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London Police Chief, Shoot-to-kill Policy, Under Fire

The Christian Science Monitor

posted August 18, 2005 at 12:00 p.m.

London police chief, shoot-to-kill policy, under fire

Leaked report: Brazilian mistakenly killed by police wasn't wearing 'padded jacket' or running away when shot.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Calls for London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to resign over the shooting of a young Brazilian are growing after a leaked document and photos from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) inquiry into his death showed that most of the claims made by police and some witnesses about Jean Charles de Menezes were false, the Daily Mail reports.
...former Cabinet Minister Frank Dobson piled the pressure on Sir Ian, saying his position was 'very difficult' as he was partly responsible for people being misled. Tony Blair would have been unlikely to give the police such firm backing in the way he did if the truth had been known, Mr Dobson said. Police 'have allowed the false impression, the misleading impression that this man was behaving suspiciously' which was 'very disturbing,' he added.



The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the leaked document and photos show that Mr. de Menezes was actually wearing a denim jacket, not a padded one, that he was not running from the police nor had he "vaulted" the Stockwell Underground turnstiles, as was originally reported.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the evidence now shows that de Menezes walked into the Stockwell Underground station, used a farecard to pay for his ride, picked up a newspaper and sat down in a train car before he was rushed by undercover police and shot eight times, including seven shots in the head. The police had originally said he had only been shot five times. The evidence also shows that the police had pinned his hands behind his back before he was shot.

In an editorial Thursday, the Daily Telegraph says that "This business has the makings of one of the worst blunders in the history of the Metropolitan Police." The BBC reports on the discrepancies between what the London police originally said, or allowed people to believe about the incident and what really happened.

The Guardian reported Wednesday that the police made several key mistakes, starting from the moment de Menezes left his apartment on Scotia Road in London.

One member of the team, using the call sign Tango Ten, began watching the flat at 6.30am. A soldier who had been with the Met for a year, he was equipped with a mini-DV camera which was not permanently recording in order to conserve its batteries. His job was to film people entering and leaving and then compare them against photographs of the suspects.
The crucial point came at 9.33am, when he made these notes in his log book: "I observed a U/I [unidentified] male IC1 [white] 5'8" dark hair beard/stubble, blue denim jacket, blue jeans and wearing trainers exit the block, he was not carrying anything and at this time I could not confirm whether he was or was not either of our subjects." When Jean Charles de Menezes left the block, the soldier was relieving himself and unable to turn on his camera.

The renewed controversy into the shooting of de Menezes has also led to calls for more oversight of the London police's "shoot-to-kill" policy. An editorial in The Herald of Scotland says it's still important to support the police, changes have to be made to assure people that this kind of incident will not happen again.

In the aftermath of the London bombings, the home secretary, Charles Clarke, told a news conference: "The human right to travel on the Underground on a Thursday morning without being blown up is an important human right." Nobody could argue with him. However, he would do well to add that the human right to travel on the Underground on a Friday morning without being shot by a policeman is also important. In a bid to protect innocent people, an innocent man has been shot. How can we best minimise the chance of another such tragic mistake?
Meanwhile the Scotsman reports that Sir Ian Blair also tried to block an inquiry into the shooting of de Menezes "just hours after the innocent Brazilian's death." The Daily Mail writes that the decision by Blair has the "whiffs of a coverup."
Writing in the Guardian, Simon Hattenstone goes through a list of recent cases where the British police shot innocent people and then tried to cover it up. He says history shows that the London police "cannot be taken at their word" in this kind of case.

Few deaths at the hands of the police have been as clear-cut as that of Jean Charles de Menezes. None has been as high profile. But the subsequent police distortion is all too familiar. So how should a responsible media treat these official statements or unofficial "police sources" that invariably excuse police actions or vilify victims? With caution, at the least. We know that the reality is so often complex and multidimensional. The police should be regarded as one player in the story. Just as witnesses are "reported" or "alleged" to have seen an incident, so should the police - rather than being allowed to issue reports (often anonymously) as if they were objective purveyors of the truth.
The Times of London reports Thursday that the lawyers for the family of de Menezes met for an hour and a half with the IPCC, and expressed "their anger at what they believe has been an insufficiently independent and unnecessarily slow inquiry." CNN reports de Menezes' cousin Allessandro Pereira is now says that the police officers who shot him should "be jailed for life."
An editorial in the Guardian calls for people to wait for the full report of the IPCC before taking an actions. "Until the IPCC publishes its report it is hard to say precisely what happened and why. We do not really know if the armed response was a flawed policy faithfully carried out with tragic consequences or whether it was an defensible policy carried out in a flawed manner."

The Christian Science Monitor

posted by Annamarie at 3:13 PM