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

[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.