Documents leaked to the ITN News suggest that the British police’s shooting dead of a 27 year old Brazilian electrician in the London subway day after the 21/7 botched bombings, were the result of a series of errors and had little to do with him acting suspiciously and more to do with police's unverified suspicions. Menezes was subsequently reported as being in the Country illegally it is alleged.
The picture grab of the controversial killing of Jean Charles de Menezes that was made public on Tuesday contradicted statements earlier made by police pointing to a series of errors rather than a controlled operation ultimately leading to the shooting down of the Brazilian at point blank range. Though preliminary police reports had suggested that Menezes attracted attention by his suspicious looks and behaviour, sporting a bulky jacket, passing over a ticket barrier at the south London’s Stockwell underground station, to sprint on to the subway train. However, witness accounts and pictures aired on ITV showed the young man attired in a light denim jacket, walking calmly into the station and on to the train only to be restrained by a police officer on board before being rendered lifeless by eight shots from close range.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) that has been handed responsibility for the investigation of the police-caused death, failed to comment on the ITV News broadcast. After a police officer posted outside Menezes’ flat claimed to have missed videotaping his departure from home on that fateful day, relatives and campaigners raised a call for a public inquiry into the shooting, wanting to know what had instigated the dire action from the police. Menezes' cousin Allessandro Pereira had said, "My family deserve the full truth about his murder. The truth cannot be hidden any longer. It has to be made public". The rights group Justice4Jean Family said there had been a deliberate effort by the police to mislead the public on the Menezes’ shooting and his case had to serve a lesson for them to prevent repetition in the future.
The ITV report confirmed and actually pinned the biggest error to the undercover officer’s failure to tape Menezes as he left his home, in a Tulse Hill block of flats, suspect of housing the miscreants of the 21/7 attacks. However, the report goes to suggest that this failure to tape and transmit observations by the police officer on account of his attending a nature’s call, lead to non-identification Menezes exiting the suspect building, resulting in his pursuit and shoot down at the station. The officer who failed to tape Menezes said, "At this time I was not able to transmit my observations and switch on the video camera at the same time. There is therefore no video footage of this male. Shortly after that, pictures from the closed circuit television show Menezes enter the station at an unhurried pace, even pausing to collect a free newspaper and taking the slow escalator down to catch the tube, entering through the middle doors. He even paused, looking eitherways before settling down in a seat facing the platform, only moments before the police burst in restraining him even as they shot seven bullets to his head and one to his shoulder. Three other bullets whiz past him as only the casing remained on the floor.
But the most uncomfortable part of the ITV broadcast was the clear evidence of the 27-year-old Menezes being pinned by a surveillance officer when he was shot at close range. The broadcast is likely to leave the Scotland Yard squirming. The surveillance officer on board was quoted saying that prompted by the shout `police', he turned to face Menezes, who immediately stood up and came forward only to be pinned and restrained and pushed back on the seat where he had previously sat. He then heard gun shots from very close behind and was dragged away by another officer onto the floor as the shots continued.
The Menezes family lawyer Harriet Wistrich, shocked by the release said that these went further to vindicate Menezes, suggesting a “level of incompetence” or even “serious breakdown in communications” between the officers responsible for surveillance, but not justifying the IPCC report of the brief to use "unusual tactics" to intercept a subject who “was non-compliant”.
Menezes’ police observed walk to a bus stop to take a bus traveling to Stockwell tube station, ended in his demeanor and identity being assessed as “suspect” and the information passed to other officers with instructions to prevent his entering the tube system in what is understood as a " code red tactic”. Menezes’ family are probably not wrong in wanting those responsible to be jailed for life, as nothing can offer to compensate his elderly parents for the loss of his life.
