Trigger Happy TV

[Jacque]

'Head shot'

"These guys may have been some sort of plain clothes special forces," he [Professor Michael Clarke] said.

"To have bullets pumped into him like this suggests quite a lot about him and what the authorities, whoever they are, assumed about him.

"The fact that he was shot in this way strongly suggests that it was someone the authorities knew and suspected he was carrying explosives on him."

He added: "You don't shoot somebody five times if you think you might have made a mistake and may be able to arrest him."

Prof Clarke said police officers were not trained to carry out operations in this way.

"Even Special Branch and SO19 (Scotland Yard's armed unit) are not trained to do this sort of thing. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4707781.stm)

A covert way of instituting martial law? Jack London plot anyone? A rather desperate and paraoid act...on the outside. Anyway, if they got any experience fighting the IRA, I hope this isn't the best of it. But then again, the third time was always the charm.

[Claverhouse]

There's no 'shoot-to-kill' policy on muslims here: in order to minimise the effect on London's tourism by foreigners worried by the bombings there's a shoot-to-kill policy on tourists.

He was an entirely innocent Brazilian, who panicked. Sadly, apparently he adored Great Britain and ( I don't believe this myself, but that's the Daily Mail for you ) regarded the English as gods.

I can understand this partly: naturally he wanted to get away from a place such as Brazil, where the police shoot people dead on the streets.



Claverhouse :ph34r:

[cathmc]

Is that it - he just panicked? What was he doing in a heavy coat? Why did he run? I've been wondering a lot about this actually.
In any case, such a sad story. Reminds me of the Amadou Diallo case in the U.S., except at least the British cops in this case have the excuse of having been in anti-suicide-bomber mode.

[Jacque]

I can understand this partly: naturally he wanted to get away from a place such as Brazil, where the police shoot people dead on the streets.

You know this for sure or are you being the English god that you pretend not to be.

[Claverhouse]

Misfortunately it's not a secret known only to the gods. Off the top of my head: try googling something like 'street-children brazil shooting' or anything similar...


Claverhouse :ph34r:


Not that street-children are exactly safe in Europe, particularly Romania: but so far they've resisted forming death-squads to eliminate them.

[Jacque]

try googling something like 'street-children brazil shooting' or anything similar...

How about I try googling assholes who... [sigh] nevermind.

[CrackerJack]

He Ran because he didn't have a visa and was in the country illegally.

Oh well, he wont do it again!

[Claverhouse]

Possibly... although the Home Office has said his visa expired in 2003, his family dispute (http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=LJ2515737D&news_headline=family_demand_to_see_cctv) it. Comparatively few people would believe the British Government's word on anything.


Mr de Menezes, 27, a Brazilian national who was working in London as an electrician, was shot dead as ran aboard a northbound Tube train at Stockwell station. Shocked witnesses spoke of the expression of complete panic on his face as police undercover officers, who had trailed from his home in Tulse Hill several miles away under the mistaken belief that he was a suicide bomber, held him down and shot him.

Last night his family accused the police of changing their account of the incident. At first Scotland Yard said that Mr de Menezes had been wearing a heavy jacket despite the warm weather, and had refused to respond to a police challenge, vaulting over the ticket barrier in an apparent attempt to escape.

But his cousin told a press conference yesterday that senior officers at Scotland Yard had now retracted their claims that Mr de Menezes was acting suspiciously, so that officers had no option but to open fire.

Vivien Figueiredo, 22, said police told her that he was wearing a lightweight denim jacket and not a bulky coat that could have hidden an explosive belt underneath. They had also admitted that he used his travelcard to gain access to the station. Ms Figueiredo said: "They are saying he did absolutely nothing wrong when he was killed, so why don’t they say all this publicly?"

Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1712420,00.html)


A British writer, Keith Waterhouse, has:



Others speak glibly of the police having to make split second decisions at a time like this. Hmm.


Menezes was tagged taking a five-minute walk to the bus, then a two-mile journey to Stockwell Tube station before he finally had eight rounds pumped into him. Perhaps the longest split second in history.



The reaction of the Brazilian public, on the other hand, has been overwhelmingly negative. Protests and demonstrations have taken place in Brazil [14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes#endnote_BrazilProtests), whilst some Brazilian commentators have noted that incidents such as Menezes' killing are more typical of a developing country such as Brazil than a developed nation like the UK
Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes)



Claverhouse :ph34r:

[Claverhouse]

From today's Private Eye:


Number crunching
30

- Hours it took Brazilian government to announce itself "shocked and perplexed" at shooting of Brazilian citizen by police in London

- Number of Brazilian citizens shot by police in Brazil in one night last March in reprisal for crackdown on corruption


Claverhouse :ph34r:

Still, Scotland Yard is likely to offer a million in wehrgeld to the family, if only dollars rather than pounds...

[Claverhouse]

Update:

Unfortunately, although it is now accepted that the first police utterances regarding the gentlemen were lies, the truth of the actual shooting may never be fully known. By some unfortunate mischance it turns out that the cctv camaras at Stockwell station weren't filming at the time. A few weeks after London was bombed.

They feel the utmost regret over this, as obviously they wanted their names cleared, and this negligence means they can't show the film that would clear their names.



Claverhouse :ph34r: