Help the Metropolitan Police Force of the UK to locate terrorist bombers. First: Look for the Asians. If they are wearing clothes that you think are inappropriate to the weather, that’s a clue. If they do not stop when chased by men with guns drawn… that’s probably them.
Now… who is an Asian? An Asian is anyone who comes from Asia, which includes China, India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, Japan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and BRAZIL. If you look at the map above, you will see the areas in magenta… these are the hot countries from which come the Asian terrorist bombers.
From Wikipedia, just in case you might be confused:
The term Asian can refer to something or someone from Asia Asia is the central and eastern part of the continent of Eurasia, defined by subtracting the European peninsula from Eurasia. Geologically and geographically, however, Asia is not considered a continent or a subcontinent.The exact boundaries are vaguely defined, especially between Asia and Europe:. Its precise use varies depending on who is using it.
In the United Kingdom the term “Asian”, though it can be used to refer to the continent of Asia as a whole, is more usually associated specifically with people and cultures whose origin lies in South Asia South Asia is a subregion of Asia, usually taken as comprising the modern countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These countries are all members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Some or all of Afghanistan is sometimes considered part of South Asia., which includes modern-day India The Republic of India is a country in South Asia which comprises most of the Indian subcontinent.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, or Islami Jamhooriya-e-Pakistan, in Urdu, or Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and the Greater Middle East. The country borders India, Iran, Afghanistan, the China and the Arabian Sea. With just over 160 million inhabitants, it is the sixth most populous country in the world, the second most populous Muslim majority nation.
(see British Asian The term British Asian is used to denote a person of South Asian ancestry or origin, who was born in or is an immigrant to the United Kingdom.
In British English the word “Asian” usually refers to those of South Asian ancestry; those of East Asian origin such as Chinese or Japanese are usually not included in the term; this is reflected in the “ethnic group” section of UK census forms and other government paperwork, which treat “Asian” and “Chinese” as separate.Some Britons do not take care to distinguish between “South Asia” and “India”, while others make a clear distinction between the various countries that form the region.
In the United States and Australasia “Asian” has been considered a more politically correct.term for “Oriental The term the Orient literally refers simply to the rising of the sun, being derived from the Latin word oriens. It is used to mean “the East”. Similar terms are the French-derived “Levant” and “Anatolia” from the Greek anatole, which previously referred to people from China Japan and Korea and other East Asian countries. This is partially due to the fact that the term “Orientalism” can also refer to the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists. In the former meaning the term is becoming obsolete, increasingly being used only to refer in academia has become associated with the European colonial attitude toward the Ottoman.
In the U.S., the term “Asian” can also be used to describe people from Vietnam.
To avoid the confusion that sometimes occurs, the term “East Asian” is sometimes used to distinguish people from China, Japan, and Korea, while Indians, Pakistanis and Bangaldeshis can be more specifically referred to using “South Asian” (or, more rarely, “Asian Indians” or “East Indians”). It should be noted that both these clarifications are relatively formal, and are used only when it is necessary to make a distinction between the group concerned and other Asian peoples.
The term “West Asian Southwest Asia, or West Asia, is the southwestern part of Asia. The term Western Asia is commonly used in writings about the archaeology and late prehistory of the region.
Geographers that were annoyed with the ambiguity of the term “Middle East” tried to popularize the word “Southwestis used in very rare occasions to refer to people from Iraq. The Republic of Iraq is a Middle Eastern country in southwestern Asia encompassing the ancient region of Mesopotamia at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and also including the southern Kurdistan. It shares borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the west, Syria toIran and other Middle Eastern nations.
The term “West Asian” is often considered overly formal and may be considered by some to be overly politically correct. Although some Russians hail from the Asian continent, most are genetically closer to Europeans and therefore not usually referred to as “Asian”.
Assyrians, Arabs, Persians, Ottomans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and many other ethnic and cultural groups are often referred in one category as Asian and this can cause considerable confusion. Some believe that the idea that “Asians” form a coherent cultural group is outmoded and therefore the term should be replaced by use of separate term for each Asian cultural or geographical group. For this reason, some East Asians prefer to be referred to as Orientals rather than being referred to as “Asian”
As you can see from the above map of the world, my spray paint can ran out much too soon, I should have painted the Assyrians, the Persians, and the Arabs…. I think another shade of purple might do.
The point is here that Asians are everywhere and could be anyone. And don’t forget South America when you are looking for potential Asian bombers. Another point to consider, an Asian is not just a white guy with a suntan. And don’t be fooled by their accents…. Asian terrorist bombers in the UK have ENGLISH accents!!! Also remember to suspect all illegal aliens, or those whose visas have expired, unless, of course, they are Irish.
RACIAL PROFILING: A NOBLE TRADITION
Killing of Brazilian Exposes Britain’s Longtime Racial Profiling
Commentary, Earl Ofari Hutchinson,
Pacific News Service, Jul 26, 2005
Editor’s Note: Stops and searches by British police are disproportionately targeted at blacks and Asians and do not deter terrorism, the writer says.
LOS ANGELES–The slaying of Brazilian legal émigré Jean Charles de Menezes by the London police again cast an ugly glare on racial profiling in Britain — police procedures that have had nothing to do with stopping terrorism.
During the past decade, London police have stopped, patted down and detained legions of black, Asian, and Muslim doctors, lawyers, athletes, business professionals and even British Home Office officials. According to a voluminous 2003 British Home Office report, “Race and the Criminal Justice System,” Blacks and Asians were four times more likely to be stopped than whites. North African and Middle Easterners were seven times more likely to be stopped than whites.
The humiliation of being subjected to unwarranted stops and searches didn’t end there. London police have issued scores of what’s euphemistically called a “producer.” That’s a summons that requires the detainee to appear at a police station and produce their driver’s license and car registration.
British officials claim that the unwarranted stops and searches are a regrettable but necessary tactic to fight terrorism. That’s not true. Three years before the London train station bombings and the killing of Menezes, British police made more than 20,000 stops and searches under authority of the Terrorism Act, according to the 2003 Home Office report. Less than 2 percent of those stopped were arrested.
Even that figure is misleading. Only two of those arrested were charged with involvement with a terrorist group, and their arrest did not result from a street stop and search. By contrast, nearly 15 percent of those stopped as suspects in criminal activities were arrested. In London, nearly 40 percent of those stopped on suspicion either under the Terrorism Act or the Police and Criminal Evidence Act were non-whites.
The issue of racial profiling has long been a sore spot for the black and Asian communities in Britain. It exploded to the surface in 1993 when white hooligans beat Stephen Lawrence, a black London youth, to death. Police came under intense fire for their foot dragging investigation into the beating. It took five years, and a mass protest campaign, before British officials formed a commission to investigate the killing, called the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Scores of black and Asian Londoners told harrowing tales of harassment, verbal insults, and even physical assaults by police. In a stark admission, the commission concluded that institutional racism infected all levels of policing in Britain.
GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT
Here is the headline from the London Daily Express, July 23, 2005. In it, I think you will find the expression of a majority of people during the current climate of fear that rules Brittania.
Little matter now that the “terrorist” that they shot dead was a 27 year old Brazilian electrician on his way to work… the point is here to “Shoot All Bombers” even if they are not bombers…. just shoot them, so we can feel safe again. The mayor of London and Tony Blair explained this shoot to kill policy as a good one, as if the man they killed in the Stockwell Tube Station HAD been carrying explosives, hundreds of lives WOULD HAVE been saved.
Now this morning in Birmingham, England there has been an arrest of four men in connection with the failed bombing attempt on July 21… but guess what? They did not shoot them, but brought them in for questioning… what a novel idea!! I wait with with my spray can at the ready to find out what race and nationalitiy these bombing suspects are…. (well, I have to assume they are “Asian”)
Sus, the police acknowledge that they made a mistake in intentifying him as a suspect. How that mistake, which it has to be said was compounded by him running from the challenge, for whatever reason,came about is the subject of an independent and very through investigation.
What you have missed, because it got buried in a statement, is that the police came close to killing seven other people who were cleared when challenged. There have been some 250 alerts between Thursday and Monday at which police had to attend. Half of these were because tourists left a bag unattended.
I realise that these comments are made in the light of the experience in other countries of the police forces and, to some extent the historical record of the Met. Unfortunately these assumptions are just wrong. Do any of the police forces you compare them with have an asian deputy commissioner (second tier below the chief officer) and an openly gay third tier officer? Move on from Stephen Lawrence to 1999 when there was a series of bombings in which Afro-Caribbeans were targetted in Brixton, Bangladeshis in Whitechapel and gays killed in a pub in Soho by the same racist tight wing lunatic. The bomber in that case was identified just before the last bombing in the pub and was arrested a couple of days after it.
The very fact that it is so unusual for police to carry guns means that those who do are carefully selected to exclude those who might do just the sort of racist and panicked actions that you ascribe. The style of policing, which is usually described as “consensual”, requires co-operation from the very communities you suggest are being targetted. If the views expressed in the overseas comments were true and ethnic minorities were terrified of the poice did one family identify their son as one of those pictured in the photographs from the CCTV pictures which were released AFTER the shooting? They happen to be Somali who fled here from the civil war.
By the way, why do you assume that the police concerned in the errors were all male? The “shoot to kill to protect” policy as it is crudely called was devised by the Chief Constable of the South Wales police who happens to be a woman. Nor is their any evidence whatsoever that the police had identified deMenezes as asian. That description was given by an eye withness, Whitby, who certainly is in error. He described five bullets being fired. We know that is wrong, there were seven to the head and one in the shoulder. He describes de Menezes “tripping” into the carriage. If that were true and he was unijured at that stage, Whitby is wrong just as he was wrong in assuming de Menezes was asian. He saw him for a few seconds but the victim had been tailled for at least 15 minutes.
Incidentally we are just getting reports that one of the suspects (identified by a bystander who could of course be wrong) has been arrested in a house in Birmingham in the early hours of this morning wearing a rucksack but he was stunned by a tazer
The real question is the value of killing a suspect in this situation. Apart from any intelligence that could be got from questioning, there is the matter of how the killing would, and has, played in the muslim communities. Knowing this the policy a determined suicide bomber would try to kill as many as possible by exploding the bomb before any surrounding civilians could be cleared. Even more seriously, the killing is exploited by those opposed to any policing and with the object of dividing the minority communities from the broader society. Precisely what the terrorists want.
there are 1,350 news reports from witnesses who described Menezes as Asian, not just your Whitby. I would list them all here, but it’s just too grim. Also the reports about Brazilian protests about this wrongful death are compelling.
I am completely unconcerned about the gender of the top cop who came up with this Kratos Plan. I don’t give a flip. Racial profiling contributed to the death of an innocent man.
Had they had him under surveillance, they would have known his name, his address, his occupation and his nationality. They had none of these things.
OK Whitby and the other witnesses decribe him as asian. Was that because they expected the police to be chasing somebody who was asian or the result of their own misconceptions?
I am certainly not confident that they knew who de Menezes was. I have a very strong suspicion that they mis-identified the flat he came out of. If you look at the new pictures, the block is one of those 1930-40s council block designs that has a central staircase leading to balconies, with the flat doors opening onto these. Although open to the elements, these have a brick wall/parapet forming the other side of the walkway. DeMenezes cousin protested in one statement I saw that the victim did not even live in the flat the police were staking out but a completely different number. Not familiar with the exact block, I have strong suspicions that the police saw him coming out of his flat directly above the one they were watching. Depending where they were and how good their line of sight was, the mistake can be fairly easy. I have canvassed enough of these blocks during elections to know how easy it is to mistake flat numbers.
If that gross mistake by the police did happen at the very start of the journey, the reactions start to be more understandable, if not forgivable. If, as we know he had phoned to his boss, he was late for work; did he run from the bus to the tube station at Stockwell? The No2 bus stop is just before a corner (I have checked the map) think there are still pedestrian barriers round that corner to avoid traffic accidents but these only go the length of the building that is on the corner (a pub I think) there is then a small row of shops and a patch of lawn in front of a 50s apartment block. There is a light controlled pedestrian crossing but you have to go past the station, cross and double back. If I were late, my reaction would be to ignore this and run across the road.
Now for you, I and deMenezes that would not be suspicious. Did the message go from the surveillance team to gold control at Scotland Yards just saying “he’s off the bus and running towards the station”? Was that the reason he was described as being chased into the station? Did this make the need to stop him going into the system more urgent and ratchet up the reaction they had to him continuing to run?
All of this is far more logical to regard as a series of errors and wrong interpretations of innocent actions by the police, not of racism or racial profiling. Now if one thing deMenezes did not look it was typically Somali or Pakistani, the countries that the failed bombers are believed to come from. In fact I can point you to a photograph of somebody who looks remarkably like deMenezes facially and who is Russian. How does that explain that he was racially profilled? What is the point of a racial profile when the 7/7 bombers were three Pakistanis of varying “brown” skin shades and one black Afro-Carribean? Now they may be looking for Muslim extremeists but I would be really grateful if you would provide the police with a racial profile they can use to identify them. All this talk of racial profiling is merely nonsense to justify the prejudices of those making the allegations.
Suspects investigated after London bombingsEarthtimes.org – Jul 13, 2005… The London bombings unlike the Madrid attack, where 191 died as a … With a wave of hate crimes against Asians and … Regardless of these calls for racial calm and …
Pakistan TimesPolice in UK swoops on South Asians after London BlastsPakistan Times, Pakistan – Jul 13, 2005… was killed in a suspected racial attack in … Sunday, three days after the London bombings, and the … of racially and religiously-motivated hate crimes since the …
Racist crime suspects walk freeSunday Herald, UK – Jul 16, 2005THOUSANDS charged with race hate crimes in Scotland are walking … the existing per ception that racial abuse or … abuse in the wake of the London bombings, and so …
‘Sick’ BNP attacked after seizing on bus bombing in council poll …Guardian Unlimited, UK – Jul 11, 2005… have recorded a sharp rise in hate crimes directed at Asians following the London bombings, including attacks … police in London recorded 180 racial incidents …
Evil Begets Evil in London Terror AttacksThe Yellow Line – Jul 13, 2005… the British government need to get racial and religious … worse possible outcome of the London Bombings would be … Nor can hate crimes like the one in Nottingham …
Pakistani killed in suspected terror backlash: reportIANS, India – Jul 13, 2005… least 300 incidents of anti-Muslim hate crimes that have … killing as arising from a racial motive rather … Scotland Yard Tuesday that the London bombings pose the …
WSC-AR Condemns London BombingsWorldwide Faith News (press release) – Jul 10, 2005… In a world being increasingly polarized along ethnic, religious, racial, and nationalistic … minorities and their places of worship from hate crimes and attacks …
More may be shot, chief says
Globe and Mail, Canada – Jul 25, 2005… and anybody — especially Mr. de Menezes, from a region of Brazil plagued by crime and police brutality — might have run away from men brandishing pistols. …
Shoot-to-kill policy defended MegaStar.co.uk
all 1,362 related »
Vigils held for shooting victimNewsday, NY – Jul 25, 2005… where police brutality is infamous, his natural instinct would be to flee. “He was a 100-percent good guy who never did anything wrong,” Menezes’ cousin, Alex …
OK and how may of these show that the police are racially profiling non-suspects? None.
You are Basque and a member of ETA, you plant a bomb and have been staying with fellow Basques in a house. The police raid that house. Have they done that as a result of racially profilling you as a Basque? Do you not raid the addresses of people associated with your suspects just because they are from the same country on the grounds you might be accused of racially profilling suspects?
The police have photographs of people identified as planting the failed bombs and know the identities of those suspected bombers killed on 7/7. Are the 7/7 suspects being accused because they were Asian (and Black) or because there was evidence. namely they were wearing rucksacks similar to those believed to have been used? Are the suspects being sought because they were photographed or because they were Asian? Actually his family identified one to the police and he is Somali so that would have made profiling “Asians” very productive.
There are actually far more worrying development in the press surrounding the fact that the family of one of the failed bombers were granted asylum after fleeing Somalia during the civil war. That is a bare;y veiled racist campaign by the right-wing papers printing the stories. Let’s be vigilent of those rather than trying to acribe motives to the police that we have no substantial evidence for. It diverts attention and false allegations play into the hands of the right wing media. Knee jerk reaction from the right and left just leave everybody surrounded by jerks.
They had the wrong house, the wrong guy and the wrong nationality. A whole lot of misinformation has come out, trying to justify the what cannot be justified, including the possibility that Menezes was an illegal alien or that his visa had run out. The family and the Brazilian embassy says he was legal. He was a good guy. But even if he HAD been illegal, even if he was NOT a good guy, the killing of Menezes was wrong and cannot be justified, and it points to other wrongs that must be corrected.
The killing of Menzes was a result of their surveillance. It was just another “massive intelligency failure.” In the case of Menezes, it got one good guy dead.
In the case of another “massive intelligence failure” it got 128,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Are you not just a little weary of death tolls due to “massive intelligence failures”?
Vigilant? As in vigilante? This is about a guy who was tagged as a terrorist who was not a terrorist, a guy who was tagged an “Asian” who was not an Asian, a guy who was ID’d as coming from a house of one of the London bombers who was not coming from a house of one of the London bombers.
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes is suing the Metropolitan Police. I side with them, and not with the Metropolitan Police.
Neither do I side with Tony Blair, who, when Conservatives in government said an inquiry must be launched into the July 7th bombings, said such an inquiry would be a “ludicrous diversion.”
I can’t believe the British still back PM Tony Blair after going into Iraq with deceit and lies.
I have zero confidence in British investigations initiated under Tony Blair’s administration.
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Yes Oui and I have protested them and marched against them. I also happen to have looked at the published September dossier and picked holes in it within a couple of hours of it going on the web.
On Friday the police had to act on their suspicions. We know those were wrong but that is different from them being reasonable at the time. The consequences of their mistake was horrific but it was what they were trained to do in the circumstances. None of this excuses the death of an innocent person but does explain why it happened.
Rushing to any judgement is wrong. Unfortunately in countering precisely those, I have to give alternative explantions to those from the more fevered speculators who are interested in legitimising their own interpretation of any event. There may well be innocent reason for the police officer to arrive at the decision to kill, just as there are reasons for Menezes actions which had nothing to do with the bombings.
At this stage there is no evidence to suggest ir was anything other than a tragic mistake. If you have it, produce it. There are understandable comments from the grief-stricken family about “murder” but these are not evidence.
Can you tell me what the difference is between the police identifying Menezes as a potential bomber based on the evidence they had and those who make allegations that they were motivated by racism? Both started with a set of preconceptions and both came to conclusions based on evidence they saw as justifying those. The big difference is that the police had maybe 30 seconds to a minute between him going into the station and shooting him, far less after he failed to stop, to gather further evidence and make a decision.
2005 Embassy of Brazil in London | 32 Green Street – London W1K 7AT info@brazil.org.uk
The commentary you quote is particularly amalevolent and ill informed. He refers to “producers” in the context of stop and searches. Since these are only required if someone does not have them with them when they are stopped while driving a vehicle he is being mendacious. ANYONE stopped for ANY reason while driving can be required to produce these. Unlike the US they are not required to be carried but can be produced up to a week afterwards to prove that somebody is entitled to used the vehicle. Did they mention that part of this would also be a certificate proving insurance cover? Of course not because that would destroy his arguement.
What he did not tell you is to avoid allegations of racial profiling, the police now have give reasons when someone is stopped and searched and not arrested. This is a form which has to be completed with one copy going to the stopped person and another retained. There is actually opposition from the police over these because they take roughly 30-40 minutes to process. Neither does the writer make any reference to the changes made after the Lawrence report or that the decision was that the Metropolitan force was “instiutionally racist”. That is its detailed workings did not take account of racial differences, not that individual police officers were necessarily racist. That both upset officers who did not understand the actual implications of this AND provided a stick the ill-informed like that writer can use to beat them with.
Oh yeah, don’t read this, it came from the World Socialist Web Site.
Now are you going to suggest that one of the motives of the World Socialist Web is not to undermine confidence in the police? But let’s examine this more carefully:
True, did the presence of the armed police have nothing to do with the bombings the previous day? But the article’s assertion based on the statement does not follow:
Everyone now agrees that Menezes did not have a connection with the attacks, but that is not what Blair said. Unfortunately and maybe through their own errors and certainly their wrong interpretation of innocent actions, they did have grounds to suspect him. They had sufficient grounds in their own minds, even if mistaken, to believe he was going to explode a suicide bomb.
Let me give you a couple of examples. Imagine you are an armed explorer a couple of hundred years ago and you are either in Mongolia or New Zealand. In Mongolia a group of horsemen gallop towards you firing rifles or in New Zealnd a group of chanting natives brandishing spears come at you pointing them directly at your heart. With no knowledge of their traditions what do you do? Would you have realised both are formal welcomes for high status visitors or would you think they were about to kill you and start shooting?
The point of this is Menezes was acting in ways completely divorced from any connection with the bombings. If he ran when he was challenged by the police, why did he run? (and I agree the evidence for the location for that has to be confirmed but there are reports he was challenged in the ticket hall) What actions by Menezes and errors in the police surveillance operation let to the gunmen believing he was an imminent threat who had to be killed? These are the real questions that have to be answered and convoluted justification of a racial profilling theory are really not productive and are positively dangerous for the muslim communities if it divides them from the rest of British society. They will become victims of their own fears which is precisely what the terrorists are trying to achieve.
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Jean Charles de Menezes, supposedly with explosives packed vest of 5-6 kg on a suicide mission, running and clearing the entrance barriers in a jump is quite remarkable.
I do hope the innocence of Jean Charles, is not smeared by putting any blame on his behavior. Just going about his daily routine, using public transport to get to a job that needed to be done.
Error and blame is solely on the investigation by Scotland Yard and/or the London Metropolitan Police.
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it was his coat that did it! it was the fashion police, clearly, just doing their job.
the shot him 7 bullets to the head and one to the shoulder because he ran when they chased him. that’s what did it.
and you assume that they had identified themselves as police. his cousin says they did not identify themselves as police, and so do some of the eyewitnesses.
now, for mentioning racial profiling you say that I am fanning the fires of division in the Muslim community. ok. it’s my fault that hate crimes are on the increase for reporting that hate crimes are on the increase. ok. so shoot me.
As I keep saying, let’s take a step back, allow the family to grieve and ourselves get over the shock and horror of this, and get the facts. Apart from being witnesses being unreliable, to make the assertion that no warning was given requires witness from at least four places. He could have been challenged:
I am assuming that a warning was not given ON the train as it is fairly clear that the shooting had started and his death decided upon by then. All the other places I describe would or might have separate groups of eye witnesses. A shouted warning would be difficult or impossible to hear from another of those locations and nobody was listening out for a shout of “Stop police” or whatever above the noise of the train or escalators. Nobody on the platform for example could possibly hear a warning given in the ticket hall. Lack of an independent witness to a warning is not evidence that there was no warning. In fact lack of you providing a report about a warning is no evidence that one was not reported or that a witness has already described one.
A belt of thw weight you describe, had be have been wearing one, is not that heavy. Remember all the four known bombers on 7/7 did weight training and were described as “bodybuilders” by some. Menezes has been pictured by you (I believe you posted the picture) holding barbell weights above his head. IF he had panicked I would suggest the extra adrenaline would easily overcome the impediment.
sorry, when did you say take a step back and allow the family to grieve? I missed that.
“A shouted warning would be difficult or impossible to hear from another of those locations and nobody was listening out for a shout of “Stop police” or whatever above the noise of the train or escalators.”
But Menezes was supposed to have heard it?
I think we’re done here.
Are you not jumping to conclusions based on insufficient evidence in exactly the same way as the police did when they killed Menezes, except you have had many more reports and opinions – not primary evidence – on which to base your opinions.
Despite recyling the second hand reports in the press of what mostly a limited number of the witnesses who were present, you still persist in not taking my point that these are no good reasons to believe that the police were reacting in anyway other than how they were trained. We can rightly argue about their orders and training but that is not what you are doing. You are assuming guilt before all of the facts are known. Yes Menezes was killed before he had the chance to defend himself in court. The police got it wrong, no-one is arguing that with the information we now have they should not have shot him. Not you, not me, not the Commissioner of Police, not Tony Blair and certainly not those who gave the order and pulled the trigger(s).
What I have done is to try to illustrate to you why it is important not to gather all evidence before concluding that the police acted illegally. If they honestly thought he was the immediate threat to the public and can justify that, they are innocent. They did not have the luxury of time we do in assessing Menezes’ reasons for his actions.
On the matter of whether he could hear a shouted warning, this is obviously something that needs investigation. Does it mean one was not given and the police believed he ignored it? No. That would be yet another wrong assumption leading to the belief he was a threat. I don’t think anybody believes that the chase did not start at ground level either in the ticket hall or outside. That makes a witness hearing any shouted warning on the lower landing, platform or train impossible. If the warning was shouted there, we must exclude the negative evidence they give. Similarly anybody in the escalator shaft is unlikely to hear it either because of distance or (and) mechanical noise – it would depend where they were when it was given.
Let me go back to the matter of jumping the ticket barriers. If Menezes did jump over them in flight, where were the police? How come, if they were beyond the barriers, he ran past them? If they were also outside the barriers, did the police wait to put their passes through the readers? Would not somebody in hot pursuit of somebody they believe was a potential bomber not leap the barrier. Are they Olympic athletes to do this while carrying sub machine guns and presumably wearing flack jackets which are their usual protection? If the barriers were vaulted by someone not carrying a gun, how much more difficult and slightly more time does it take to do it carrying one? We have an eyewitness say that the police were trying (at least) to put on baseball caps to identify themselves while running (I think on the platform). So we have someone running, trying to follow procedure to identify themselves clearly, carrying a weapon and trying to keep a suspect in sight after chasing them down stairs and along a platform. They are chasing someone who we have seen exercising and presumably was reasonably fit and we now know not wearing a heavy belt. Did they fire at Menezes during the pursuit and hit him at least once in the head before he entered the carriage – they must have if Whitby’s version of five shots in the carriage is true?
There are so many unanswered questions that can be reasonably raised that it is impossible to come to any assessment at this point. I am not saying the police officer is innocent. What I am saying is that I and you cannot say he is guilty nor what his motives were. Menezes was entitled to be believed innocent in court until proven guilty. Events mean, as far as we can tell, he did not take the opportunity to demostrate that to the police. Confirmation he was challenged and a deeper investigation of why he did not will take time. The police officer is in a slightly different position. He now has to demonstrate his actions were reasonable. We know he killed Menezes, not why or exactly how apart from the location of the bullets. He is entitled to his say why he took the action he did and Menezes and his family are entitled to am independent, full and thorough investigation in a speedy a time as possible. Regrettably that is the only justice we can now offer them in addition to the compensation they will receive for the loss. The right action is to ensure this investigation in properly conducted. At the moment the IPCC has started and until undue delay is apparent, we hopefully can focus on other aspects of the bombings.
The “A” in the piece you quote is incorrect. The police did not have to “KNOW” he was a threat, they had to have a “reasonable belief”. If they cannot demonstrate that, they are indeed guilty of manslaughter and possibly murder.
The argument is a fraud anyway. Clearly Menezes did not KNOW the police were white thugs out to mug him. He certainly might have had a reasonable belief that they were. Either he did not recognise them as police or did and chose to run. Running on the tube is indeed not itself an offence (although in some circumstances the action it would be if, say, it resulted in injurty to others) That is not why the police were chasing him.
The police were chasing him because he did not stop to be cleared of the suspicion that he was connected to the bombings. All speculation about his motive for running is just that, we will never know. We do know if he had not run, he would be alive today or are you saying he would have been gunned down regardless?
My nephew, who is half Mexican American and half poor white trash, could easily pass for a terrorist bomber. He is Victor Buono, reincarnated.
Too bad he’s too fucking lazy to go to Hollywood.
Long story short:
When we were stationed on Guam, I became acclimated to HOT, HUMID weather. We flew to Boston for a wedding. My brother in law picked us up at the airport and I was FREEZING in May. I had been on standby status with NWA and had been up for over 40 hours. I was a cold, tired zombie of a woman.
Thankfully I wasn’t SHOT.
I knew a friend whose hands were almost crippled from arthritus. He wore these big bulky mittens that had warmers in them… Looked strange.
Looks can be deceiving.
Shoot first, think later is not civilized.
Great diary, Susking – thanks
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Didn’t stop in the 19th century!
Since I was young, I often wondered about the individuals more likely to be involved in a traffic accident. I just barely survived an accident with a skull fracture when I was 7 yrs old.
Just a momentary lapse of concentration before crossing the street or a wrong decision while driving can end in a fatality.
Today I suppose you will more likely to be targeted by Blair’s shoot to kill order, when you have a low blood pressure. My wife and in-laws have a very low blood pressure and wear a sweater, scarf or heavy coat outside when it’s 80°F. They begin to feel comfortable, when the temperature reaches 90°F.
We have agreed to avoid the UK – London and public transportation.
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My brother suffered long and short term amnesia due to a head injury from a snowboarding accident. Took a long time to recover, is still recovering long term. The short term was truly horrendous for him. Was like Memento Man for a while for him. Cell phone was/is a savior to him. Long story short…
He sometimes has dizzy spells due to this injury where his speech is slurred for a short time. No idea why or if they’ll ever stop.
Once he had them in the Boston Commons while walking down some steps and he fell. During these.. spells.. he is very dizzy and can’t speak as well.
You can imagine how the cops have treated him. With compassion, with concern. To serve and protect??? No fucking way. They treated him like he was a drunk.
In fact last time, two cops came up to him, hit him hard on the shoulder with their nightstick and told him, as he was putting up his hands and trying to explain that he just needed a few minutes to gather himself, they threatened to arrest him if they returned later and he was still there. Sprawled on the steps where he fell.
Glad he wasn’t in the UK or Wash.,DC… he would have been shot.
I will always worry how my son will be treated by authorities if something ever happens to me and his father. None of us are safe when the “leaders” have this made up excuse to shoot at will. “Ignorance, Brutality, Murder all in the name of “security” it’s complete bs.
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Guns, violence and aggression while on the job in society’s subculture of street crime.
Even in a liberal society of the Netherlands, within the police corps there is sexual intimidation and racial discrimination. Outstanding police officers, women and men of Moroccan or Turkish descent cannot survive in this macho culture of intimidation.
It’s a two-way street of action and reaction and the brass knows when they have let the attack dogs loose. See Abu Ghraib and London City – thanks to Bush and Blair.
Society needs social awareness for protest and action, this is still present in the older generation 45+, but is often missed by many in the younger generation who seem to accept all bs.
Hope all goes well for your brother and recovery continues.
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did NOT jump turnstile, had LEGAL visa ◊ by Shumard
The Guardian July 28, 2005 — After a meeting with the Metropolitan police, Vivien Figueiredo, 22, said that the first reports of how her 27-year-old cousin had come to be killed in mistake for a suicide bomber on Friday at Stockwell tube station were wrong.
Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot dead in the head, was not wearing a heavy jacket that might have concealed a bomb, and did not jump the ticket barrier when challenged by armed plainclothes police, his cousin said yesterday.
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Thank you Oui, you’re right on top of it.