Posted on 11/01/2007 8:09:41 AM PDT by SubGeniusX
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A jury on Thursday found London's police force guilty of breaching health and safety laws over the shooting of an innocent Brazilian man mistaken for a fugitive suicide bomber.
Jean Charles de Menezes was killed on July 22, 2005, as a result of a "catastrophic" series of errors committed by the Metropolitan police force, London's Central Criminal Court was told. The force now faces an unlimited fine.
Prosecutors had earlier told the jury that specialist firearms police killed de Menezes at Stockwell Underground station, in south London, and put the lives of others at risk because of flawed planning and chaos at headquarters.
Police followed de Menezes and shot him seven times, believing the 27-year-old to be Hussain Osman, wanted in connection with a series of a botched suicide attack on London's transit system a day earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Old, but with some detail. BTW, Brian Williams was some weird shoulder padding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeM5fWaYY4Y
Umm, so who will doing the time for this guilty verdict???? My bet is no one. Ooops, sorry, nothing to see here, move along now.
Correct. The office of the commissioner is found guilty, but neither the commissioner, nor the senior officers on duty on the day when all of the failings that have been identified occurred bear personal responsibility for those failures.
It’s weak, at best.
Ian Blair giving a live press conference on Sky News now. Claims that the incident was isolated, there were no systemic failures in the Met, therefore he does not feel he has to resign.
Another reason for learning the language of the people you are running from.
He may have been ‘innocent’ etc but in a ‘situation’ a COP shouldn’t be expected to yell HALT in 20 different tongues.
Besides if he yelled it in Spanish (to this particular gentleman) he could have been accused of profiling....
I don’t think he was given any kind of ‘halt’ warning.
Or Portugese.
You;ve got to be careful who you side with.
The Libs in our country want the brave officers to be put behind bars for this as do the family of Mr Menezes.
This cops fudged up royally, and now a man is dead.
So? If the Libs came out tomorrow against Cancer, would you start saying that "Cancer is good?"
Bobbies behind bars is something that I can get behind in the case of these officers.
They made a fatal mistake when they had seconds to decide if the guy was wearing a bomb. What would you do?
Otherwise known as justice????? Or do you get mulligans when it comes to shooting and killing people going about their business????
Clearly you then know nothing about the case.
These were brave officers - risking their lives and following orders to attend the scene.
They were told the bomber had been prositvely identified on the tube and upon entering the tube the suspect got up and starting walking toward them.
They acted and did their job - having to live with the consequences.
And you would throw them behind bars?
That isn’t what this decent people believe in, and certainly not the majority of members here.
To be honest with you, I hadn’t considered that.
I was being rhetorical with the point being the police shouldn’t be expected to have to issue simple orders in Mandarin, Spanish, Portugese, Farsi or whatever.
With the main point being you should strive to speak the language of the country you are in.
I spent time in the Far East and although my dealings with local authorities was basically zero if someone with a gun and uniform were gesturing in my direction it would behoove me to cease what I was doing.
weren’t they plain-clothes police officers? would you stop if some people without uniform start chasing you in a shady neighborhood and claim to be “police”?
“Another reason for learning the language of the people you are running from.
He may have been ‘innocent’ etc but in a ‘situation’ a COP shouldn’t be expected to yell HALT in 20 different tongues.”
Language wasn’t an issue. The IPCC report into the incident confirmed that he wasn’t challenged and wasn’t running from anyone. The officers were operating under Oparaetion Kratos guidelines which specificially said that a suicide bomber should not be challenged before being shot as that would give them time to set off the device.
“You;ve got to be careful who you side with.
The Libs in our country want the brave officers to be put behind bars for this as do the family of Mr Menezes.”
Not really sure what your going on about mate. It’s not as if this is a political issue. And there’s no witch hunt going on against the officers involved. Most of the comments I have seen from the Menezes family have focussed on those who should be held responsible at the higher levels of decision making. As indeed they should, given the errors that have been shown to have been made.
It’s in all of our interests to have a police force that doesn’t mess up as badly and communicate internally as horifically as the Met did on the day in question. It’s ridiculous to say that we can’t comment on it.
“They made a fatal mistake when they had seconds to decide if the guy was wearing a bomb.”
How about the 45 minutes where surveillance officers were following him before those ‘seconds’?
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