this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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I'm just an armchair expert, but you have to wonder if it needed to escalate to the point of a hostage situation, when they could have just let him out and followed him in the streets as he tried to get away. That poor woman he threatened to kill! I suppose you don't know what he'd to do someone else on the street, but trapping someone aggressive with a knife in a confined space with innocent people and police surrounding them seems like a recipe for disaster.
The poor tram driver was probably stuck in a really difficult and (for them) unprecedented situation. There are probably rules about opening the door at incorrect spots and if the guy got out and got skittled then maybe the driver would face repercussions.
If the driver had never experienced that kind of situation before they might have panicked, and panicking people have been known to follow some internal script for how to behave that isn't necessarily rational. If certain operational procedures have been drilled into them, they might fall back on those procedures.
Or maybe the police had told the driver not to let the fine upstanding citizen out based on their own risk assessment which may not have all the information and may nor may not have been the best decision. Who knows? It's interesting to think about as a thought experiment after the fact, and of course nobody got seriously hurt (beyond some psychological injury) so it could be argued that it was a successful series of decisions. The only question is what lessons to learn so that it could be done better in future.
Yeah very true - I've unfortunately been on the receiving end of a knife crime before, and you really don't know how you're going to react in the moment. I imagine there will be some PTSD from this event for those involved.
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope they know to get some counselling or mental health support. The sooner counselling starts the better.