it blindingly obvious in my previous post by saying if he'd have been feeding a drug habit I'd have had less sympathy.

How many more times do you need it spelling out? :bang:
 
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Let this be a health and saftey lesson to you folks...

Gas masks are for war, not sexual activity :D
 
PMN said:
No, that's my whole point. If it's the case that he had a mental illness then I have more sympathy for him. I don't know he did any more than you know he didn't, hence why I'm saying he might have had a mental illness, and if he did then I have more sympathy for him. I thought I made it blindingly obvious in my previous post by saying if he'd have been feeding a drug habit I'd have had less sympathy.

How many more times do you need it spelling out? :bang:
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What if he was mentally ill with a drug habit........where would you stand then?

Oh and just to add, you edited your post to 'clarify' things as I posted my reply.
 
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Simple answer to this thread in light of him attempting to commit robbery and facing the ultimate price: "Good."
 
tiler65 said:
What if he was mentally ill with a drug habit........where would you stand then?
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The overriding problem is the mental illness, a number of other things can develop from that. If he were mentally ill with a drug problem then I'd say he needed more help than if he were just mentally ill or just had a drug problem.
 
PMN said:
The overriding problem is the mental illness, a number of other things can develop from that. If he were mentally ill with a drug problem then I'd say he needed more help than if he were just mentally ill or just had a drug problem.
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Can drug addiction bring on mental illness?
 
Doog said:
I feel sorry for the people who tackled him and who now have the worry of possibly being charged and the anxiety that goes with that.:(
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:thumbs:

It takes a monumental ammount of balls to do what they did - up to the point where we got held up i'd always thought of myself as someone who would "have a go" - after all holywood makes it seem so simple , and in my case i used to be a soilder and I've had some training in unarmed combat.

But in reality its not like that at all - its a perfectly normal evenig shift then suddenly someone points (in our case) a sawn off double barrel shotgun at you from about ten feet away and cocks it - this was in 1997 and I can still visuasliose and hear the click of those hammers going back - and you've got this unstable hyped up kid with his finger on the triggers and you're accutely aware that if he pulls it you and your colleagues are going to die. :eek:

---

as i say in this case massive kudos to the guys who tackled him - and if the authorities do wind up charging them, i'll be contributiing to their defence fund.
 
tiler65 said:
Can drug addiction bring on mental illness?
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It can certainly affect how you think and process information, I'm not sure whether that classes as bringing on a mental illness or not but that wasn't what I was referring to. If what you're asking is whether I'd feel the same sympathy had this guy developed mental problems as a direct result of drug abuse rather than having mental issues in the first place then no, I wouldn't.
 
We were held up at gunpoint twice within a month. We had all sorts of routines in place and rehearsed them regularly but the first time the girl just froze and gave him the money. She had nightmares and eventually left working for us. The second time the girl followed the routine to the letter. She even told him to "**** off". It was the same man who returned for more, but this time left empty handed! But the second girl also had problems dealing with it and she too eventually left to find a different job.

We had all the routines in place in advance, we gave the girls involved all the support and consideration that we could - more than we were obliged to - but it still ruined their careers. Two lives ruined because some scrote wants easy money.

No gun was ever shown - just a plastic bag with some shape showing though it. But the threat was there, and they believed it. Was there a gun? We'll never know, but would you risk it?

It was terrifying for everyone. I can well imagine that the customers in the betting shop went into self preservation mode and just swamped the man and held him as firm as they could until the boys in blue arrived.

The latest Police statements indicate that even now they are not totally sure that this was a replica gun, incapable of firing live rounds. I give every credit to those who took on a gunman, and put their own lives at risk to disarm him. That takes cojones. He died: well that's bad. But if he hadn't set out to do an armed robbery he would still be alive.

He gambled and lost. Tough.
 
Spuff said:
As per this article on the beeb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21213789

Like most people, it's usually nice to hear of muggers, robbers etc getting their comeuppance - old lady foiling jewellery thieves or a mugger trying it on with someone who's an expert in unarmed combat.

But there seems something very sad about this one. Although I've got nothing to base it on it sounds like an act of pure desperation from the robber. Then again the people that restrained him would have been in genuine fear of their lives.

Am I just getting soft in my old age?
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You shouldn't feel sad, he took the risk and lost.

He's also got previous convictions for this sort of thing, recently leaving prison for putting a gun in the face of a till girl in Cost Cutter. Good riddance.

He wasn't mentally ill (why do we look for excuses for people, so liberal!) he was just a criminal who didn't care who he hurt.
 
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odd jim said:
He wasn't mentally ill (why do we look for excuses for people, so liberal!) he was just a criminal who didn't care who he hurt.
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If that subtly directed at me then I wasn't making excuses, it was a simple point of view that you don't have to agree with. ;)

Thanks for clearing it up though, if he didn't have such problems and had a history of pointing (real or fake) guns at people then balls to him!
 
PMN said:
If that subtly directed at me then I wasn't making excuses, it was a simple point of view that you don't have to agree with. ;)

Thanks for clearing it up though, if he didn't have such problems and had a history of pointing (real or fake) guns at people then balls to him!
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I wasn't aiming at anyone in particular, I read the thread quickly and didn't know who or how many people mentioned it.
 
He robbed a bookies. They've destroyed more lives in the last 50 years than all of the bank robbers combined.

It's a shame he died. In fact, it's a shame he got caught at all.
 
London Headshots said:
He robbed a bookies. They've destroyed more lives in the last 50 years than all of the bank robbers combined.

It's a shame he died. In fact, it's a shame he got caught at all.
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Nobody forces you to gamble in a bookies.

The two go together............. Greed!
 
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Good riddance to bad rubbish. He rolled the dice and lost.
 
Why are so many people on this forum glad when people die? Are all of you really that callous? This is one of those really horrible working class traits where people seem to revel in extreme levels of comeuppance.

Nobody knows this guy's motives for what he did. While it was still a crime, there could've been any number of reasons that compelled him to do it.

Though I agree that it's a risk you take, and he can't blame anyone but himself, but it's not something you would really be GLAD about unless you were truly nasty to the core.
 
It's easy to be glad. It's one less person in the world who could cause me harm. I'm glad about that.
 
keep the arguing off the thread kids.
 
London Headshots said:
Why are so many people on this forum glad when people die? Are all of you really that callous? This is one of those really horrible working class traits where people seem to revel in extreme levels of comeuppance.

Nobody knows this guy's motives for what he did. While it was still a crime, there could've been any number of reasons that compelled him to do it.

Though I agree that it's a risk you take, and he can't blame anyone but himself, but it's not something you would really be GLAD about unless you were truly nasty to the core.
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His motives were to obtain money.

Also, did you miss my post about the armed robbery he did in 2009?
 
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Because he's a robbing scrote who's no loss to anyone (other than his family if any). I can see why his hypothetical family and freinds might be sad , but why should anyone who didn't know him be sad to see a criminal get his.
 
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