The latest documents suggest Mr de Menezes had walked into Stockwell Tube station, picked up a free newspaper, walked through ticket barriers, had started to run when he saw a train arriving and was sitting down in a train when he was shot.
[…]
Police also said the Brazilian electrician had worn a large winter-style coat - but the leaked version suggested he had in fact worn a denim jacket.
Interesting that these reports largely contradict the first eye witness accounts we got (of the victim entering the train ‘looking completely terrified’ and being shot in the doorway).
However, I am of a mind to defer judgment until the inquiry actually publishes. I’m not sure who the leaker thought would benefit from this leak.
I’m not entirely sure what to think on this one at the moment. First eyewitness reports in the media had him being chased onto the train and shot several times. This report seems to suggest that while he was casually reading his copy of metro one police officer tackled and pinned him down and then, even to his suprise, the firearms officer(s) opened fire on him.
And lo, the stories of heavy jackets, suspicious behavior, barrier-vaulting pursuits and sprinting into crowded trains vanish, passed into to the ether like CCTV tapes in the hands of British police.
So, all bias aside, what would be the motivation for the British police to chase down and shoot and kill a man who is calmly sitting on a train reading a paper? What is the rational explanation? They get a cash bonus for everyone they shoot? It’s difficult to believe that there wasn’t at least some behavior that caused them to take such drastic action, even if the action was indeed unwarranted (as is obviously the case here.)
From my understanding, it appears the police had incorrectly identified him and had orders to shoot if he ran. When he saw that his train was already there and he might miss it, he ran to catch it :(
Probably one of those confused heat of the moment situations. The take-down team had been told (incorrectly) that he was a positive ID for one of the bombing suspects. One of the officers rushed and restrained him and he almost certainly resisted (wouldn’t you?) and the firearms officer who did the shooting probably took that as a sign that there was an imminent danger.
To me, incompetence or miscommunication sounds really likely in this case.
Imagine an officer with a gun, a nervous officer because of recent attacks and because he is unaccustomed to firearms. He sees his mates struggling with someone, hears yelling, doesn’t know what is going on. He assumes the struggling suspect must be a terrorist, or perhaps another office has come to that conclusion and is yelling out “Terrorist, Terrorist!”. Adrenaline surging through his veins, the officer feels the pressure to make a split second decsions. He pulls his gun and takes a life.
That’s all pure speculation of course, but I’ll bet it isn’t that far off the mark.
Some level of “accidents” like this is understandable - they should just put in better process control, rather than sweep it under the rug like they’ll try to.
It’s almost bizarre, isn’t it? They could have so easily owned up to the obvious screwup, but they could not resist trying to spin and snivel and shirk their way out of it. And not just that – that they did so with such obvious and utter incompetence is doubly amazing.
It would not be at all shocking, for example, if something revealing were dumped somewhere in public instead of destroyed, waiting at the bottom of a canal to be recovered in 2007; or if some police apparatchik sent a compromising email to a journalist who now sits and waits for the right Pulitzer moment; or whatever.
The French police would never bungle a cover up this badly! :lol:
I don’t get why you’d cover this up. It’s a tragic accident, but it’s understandable. If the truth is what is now being reported, none of the police on scene did anything wrong. The guy was incorrectly ID’d and from that mistake a series of unforunate events transpired leading to his death, but why lie? The only person who would be “punished” is the guy who ID’d him as a bombing suspect, and it’s not like he’d go to jail or anything.
I don’t understand why public figures are so unwilling to treat the public as adults and say:
“Something bad has happened, and there’s very little we could’ve done to prevent it. We’ll look into the situation and see if there’s a procedural change that can prevent future mistakes, but it’s entirely likely that no such change is possible.”
