This is breaking news and has been cross-posted on Kos.
The Metropolitan Police have just announced that the man shot dead at Stockwell Underground station was not involved in the investigation.
The news is breaking and there are suggestions that other forces than the Police might be involved but the killing is to be investigated initially by the Scotland Yard Professional Standards Unit and referred to the Police Complaints Commission.
The BBC report on the breaking news (the story in the link may change after posting)
Regarding the press statement:
The statement read: “We believe we now know the identity of the man shot at Stockwell Underground station by police on Friday 22nd July 2005, although he is still subject to formal identification.
“We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st July 2005.
“For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets.”
The statement confirmed the man was followed by police from a block of flats that was under surveillance.
A spokeswoman from the human rights group Liberty has issued a statement expressing sympathy for the family of the victim and the policemen asking that no-one should rush to judgement
Background: BBC report on new rules of engagement.
If Special Forces were involved in the killing, there is an echo in the 1998 killing of a suspected Irish terrrorist in Gibraltar. The killing was the subject of a landmark documentary “Death on the Rock”
What a tragedy this is. Check the account at the bottom of the BBC-story:
If he was not connected to terrorism, what was he so scared of? Was he involved in other types of criminal activity? Simply an illigal immigrant?
Do the witness accounts mention whether/how the special forces identified themselves?
This is such a difficult dilemma and I understand that the special forces had to make immediate decisions under difficult circumstances.
A group of strange, non-descript men began to stalk, and then pursue you in the tube. Do you stand still to await being mugged, shot, raped, beat up, . . . or take evasive action?
But seemingly, trying to evade those who would harm you is now illegal, punishable by summary execution.
Breaking news: He was legal, legally employed as an electrician.
Well, for years the Brits faced up to the IRA with steely resolution. Now one “Arabic terrorist” bombing and they are soiling their pants like Americans.
Sad to see.
This is the beginning of the end for the English: Britain is about to join the US in its descent into destruction. There is not much time left for getting rid of Blair–no time at all, if they want to avoid the fate that is being laid.
Actually this would be pretty unusual in America. There are occasional rogue cops and Rodney King events, but it’s pretty rare to have plainclothes policemen shoot somebody in cold blood.
I look forward to the investigation on this, because I don’t understand this shooting at all, as it’s been described in the papers.
I get the fact that he came out of a suspicious block of flats, was followed, and then when they became suspicious of his intentions, they started chasing him… who knows what his thoughts were, or why he started running (the chasers were in plain clothes, and apparently it’s not required in the UK for them to identify as police officers, according to the BBC… no idea if these did or not)… and then that’s where it stops making sense to me.
They chase him down, he either trips or is pushed, and a couple of them get on top of him (according to newspapers)… and then they shoot him?
I’m not sure that one would fly even in the US, where (ruled justified) killings of unarmed citizens by cops happens a lot more frequently.
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Diary at European Tribune –
said the Northern and Victoria Tube lines, which pass through Stockwell, were suspended because of shooting.
Passengers reported a man — described as South Asian — ran onto a train. Witnesses said police chased him, he tripped, then they shot him.
“They pushed him onto the floor and unloaded five shots into him. He’s dead,” witness Mark Whitby told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Whitby said it didn’t look like the man was carrying anything but said he was wearing a thick coat that looked padded.
I saw Tube man shot – eyewitness
“I was distraught, totally distraught. It was no less than five yards away from where I was sitting.”
Mark Whitby – Eyewitness
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From BBC radio – the unit was tracking the victim in an undercover surveillance operation. When this person entered the station, he got away by jumping the entrance barrier and was apprehended near the subway trains. The unit had to act, as it became an emergency and no time left to get the uniformed, armed squad involved. See the eyewitness accounts of what followed.
BBC VIDEO
LATEST INFO: Victim of Brazilian nationality has been living in London for 3 yrs. :: Killed by plain clothes policemen – Met London Police got training in Israel.
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Man Killed in London Subway Not Linked to Blasts
Three plain clothes’ policemen chased the victim into Stockwell station and caught him inside a car when he slipped and fell. Five shots into the head were fatal.
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Shot in the head, eh? Sounds an awful lot like someone wanted to make sure he didn’t survive…
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LONDON July 23, 2005 – The man shot and killed on a subway car by London police officers before horrified commuters had nothing to do with the investigation into a series of bombings against the city’s transit system.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said on customary condition of anonymity that “the man was unconnected to the incidents of Thursday,” in which bombs placed on three subway cars and a double-decker bus failed to detonate properly.
The spokesman also said the man was “probably unconnected” to the July 7 subway and bus bombings that killed 56 people, including four attackers.
Onlookers observe the scene at Stockwell Underground train station after a man was shot dead in south London. Undercover police shot the man at Stockwell station on Friday. Commuters on the carriage were eyewitnesses, as the suspect was shot dead. (Reuters)
“I’m Brazilian and have been living in London for years, this is what happened to me on Friday morning in daylight.”
Brazilian Ambassador demands answers
Three plain clothes policemen … chased the victim into Stockwell station and caught him inside a car when he slipped and fell. Five shots into the head were fatal.
Man Killed in London Subway Not Linked to Blasts
~ Cross-posted from EuroTrib ~
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Bringing Israel into this discussion seems to border on anti-semitism. It’s irrelevant where they got their training. France has police schools, too.
Israel is central to the larger picture. Not only is the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 something that should be discussed and understood, but the methods that Israel uses today as a fascist occupying force in Gaza and the West Bank are being adopted by the Americans in Iraq (Fallujah) and the now the British.
It is generally not known that a Palestinaian cannot leave the West Bank or Gaza to travel unless they are are never to return. Israel is not very nice to the Palestinians on a judicial and legal level.
Israel should be crticized. The state of Israel should never have been formed in this geographical area. The whole formation of the state was one of the greatest mistakes of this and many centuries past. I think if nation should have given up it’s land to Israel it would have been Germany, not Palestine. Biblical claims of ownership seem quite mad.
The current police tactics for dealing with supected suicide bombers were devised under the previous Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police after visits to Israel and Sri Lanka to look at their training.
The way in which the suspect in Whitehall was treated on Thursday is virtually exactly the same as that used when the Israelis arrested the young boy suicide bomber at a checkpoint. Armed police (in uniform) stood at a distance and got him to strip. In the Whitehall case, the guy was innocent but the Palestinian boy was wearing a suicide belt and had to take it off before the police appreached.
Incidentally on the geographical location of Israel, Australia did offer and area in Western Australia to establish it but this was rejected by Zionists who had already started a terrorist campaign of their own against the soldiers of the British Mandate.
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War on Terror and the US Invasion of Iraq was strongly advocated and supported by Likud and PM Sharon of Israel.
The US Forces use military tactics for urban warfare – entry in Baghdad March 2003 – and the repulsive demolition of the city of Fallujah, identical to Israeli military tactics used in occupied Gaza and West Bank territories.
This is general knowledge of the Iraq War watcher and the reason the insurgents have become successful in Iraq: president Bush is feeding the beast called terror. Take a moment to google for some info —
Fallujah Success Capitalized on IDF Know-How
Army and Marine Corps forces that battled terrorist insurgents in the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Mosul employed urban warfare tactics gleaned from the combat experience of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
In the last two years, hundreds of U.S. military personnel have trained in the Negev desert at Israel’s Adam counter insurgency urban warfare training facility. Meanwhile, the U.S. military has completed the construction of a number of simulated Arab villages at the U.S. Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
Adsf is the first person in my lifetime to accuse me of anti-semitism. I find the remark offensive and bs – lack of any critical judgement and knowledge as probable cause, nevertheless remark is IMHO inexcusable.
My diary recently —
I’m more terrified by plain-clothes officers running around shooting anyone they suspect might be involved in terrorism than I am of the prospect of getting blown up by a suicide bomber. After all, there still appear to be more police than there are suicide bombers.
If police are given a license to shoot dead any person if there’s the slightest suspicion that the person might be a terrorist, then there’s not much left of civil liberties. No arrest, no charges, no trial–just summary execution. Now that’s terrifying.
I guess Americans aren’t the only ones who have the urge to shoot first (invade Iraq) and ask questions later…
This killing is a metaphor for all the killing in Iraq. It’s an overeaction. Just like the overeactions of Bush and Cheney. two country bumpkins who are afraid of foreigners.
Then notice how the police say he directly linked, then he isn’t. They are lying about everything. Some stupid police or undercover genious whose afraid of foreigners saw a guy with a coat and like a child decided he must have a bomb.
Get the hell out of IRaq Now! Look at all the big and small horrors this war has created for nothing.
The man was a Brazilian, not an “Asian” as was first reported. The police commissioner said, just hours after the incident on the day the man was shot, that the man was “directly linked” to Thursdays attacks.
Racism, that’s what’s going on here. All people “of color” which is in itself a racist expression, are under suspicion. There is no religious agenda, there is no political agenda, there is no justice agenda, there is no peace agenda… there is a blind revenge agenda… that’s all I can see.
And the US can go throw itself a “Patriot Act Party” This story about the Brazilian man shot in the head is about as bad as it gets.
Have you seen a picture of the guy? He wasn’t even dark skinned. This isn’t racism, it’s panic in the police department.
I guess the difference is that there has been a statement from the Police Commisioner saying “the metropolitan police take full responsibility”
The war on terra from a brazilian perspective:
http://jbonline.terra.com.br/
Though this isn’t new, it is informative to look at this war as a bystander:
From Jornal do Brasil
The man killed by mistake Friday in the London underground on suspicion of being a terrorist, was Jean Charles Menezes, age 27, from Gonzaga, Minais Gerais. He was a legal resident in the London for 5 years where he worked as an electrician…
LONDRES – O homem morto por engano pela polícia britânica na sexta-feira, no metrô de Londres, por suspeita de ser terrorista, era brasileiro. Jean Charles de Menezes, de 27 anos, era natural de Gonzaga, no interior de Minas Gerais, e vivia legalmente há cinco anos na capital britânica, onde trabalhava como eletricista. A identidade da vítima foi confirmada pelo consulado brasileiro em Londres ontem. Mais cedo, a Scotland Yard havia anunciado que a vítima não tinha nenhum vínculo com os atentados de quinta-feira e que sua morte foi ”um erro trágico”.