Posted on 08/02/2007 9:00:30 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism police officer faces disciplinary action after the police watchdog concluded he “misled” senior colleagues over the shooting of an innocent man at a London Tube station in 2005.
Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, head of counter-terrorism and intelligence for the Metropolitan Police, “misled” senior officers by failing to tell them at the earliest opportunity that Jean Charles de Menezes was not one of four would-be suicide bombers hunted by police.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission also concluded that the head of London’s police force was “almost totally uninformed” of events following the shooting of at Stockwell underground station in south London, the day after attempted terrorist attacks on July 21 2005.
Sir Ian Blair, the Met commissioner, was exonerated by the so-called Stockwell 2 report. But the watchdog added there were “serious weaknesses” in the Met’s handling of information and confusion among senior officers which led to the police maintaining that the dead man was a suspected terrorist in the hours after the shooting.
IPCC Commissioner Naseem Malik said: “What the commissioner [Sir Ian] could, and should, have been told was the emergence of evidence throughout the day that pointed increasingly strongly to a terrible mistake having been made.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
I'm puzzled here. It was an honest mistake under extremely trying circumstances. The victim invited the drastic action.
What difference would it have made if he had "informed" them sooner?
Demonstrably, precipitous actions by law enforcement in todays PC climate is a lose-lose proposition.
Sounds like a complete witchhunt to me.
This is the kind of thread that will invite the Diallophiles and Bellolators out of the woodwork, however.
See "no controlling legal authority".
L
That's the puzzler. Under the circumstances (bombs had already gone off?) there is absolutely no need to "lie your ass off" about anything...
Lying is the default response for most government functionaries, especially when they're under stress or there is even the slightest threat to their livelihood.
L
How? As the story emerged, every action that was cited as suspicious turned out to be wrong. The guy wasn't wearing a heavy coat on a hot day, he was wearing a light jacket on a cool day. He didn't run to the subway. He walked. He didn't jump the turnstile. He paid his fare. He even stopped to pick up a free paper. Then he was tackled and, while on the ground, shot in the head several times.
What goes by virtually unnoticed is the plight of certain English people. Set on by ethnic thugs. "Refugees" no less. Asylum seekers. Vile murders and beatings to innocent people who are just in the way. Yet the best lawyers are employed to show "British justice" and fair play. Scoundrels getting off on technicalities.
Against this, the absolute trumping up of "public indignation". It (tube station shooting)was a botched job, exacerbated by the terrorism that previously took innocent lives. It was not deliberate. Nerves had to have been on a trigger edge.
Just damn.
Very disturbing, the whole business.
‘How? As the story emerged, every action that was cited as suspicious turned out to be wrong. The guy wasn’t wearing a heavy coat on a hot day, he was wearing a light jacket on a cool day. He didn’t run to the subway. He walked. He didn’t jump the turnstile. He paid his fare. He even stopped to pick up a free paper. Then he was tackled and, while on the ground, shot in the head several times.’
Really? That’s how it happened? Then how come the following eye witness reports were posted within hours of it happening and have not been changed since. Were these eye witnesses lying?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm
Since then there have been many other versions of what happened put forward by people who were not there, but the only ones that count are the ones taken immediately after before the controversy arose about the mistaken killing of an illegal Brazillian immigrant in the UK.
What, like the guy who said the victim was Asian when he was Brazilian? Or the one who said he saw an explosive belt when no such thing was found on the victim? According to the official government report:
"It is apparent that some of the witnesses confused police officers with Mr. deMenezes...Mr. DeMenezes did nothing and wore nothing that could be considered suspicious. These mistaken civilian accounts that were given to and broadcast by the media became accepted and in some cases repeated by the MPS."Also, look at this thread Brazilian did not flee UK gun cops (London gun fire victim report)
So when the closed circuit TV footage shows the victim wearing a denim jacket and using a ticket card to get on the subway, we should not believe it and instead believe the eyewitness who says he was wearing a heavy jacket and jumped the turnstile?
“The victim invited the drastic action.”
How so?
By leaving his house, walking to the bus stop, catching a bus to the train station, then walking in and sitting down on a train?
“Two conflicting accounts still outstanding on this man’s death”
There aren’t conflicting accounts. The chain of events (now) is known and not in dispute and much of the incident was captured on camera.
“Police just do not suddenly jump a man and shoot him”
Thats what happened. He walked out of a block of flats (where he lived) that was being watched as a terrorist suspect was thought to live there. He was wrongly identified as that man, and the operational procedure being followed was not to challenge suspected suicide bombers before opening fire so as not to give them a chance to detonate their bomb.
“Really? That’s how it happened? Then how come the following eye witness reports were posted within hours of it happening and have not been changed since. Were these eye witnesses lying?”
More likely just mistaken. People think they’ve seen all kinds of things when incidents like that happened. A lot of the eyewitness statements that you linked are flatly contradicted by the police enquiry and photos of the scene (’asian looking guy’ ‘heavy padded coat’ ‘ran onto train pursued by police’ ‘wires coming out of his coat’).
He walked out of a block of flats(where he lived)that was being watched as a terrorist supspect was thought to live there. He was wrongly identified as that man...... (bold letters mine).
Now I have the most rational explanation. It is easy to blame the police. Too easy.
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