The London cops who killed Menezes aren't guilty. [View All]

On the London shooting, I think it's important not to blame the officers involved in this tragedy, they were following established guidelines. As with torture of detainees the real responsibility lies higher up.

A shoot to kill policy has been instituted for even suspected suicide bombers, based mainly on Israeli tactics. As I understand it, the officers involved are part of a 24-hour response unit that would only be called out on an intelligence based threat, with the sole function of killing suicide bombers. From that, I wouldn't be surprised if all they knew was that the suspect WAS a suicide bomber. It wasn't their job to assess the intelligence or detain the suspect, sounds like the fact they'd been called out in itself meant the target was a suspected suicide bomber and their job was to kill him. All they are guilty of is putting themselves in danger and doing their job.

There is an intelligence fuck-up here that will be investigated, but regardless of that the policy of shooting even suspected bombers dead cannot be accepted. There needs to be solid evidence or obvious intent.

The ex-police commissioner who implemented it, John Stevens, has long echoed Blair's rhetoric on "the war on terror", talking of the "unique evil" we face and how we need to wake up and society will never be the same. People like him and Blair, who want to fight a war on our behalf and whose solutions only exacerbate the problem, they should be held accountable for the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes.