This Brazilian walks on to a train

[webofevil]

Right. So it turns out that police weren't able to corroborate the surveillance officer's hunch that Jean Charles de Menezes (fig. 1) was Shepherd's Bush terrorette Hussain Osman (fig. 2), because he was having a piss when de Menezes appeared and therefore couldn't video him to check his identity.



Fig. 1 - Jean Charles de Menezes
Fig. 2 - Hussain Osman
Fig. 3 - Stan Collymore, cornfedpig's mistaken-identity victim of choice

* Police instructions were to stop de Menezes getting to the Underground station at all costs. This, you cannot fail to have noticed, was not done.

* Instead of the suspiciously bulky "winter jacket" he was said to have had, he was in fact wearing a thin denim jacket.

* Rather than vaulting the ticket barrier at Stockwell tube, as police claimed, he picked up a copy of Metro and walked normally through the barrier; walked, in fact, on to the platform and on to the train. He did this because the police tailing him issued no warnings.

* Once on the train, he was pinioned to his seat by an officer who restrained both his arms. It was in this position that he was shot seven times in the head. Apart from any other questions this raises, it makes a mockery of the idea that his upper body was a no-go area for fear of setting off any impact-detonated explosives.

* Curiously, all the CCTV cameras in the station that could have caught any of this on film "were not working" on the day, so "no film exists" (although we now know the one on the train was working).

* The Met Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, spent the hours following the shooting trying desperately to persuade the Home Office and No. 10 to let the Met investigate the incident themselves, rather than allow it to be handled by an independent body. To his credit, Charles Clarke declined Sir Ian's selfless offer.


Under the circumstances, I think we are permitted to raise a quizzical eyebrow.

---

De Menezes' family are demanding a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death. The very fact that they have to ask is testament to our ruling elite's notion of justice, and indeed to the ever-bruited British "sense of fair play". For all the noise currently being made about this risible snafu (Carry On The Day Of The Jackal?), it's entirely conceivable that there won't be an inquiry at all.

The fact that the Brazilian police have no qualms about gunning down anyone who gets in their way has been raised in some quarters as some kind of debating point here. I suggest that we shouldn't have to resort to comparing our police force to sinister Latin American paramilitaries before we can start to identify its positive aspects, otherwise we're in more trouble than we thought.

Comments

[ex-cornfedpi814.livejournal.com]

If they'd shot Stan Collymore instead then I could understand it.

[setting-sun.livejournal.com]

They are more accurate at hitting the target than he ever was.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

You'll be hearing from his solicitors, Badoom and Tschhh.

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

A quizzical eyebrow indeed, but it's not all quite as ridiculous as it seems. I think the real guilty party in all this is the guy taking a piss who didn't identify de Menezes properly - pound to a penny says he came back, saw the back of de Menezes' head as he walked away, panicked, and thought it safer to presume that he was one of the suspects than presume he wasn't.

Even at this point, however, de Menezes might have lived if it weren't for the second spectacular piece of crapness. The guy watching the flats radioed his bosses, who put a surveillance team on to de Menezes, who were unarmed. They followed him to the tube station - but were unable (weren't permitted?) to stop him entering themselves, so they radioed for armed support. This support arrived, but only after de Menezes had gone into the tube station.

So an armed team of anti-terrorist police have been told that a suicide bomber has gone into the tube - the rest is something of a foregone conclusion. Here's the odd bit though. From what I've read, the bloke holding de Menezes down was one of the surveillance officers - who seemed rather surprised when the suspect he had firm hold of was shot in the head.

Is it possible that two sets of orders were being followed? That the surveillance officers had simply been told to follow de Menezes and apprehend him if he was thought to be acting suspiciously, while the armed team (were they CO19 officers? I forget the lingo) had been directed to shoot de Menezes as he definitely was a suicide bomber? Either way, I still can't help feeling that it's the fault of the bloke not doing his job properly outside de Menezes flat whose largely to blame, closely followed by whoever took the decision to instruct the armed officers to shoot the suspect without any attempt whatsoever to establish whether he might actually be a suicide bomber (I appreciate that if they're not sure they couldn't stop and search someone but they could at least look at them and see they weren't carrying anything on them, or wearing anything big enough to conceal a device.)

Incidentally, I can't help being amused by the reports that a "cover-up" has gone on in relation to this business. It's not a very good cover-up, is it?

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

> Is it possible that two sets of orders were being followed? That the surveillance officers had simply been told to follow de Menezes and apprehend him if he was thought to be acting suspiciously, while the armed team had been directed to shoot de Menezes as he definitely was a suicide bomber?

This is an extremely good question. When the surveillance guy who was sat a few people away from dM spotted the armed team on the platform, ran to the door and shouted "He's here!" before grabbing him and pinning him to his seat—and I realise at this point this probably sounds like it's meant to be heavily ironic, but it's actually a genuine question—what did he think was going to happen? Is his next choice of phrase in his statement—"I heard a gunshot very close to my left ear"—carefully placed, designed to convey that, good Lord, that was a total surprise, never would have thought, in all my born days, etc?

The "two sets of orders" thing isn't clear yet, so it remains a possibility, but I'd be surprised if the surveillance team hadn't at least some clue about where it was all headed.

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

I just think it's extremely unlikely that anyone would hold a person who they knew was going to be shot at, whatever kind of weapon was used (were the SO19 officers armed with pistols or SMGs?) Surely no one would willingly endanger themselves in such a way - trained police officer or not.

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

I still can't help feeling that it's the fault of the bloke not doing his job properly outside de Menezes flat whose largely to blame

should read

"I still can't help feeling that it's the fault of the bloke not doing his job properly outside de Menezes' flat."

or

"I still can't help feeling that it's the bloke not doing his job properly outside de Menezes' flat who's largely to blame."

You can take the boy out of Hansard...

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

New! Hansard text service:

man outside flats 4lt job not done :-(

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

Oh, one more thing. The Observer suggested that the CCTV cameras weren't working - but this seems to be bollocks. I have read in more than one report today that CCTV footage shows de Menezes progress from the entrance of the station down to the platform. There are also some rather unpleasant pictures, apparently taken from CCTV, of de Menezes' body immediately after the shooting.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

> panicked, and thought it safer to presume that he was one of the suspects than presume he wasn't.

According to the documents that have been leaked, he said categorically that he couldn't be sure who it was. His words were "It might be worth taking a look". Also, he wasn't a policeman, but a soldier seconded to the police. Not entirely sure what's going on there, but I'm not sure all this puts him squarely in the frame for prosecution—rather, it should be whoever took "worth having a look" to mean "KILL! WITH LOTS OF GUNS! KILL!"


> CCTV footage shows de Menezes progress from the entrance of the station down to the platform.

Indeed it does. However, when they were finally allowed to begin the investigation that should have started automatically the day after the shooting, the IPCC discovered that there was apparently no film of de Menezes in the ticket area or actually crossing the platform to get to the train. All there is, then, is proof that de Menezes made his way down the escalator.

I should point out that the allegation here is not necessarily that tapes were spirited away because they contained damaging evidence—though it pays not to rule anything out, as any good policeman will tell you—but that, if there's been no foul play, the day after the attempted second wave of bombings on the Underground (one of them at the next station up the line) several of Stockwell Tube station's CCTV cameras were out of action—possibly even just out of film. in which case, it's not the police getting the finger pointed at them, but the determined shitness of London Underground.

The picture of de Menezes' body is taken from the train's own CCTV, which, as you point out, clearly isn't missing at all. It's unclear (to me, at least) whether this image was among those materials leaked from the IPCC, or whether it was sanctioned by the Met, though the latter is hard to believe.


> It's not a very good cover-up, is it?

No, it isn't, but it's the fact that it looks there was at least an attempt that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. In itself, Sir Ian's careful phrasing on the day ("According to the information available to me...", "As far as I understand it", etc) looks like nothing more than someone choosing their words carefully and indeed responsibly; however, coupled with his frantic lobbying only hours after the event to disallow the IPCC to handle the matter, and his apparent success in getting their investigation at least deferred for several days, it begins to look more disingenuous than sensible. Leave it to us, we'll handle it ourselves. His visa had run out, you know.

Over the years the Met has a history of buying off people who've been at the wrong end of its tactics, settling with them before it gets to court, so that it causes a brief kerfuffle in the local press but never makes it to the nationals, and a pattern is never established. Really, someone should do a book about this (among other police forces too, it's not just the Met), but it'd involve far too much time burrowing among microfiches. Maybe old habits kicked in, and it was too late before they realised you just can't play that game when you've just killed an innocent man and now everyone's watching.

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

it should be whoever took "worth having a look" to mean "KILL! WITH LOTS OF GUNS! KILL!"

Has it been confirmed, as I confidently assumed when I heard d M had been shot 8 times, that more than one person shot him?

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

This doesn't appear to have been confirmed, although word was from the start that it was just one person firing. Then again, word was a lot of things back then.

And it's no use trying to put us off the scent with all this "Is it CO19?" stuff. We all know about your secret training. SO19's just child's play to your sort. "Get the right pressure point on a man's neck, you can kill him just by sneezing on him. Go on, hit me in the kidneys. See, kidneys of steel." That's you in the pub, that is.

[nudejournal.livejournal.com]

Picking up a copy of the Metro is pretty suspect behaviour in my book.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this book also appears to have been issued to the Metropolitan Police.

[ex-cornfedpi814.livejournal.com]

Unless it is to read the letters page.