The Ultimate Loss of Civil Liberties: Innocent Man Shot Dead in UK

[El Hombre Invisible]

He was not an innocent man... (I have no proof, but)... law abiding citizens do not run from authority. I'm not saying that he should've been shot, but given the current circumstances... I can understand. This will be a lesson to people who want to run from the law.

Disclaimer: I can say what I say because I have been on the receiving end of police brutality and racial profiling. I don't fully agree with it, but in all situations, I understood what the reasons were. I never ran from the police because I knew I had nothing to hide. Anyone, especially criminal minds, should know better than to run from authorities while innocent.

Are you totally insane? When did he run from authority? The moment he was aware of them, he walked towards them!

 

[outsider]

Are you totally insane? When did he run from authority? The moment he was aware of them, he walked towards them!

read the follow ups hombre.. I'm not insane... i just took what i read and responded... i know you are passionate about this thing so i'll forgive you for jumping the gun... I don't think it was right that he was killed.

 

[Daminc]

I think that identity neither will nor SHOULD come forth in the public, unless the case is deemed so grave that criminal charges are launched against them.

Horray, another thing we agree on

With regards to 'Identity', I was referring to what Unit they belonged to. It is still possible that the shooters were SAS which would make them military NOT police and that will complicate matters a whole lot more.

 

[Art]

Horray, another thing we agree on

With regards to 'Identity', I was referring to what Unit they belonged to. It is still possible that the shooters were SAS which would make them military NOT police and that will complicate matters a whole lot more.

It's possible but I can't see what the Met gains by claiming they were members of their SO19 group if in fact they were not?? Talking of which SO19 is a relatively small group of 80 officers so I wonder if any of the ones involved in this case were also involved in shooting dead the man who had a table leg in a bag?

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

read the follow ups hombre.. I'm not insane... i just took what i read and responded... i know you are passionate about this thing so i'll forgive you for jumping the gun... I don't think it was right that he was killed.

Yeah, I should read from the bottom up, huh. Thanks for your... forgiveness.

 

[The Smoking Man]

And Again:

Friday August 19, 12:37 PM


Shooting: Brazilians Send Team To London

A Brazilian investigation team is being sent to London to look into the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.The 27-year-old electrician was shot dead by anti-terrorist police at Stockwell Tube station in south London after being mistaken for a suicide bomb suspect.

The Brazilian Government's team will arrive in London next week and be led by the country's Deputy Attorney General.

He will speak directly with police officers and witnesses here.

The young Brazilian's family is angry that the Metropolitan Police has done nothing to correct the widely publicised impression that Mr de Menezes' demeanor and mode of dress contributed to his death.

His cousin Alessando Pereira, 25, held a news conference outside the tube station in the wake of the assertion by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair that he has done nothing to warrant his resignation.

Mr Pereira said: "The police know Jean was innocent and yet they let my family suffer, they let us suffer, Ian Blair let us suffer.

"For three weeks we have had to listen to lie after lie about Jean and how he was killed."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has still to officially confirm a Sky News report that a clerk at the commission has been suspended on suspicion of leaking documents on the shooting to the media.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/19082005/140/shooting-brazilians-send-team-london.html

Sombody's p!ssed.

 

[Daminc]

and yet they let my family suffer, they let us suffer, Ian Blair let us suffer.

I don't want to sound callus or anything but is there any reason why Ian Blair should care about how the family feels?

Personally, I feel a bit sympathetic towards them but that's about it. Unlawful, unnessessary, accidental and suicidal deaths occur all the time, all over the world and if you start getting emotional about it them there's a chance you'll end up not being able to function any more.

 

[Smurf]

Ian Blair has a responsibility for the safety of those under his jurisdiction. When an innocent man get's killed by police officers he better damn well care, or resign because he is no longer capable of serving that position if he does not.

 

[arildno]

But we generally don't do that by propagating lies as to how the family member died, do we?
Blair was perfectly well aware of that the image he forged for the public&the immediate family was erronous; in particular, that De Menezes himself at any point had resisted the police (and, hence, probably with a not-so clean conscience).
Yet, he chose to perpetuate that image of their son, in total disregard of their feelings.
That is not something we in general do.


A decent person would not have acted in the way Ian Blair provably have acted.

 

[Daminc]

How many "leaders of men" could be classed as 'decent'?

Whether in the Force, Politics or Business the leaders are not know to be 'decent' and they are not penelised for it.

 

[Smurf]

So? What's your point?

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

I don't want to sound callus or anything but is there any reason why Ian Blair should care about how the family feels?

Apparently not, hence he spread and allowed the spreading of lies to make it sound like Menezes had it coming. I'm sure he'd deem you an apt replacement, should calls for his resignation bear fruit.

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

How many "leaders of men" could be classed as 'decent'?

Whether in the Force, Politics or Business the leaders are not know to be 'decent' and they are not penelised for it.

Why did you expend so much effort in exonerating them, then?

 

[outsider]

Yeah, I should read from the bottom up, huh. Thanks for your... forgiveness.

haha.. that's ok I do it myself...

 

[Art]

I see Sky News are having an on-line poll as to whether or not Sir Ian Blair should resign. It's running at 66% no at the moment. The police must be out voting in 'force'

 

[The Smoking Man]

I see Sky News are having an on-line poll as to whether or not Sir Ian Blair should resign. It's running at 66% no at the moment. The police must be out voting in 'force'

Yeah, them and the BNP.

 

[The Smoking Man]

How many "leaders of men" could be classed as 'decent'?

Whether in the Force, Politics or Business the leaders are not know to be 'decent' and they are not penelised for it.

Except that in this case, he has sparked an international incident which has seen the foreign minister for Brazil make multiple visits to UK representatives AND the Brazilians are being allowed to bring in their own investigative team to question the 'shooters'.

What you fail to note is that we are 'hearing' one thing from Blair, seeing something contradictory in the evidence and barely a mention is being made of the international government reaction. (Spin control ... Blair is still talking to draw your attention away from the international incident)

de Menezes' family keeps talking to draw your attention back to it.

 

[arildno]

Note also the disgusting form of spin control Blair STILL is doing; namely, consistently linking the death of De Menezes to all those who died in the terrorist attacks.

This is extremely disrespectful of him; not only towards De Menezes and his family, but also towards those who died in these awful bombings.
He is simply using the victims of these atrocities in a game where he hopes to get out scot-free..

 

[arildno]

De Menezes' family refuses blood money:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1742573,00.html

 

[Art]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1742573,00.html

It would appear this is why one of the members of the IPCC leaked the report

There is also certain to be a row over claims last night that it may take years before the IPCC’s findings are published.

Officials there have confirmed to The Times that their files have to go to the coroner and possibly the Crown Prosecution Service and cannot be published until a decision has been taken on an inquest and the possible prosecution of officers involved in the shooting.

On past experience, it could well be 2008 before anyone appears in court, if at all.

 

[arildno]

I am quite certain that the reason why the (now suspended) official chose to disclose this information, is that he sensed by conversations with his superiors and the way in which the various evidence should be weighted that if he didn't choose to disclose this information, the "independent" investigation would degenerate into an exoneration attempt.

It may well be that by his unsanctioned action, this will no longer be the likely outcome.

I applaud his actions; to dispel lies insinuating that De Menezes was probably mentally unstable and therefore ran away, rather than approaching the police with his hands in full view for them is not to be disloyal (or at least, no one wanting to keep these allegations alive has any claim for loyalty from anyone).

 

[arildno]

We also have the disgusting case of drowning the events in patently false witness statements:

10.30am: Witnesses report that up to 20 undercover officers chased him into station and say he was wearing a padded coat and leapt ticket barrier

It was one of the eager "public" witnesses who made this lie.
Yeah, sure!
How should the media know whether this so-called "witness" wasn't in fact a PLAIN-CLOTHES SURVEILLANCE OFFICER?

from what I've gathered, this so-called witness was reputedly a photo shop assistant; I bet you could trawl through every photo shop in the Greater London area and not find this guy.
This piece of misinformation, so blatantly untrue, was planted by the police.

By initiating lots of wild rumours, authorities are able to control what the general public should think, becuse due to the bewildering mass of evidence, there is basically no sure way for the outsider to determine which witness statements is, in fact, reliable; hence, he will wait upon and accept the government version of the truth.


EDIT:
One might think that the witness was a mere attention seeker who got a thrill out of telling a tall tale to the media; but how probable is it that SEVERAL SUCH WACKOS WERE AT STOCKWELL THAT DAY??
For, in addition to the guy mentioned above, you have another guy who tells another, blatantly untrue story:
In this case, De Menezes sprints onto the train looking terrified as a rabbit, and lots of wires and other suspicious bomb-stuff is sticking out of his jacket (not a coat here).
The simplest explanation is that both this witness and the former were plain-clothes surveillance officers cooking up lies to serve the media, not that two wackos were present that day.

 

[The Smoking Man]

We also have the disgusting case of drowning the events in patently false witness statements:


It was one of the eager "public" witnesses who made this lie.
Yeah, sure!
How should the media know whether this so-called "witness" wasn't in fact a PLAIN-CLOTHES SURVEILLANCE OFFICER?

from what I've gathered, this so-called witness was reputedly a photo shop assistant; I bet you could trawl through every photo shop in the Greater London area and not find this guy.
This piece of misinformation, so blatantly untrue, was planted by the police.

By initiating lots of wild rumours, authorities are able to control what the general public should think, becuse due to the bewildering mass of evidence, there is basically no sure way for the outsider to determine which witness statements is, in fact, reliable; hence, he will wait upon and accept the government version of the truth.


EDIT:
One might think that the witness was a mere attention seeker who got a thrill out of telling a tall tale to the media; but how probable is it that SEVERAL SUCH WACKOS WERE AT STOCKWELL THAT DAY??
For, in addition to the guy mentioned above, you have another guy who tells another, blatantly untrue story:
In this case, De Menezes sprints onto the train looking terrified as a rabbit, and lots of wires and other suspicious bomb-stuff is sticking out of his jacket (not a coat here).
The simplest explanation is that both this witness and the former were plain-clothes surveillance officers cooking up lies to serve the media, not that two wackos were present that day.

LOL ...

The theory I heard was that the 'witness' didn't see the suspect at all. What he actually saw was one of the surveilance team who first went over the barrier in persuit.

That answers a lot of questions when you think about it.

 

[arildno]

Since the surveillance team took great care of not revealing themselves to De Menezes at any time before indirectly a few seconds before De Menezes was killed, that explanation of the statement is rather unlikely.
However, there is a possibility that this can be verified as the truth, since the surveillance team should then be visible on the footage from the cameras.

 

[The Smoking Man]

Since the surveillance team took great care of not revealing themselves to De Menezes at any time before indirectly a few seconds before De Menezes was killed, that explanation of the statement is rather unlikely.

Not really. He wasn't the witness. He could have been half way down the escelator by the time the cop jumped the gate and was mistakenly identified by the 'witness'.

However, there is a possibility that this can be verified as the truth, since the surveillance team should then be visible on the footage from the cameras.

Nope. The cameras were disabled the day before because of the other bombers if you read the reports. They took the recording media out for evidence.

 

[arildno]

There was footage of de Menezes' passing the barrier quietly; so why shouldn't the cameras pick up the surveillance team after him?
From what I understood, cameras were lacking where they could have documented the actual shooting.
None of this, however, explains that other guy's testimony who asserted that all sorts of wires were sticking out of de menezes' jacket.

 

[The Smoking Man]

None of this, however, explains that other guy's testimony who asserted that all sorts of wires were sticking out of de menezes' jacket.

Yes it does ... cops are wired with communications gear.

 

[arildno]

Yes it does ... cops are wired with communications gear.

well, that might explain the two witness statements, i guess.

 

[arildno]

Reconstruction of events from The Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1744419_1,00.html

 

[arildno]

LOL ...

The theory I heard was that the 'witness' didn't see the suspect at all. What he actually saw was one of the surveilance team who first went over the barrier in persuit.

That answers a lot of questions when you think about it.

Read the blatantly untrue witness statement from "Mark Whitby", then:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article307349.ece

One witness, Mark Whitby, told BBC News he had seen Jean Charles - whom he described as an "Asian guy" - being pursued on to the train by armed officers. He had been sitting in the carriage, and saw the incident at close quarters. "As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox.

"He looked absolutely petrified. He sort of tripped but they were hotly pursuing him and couldn't have been more than two or three feet behind him at this time.

"He half-tripped, was half-pushed to the floor. The policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand, he held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him.

"He looked like a Pakistani but he had a baseball cap on, and quite a thickish coat.

Now, this is a neatly sewn together pack of lies, not the kind of jumbled and confused, yet honest, account one might naturally expect from a distraught member of the public.
Perhaps Mr. Whitby was a mere attention seeker who wanted his 15 minutes of fame.
But then again, perhaps he was not.

 

[The Smoking Man]

Read the blatantly untrue witness statement from "Mark Whitby", then:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article307349.ece



Now, this is a neatly sewn together pack of lies, not the kind of jumbled and confused, yet honest, account one might naturally expect from a distraught member of the public.
Perhaps Mr. Whitby was a mere attention seeker who wanted his 15 minutes of fame.
But then again, perhaps he was not.

Yup ... and another witness states that it was the police that put their 'baseball hats on'.

Now ... no doubt this was what happened as he perceived it.

But consider this:

Jean Charles was already on the train and seated.

A cop who looks Asian, with a padded coat and baseball cap enters the train and scans the crowd looking for Jean Charles closely followed by his compatriots.

The witness looks up and sees this individual then get into a scuffle with the real Jean Charles.

He sees a gun drawn and fired into somebody ... there are three of them on the floor and one holding a gun.

Where do you think our witness is at this point? Do you think he is still casually seated across from all this eating popcorn? Where would YOU be?

Maybe the number of bullets fired will give you the answer. Witnesses say that they heard 5 bullets. Maybe that's true. Maybe they were not witnesses to the other 6 bullets being fired!? Maybe he was half way up the escalator preparing his speech for the cameras while that happened and didn't actually see the fact that it wasn't the cop in the baseball hat and padded coat that was shot but the other guy in the denim jacket?​

 

[arildno]

There isn't the slightest mention of an officer screaming at the top of his voice "He's here!" while forcing the closed doors open with those officers outside.
no mention of a guy getting up from his seat advancing towards this group of individuals.

I won't pursue this anymore, another quite likely alternative is that Mr. Whitby didn't see a damn thing, felt that he "ought" to have seen something because he was so close, but wouldn't want to have his inobservantness exposed when interviewed by national media (that would make him seem like a fool, right?).
Hence, he cobbled together some story that sounded okayish.

 

[The Smoking Man]

There isn't the slightest mention of an officer screaming at the top of his voice "He's here!" while forcing the closed doors open with those officers outside.
no mention of a guy getting up from his seat advancing towards this group of individuals.

I won't pursue this anymore, another quite likely alternative is that Mr. Whitby didn't see a damn thing, felt that he "ought" to have seen something because he was so close, but wouldn't want to have his inobservantness exposed when interviewed by national media (that would make him seem like a fool, right?).
Hence, he cobbled together some story that sounded okayish.

You're preaching to the choir here. I feel about this the same as you. Be careful though about what you type. I have never seen any mention of the police forcing the doors to the train either from witnesses or the police.

From your link:

What police said - and what really happened

The police claim: A man of "Asian appearance", behaving suspiciously, is shot dead by police on a Tube train in Stockwell.

The truth: The dead man, Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was Brazilian.

The police claim: His shooting was "directly linked" to the investigation into the London bombings.

The truth: Mr de Menezes was an electrician and had nothing to do with the London bombings.

The police claim: Witnesses described him running into the Tube station, vaulting the barriers.

The truth: He walked into the station and picked up a free newspaper before entering with a travel pass. He made his way to the platform. He started to run only when the train arrived.

The police claim: Witnesses said he was wearing an "unseasonable" heavy coat, and Scotland Yard said his clothing had "added to suspicions".

The truth: Photographs of the body show Mr de Menezes wearing a blue denim jacket.

The police claim: "As I understand the situation the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions" - Sir Ian Blair.

The truth: There was no police challenge.

The police claim: Mr de Menezes ran on to the Tube train, tripped and was shot five times by police as he lay on the floor.

The truth: CCTV footage is said to show Mr de Menezes pausing, looking left and right, and sitting on a seat facing the platform. A police witness says Mr de Menezes stood up when the police arrived. The policeman then pinned his arms to his sides and pushed him back in the seat. Mr de Menezes was then shot 10 times - three of the bullets missed.

I also contend that Mr. Whitby could very well have been from the Unit responsible for the shooting since nobody knows their identities or appearance... A plant in other words to facilitate 'the big lie'.

 

[arildno]

You're preaching to the choir here. I feel about this the same as you. Be careful though about what you type. I have never seen any mention of the police forcing the doors to the train either from witnesses or the police.

That is possibly a misunderstanding on my part:
Agent "Hotel 3" testified that he put his foot between the doors, so that the approaching team could get entrance.
I interpreted this to mean that the train was about to leave, with H3's foot jammed between the door and hence, if trains in London works the same way as in Oslo, preventing the train from leaving. I then assumed that the team and H3 had jointly prised the doors open.

It is, of course possible (probable?) that H3 made a preemptive move against such events, and merely positioned his foot in the opening so that in the event of the doors closing, forcing the doors would be possible.

 

[champ2823]

Ok, this is something that I find strange about this attack and other people that have been killed because police thought they were terrorists...Why did they shoot him in the torso? If this guy or whoever really was a suicide bomber, then why shoot him in the torso where the bomb would most likely be? The manuals that state how to address a suicide bomber state that the individual be shot in the head and specifically not in the torso region as this could possibly cause the bomb to go off. I feel that this is a highly unacceptable tragedy but that question still puzzles me.