First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

5 Responses

1. Tim Footman says:

   December 13, 2008 at 8:27 am

   Two points:

   First, while the 7/7 and 21/7 bombers doubtless contributed to the circumstances in which Menezes met his death, to blame them for the shooting is as silly as blaming US foreign policy for 9/11.

   Also, it’s not the killing itself that reflects really badly on the Met. Collateral damage is inevitable in the best-run law enforcement system: wrongful imprisonments; innocent people hit by police cars and so on. Cases of mistaken identity are going to happen; little comfort for Menezes’ loved ones, but it’s true.

   What really worries me is the shambolic buck-passing and denial that followed the incident. Any troubleshooter will tell you that when a cock-up occurs, the first thing to do is to acknowledge the fact. I suspect if senior Met officers had been more candid as soon as the truth emerged, the jury would have been better disposed towards them.
2. Tony says:

   December 13, 2008 at 6:57 pm

   It is a disapointing view that has been returned by the inquest jury. I would have liked to have seen a verdict of Lawful Killing. It seems obvious to me that that campaign for Jean Charles who was a perfectly innnocent man has been high jacked by anarchists and liberal left campaigners who are anti government and anti Police. Throughout all the media coverage we have forgotten that 52 people were murdered just two weeks before by terrorists and almost the same again a week later if there devices hadnt failed. While there bombs didnt destroy us there actions have. We have turned on one another over Jean Charles and are destroying the very fabric of our existence. Our Government and Police and our attitudes to them. If we truly believe that the Police went out that day with the intention of murdering anyone on the Tube that took there fancy then they are guilty of murder. But that did not happen. These two officers were asked to make the ultimate decision on wether someone lived or died! And they had only a few seconds to decide. We ask these men to do the things that we cant and would’nt. To stand up when everyone else gets down and to do a difficult and dirty job with no support when it goes wrong. There were huge and catastrophic failings within the Police that day. Mainly as a result of the incidents that had happened in the two weeks previous. They need top be rectified, but the Police as a whole should not be vilified and certainly not those brave two officers. Jean Charles was an innocent man killed tragically by the Police in a genuine mistake. He is a victim of terrorism by those that killed 52 other innocent people two weeks before. It is truly a tragidy that he died and further more that his family and friends are now being manipulated for the gain of another form of extremist. I hope his family have closure soon and can begin to rebuild there lives. But we must come together as a country and rebuild ourselves so that we there are no more victims of home grown terror both innocent and guilty.
3. Alexander Fiske-Harrison says:

   December 23, 2008 at 10:29 am

   “What really worries me is the shambolic buck-passing and denial that followed the incident.”

   This is quite true, although it has no bearing on whether the actions performed during the operation were right or not. However, there is no denying an unfortunate series of misinforming untruths - or out-and-out lies - were put into circulation once it was realised that an innocent man had been killed.
4. Ben Cayway says:

   December 27, 2008 at 11:42 pm

   What makes the police and terrorists different if they both kill innocent men?

   Is it really ‘OK’ to kill 1 man to save a thousand? Millions? What if that man is your friend? Brother? Sister? Would you?
5. Steve Kay says:

   January 5, 2009 at 1:59 am

   The ‘ticking bomb scenario’ is a debate on the ethics of applying extreme interrogation techniques to a captive terrorist suspect in order to help track down others still at large. The moral dilemma of this theoretical scenario is not brought into concrete reality by shooting the potential interrogatee’s brains out.

   The stated objective of the surveillance operation at Scotia Road on 22 July “was to detain one or all of the suspects and to establish the whereabouts of any others who posed a threat … Any stop, which involved someone other than a suspect, would have the potential to provide intelligence relating to the address.” “The overall aim was to establish whether the two suspects were present in the flat and if they came out to arrest them safely.” Therein lies the true counterfactual.

   Why this objective was in no part achieved remains inexplicable.

   Were these failures unavoidable? As the bus approached Stockwell station surveillance officers were in place and ready to detain Menezes in the normal way. Testifying at the Old Bailey trial the surveillance team leader said - “I came on the radio and asked them a question: ‘Do you want me to detain the subject before he goes down to the Tube?’ My instructions were to wait. I told them we had got to make a decision and we have probably about 20 seconds. I said again: ‘Do you want this man detained?’ I said ‘If you don’t give me any answer he is going to be down in the Tube and we will lose radio contact.’ I don’t know how many times I asked that question, it was at least three times. I just got, wait, wait, wait. I started to get tetchy and put down the telephone.”

   There was clearly little or no thought and certainly no talk of the man being followed concealing a bomb before, as he entered the tube, the control room issued a panicky “state red” which became fatally misinterpreted by officers on the ground. It is simply not credible that a man who had just failed to kill himself with a crude homemade device, a device made of boiled down hair bleach mixed with flour packed in large plastic container stuffed into a bulky rucksack, would then somehow magically equip himself with an explosive vest or bomb belt of such advanced sophistication as to be undetectable beneath light summer clothing, literally overnight. If Hussain Osman or any of the failed suicide bombers had access to such a device then that is what they would have used on 21 July. In the history of the United Kingdom there is no precedent.

   It is not lawful to shoot and kill a person, even someone who has attempted mass murder, unless that person is posing an immediate threat to life and limb. Firearms officers claimed they heard the subject had been positively identified, said they had (inexplicably) shouted a warning, said Menezes acted aggressively, advanced toward “closing us down”. The inquest jury unanimously decided they had lied, and lied again on oath.

   The two officers who fired the fatal shots claim they “honestly believed” the man they were dealing with was about to detonate an explosive device. Is their claim at all credible? Were that question justly put to an unfettered jury, then, from a logical point of view, I think it most unlikely they would decide this was anything less than unlawful killing.