Shot man not connected to bombing

Shot man not connected to bombing

A man shot dead by police hunting the bombers behind Thursday's London attacks was unconnected to the incidents, police have confirmed.

A Scotland Yard statement said the shooting was a "tragedy" which was regretted by the Metropolitan Police.

...

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.

...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711021.stm

x(

I wonder what I would do if police were yelling at me to stop. Both sides are terrified. In this day and time I think I would run too, just out of panic. I would have visions of torture pushing me along.

whose compatriots are doing a lot of torturing of brown-skinned people in the name of liberation and freedom and democracy. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, and even outsourcing torture to countries who don't mind doing it for US dollars.

I don't recall American police ever being held up as paragons of restraint, tolerance, even-handedness, racially-sensitive. Rather the contrary.

This will certainly piss a lot of people off in Britain. As it should. The details I read of the shooting were quite dodgy. Shot on the ground and all that.

So, if a bomb goes off --- you had better not run ?

here didn't see this one coming. The descrition of the events as they unfolded by the witness they interviewed screamed 'mob mentality'. The way the look the guy was described, the look of terror on his face. Can you imagine the feeling of knowing you're going to die, be executed as a matter of fact, simply for being in the wrong skin at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Shoot first, ask questions later. That's the world we live in thanks to the neocons and their cohorts (Blair, Howard, Aznar, Berlusconi, et al).

- the bomb that they had no way of knowing that he wasn't carrying, under his full coat, as he ignored police calls to stop and ran into an Underground.

last one, my friend, is the biggest point I have to make.

Are you really saying that we now live in a world where if in doubt, or plain flat don't know, shoot first? Seriously?

The guy was running away. If he was a suicide bomber all wired up and ready to go, why wouldn't he just stand there and then hit the detonate button and take as many of his targets, as well as police officers, out as he could.

I suppose if you think it's okay to get some guy down on the ground and put five bullets in his head based on a 'maybe', then it must be okay. To this poor schmuck it more than likely looked like a bunch of armed vigilante freaks out to get even for the 7/7 bombings.

In the UK, armed vigilantes are not known for shouting statutorily worded warnings before they shoot you.

motorist who was in the wrong skin at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I wonder what their take is now that this has been revealed?

the guy disobeyed orders to stop.

a looney action.

I figured days ago that he was just a looney. We have many tv reports here of bizzare acts by loonies on the loose, so i figured the same is happening in Brit.

Has brit. cut asylum beds like the GOP has done here?

Cuts are bad for loonies, and bad for the rest of us.. sometimes victims of the fraction of loony population that is the criminal sort.

{note i am not calling all loonies bad. Most are quite good people , just afflicted with nerves that cause them internal trouble. We should help them, and far more than even at the highwater point of help, the days of LBJ}

I don't what else explains his insane decision to ignore police commands to stop; and his insane decision to run into the Underground. Perhaps he thought that they'd catch him eventually and find that he had nothing on him, and then they'd look silly, and he'd have a good laugh about it with his admiring mates that evening. Which is what might have happened, if London had not just had three bombs that went off, killing 56 and injuring 700, and three that didn't explode.

Those suicide bombers on 7 July have changed everything but perhaps the not very bright have not twigged that.

as well as the one on the bus (which had probably been meant for the tube).

We may never find out.

As for ignoring the police - how did he even know if they were the police?

And since when is ignoring the police a capital offence to be punished with instant execution?

circumstances, it is extremely unwise. He had a choice, and he was stupid enough to think that he could outrun the police and/or - even though his behaviour was abnormal, and the whole city on high anti-terrorist alert - that they wouldn't bother.

If he had thrown off his coat while he was running, he would probably still be alive.

and spoke decent English. Why he ran for it he ran for it when the police challenged him in the street God only knows. His fatal mistake was to try and get away on the Tube. I suspect that his choice of escape route convinced the security forces that he was a suicide bomber. Once that happened his fate was more or less sealed since they have probably been told to use whatever force is necessary to prevent terrorists setting off explosives on the trains. What this tragic event does highlight is another failure by the intelligence organisations. As the reports say that the victims address was under observation then you might have expected some more sophisticated technology to be applied to determine who dwelt on the premises and what they were doing. It appears that they were only able to identify this individual once he was dead. This would suggest a shoot first ask questions later approach is being adopted. If so it is a disastrous decision because it justs gifts a propaganda victory to those who planted the original bombs. At the moment the British authorities are displaying a dismaying lack of competence and the terrorists are winning their war.

On edit - changed to reflect the facts about his immigration status

in the LBN thread on this). What he had in common with the suspect was (police quote):



You'd expect several people to emerge from a block of flats in the morning. That shouldn't be enough to make you a bomb suspect - and nor should then heading for a Tube station.

I bet he was fucking shitting himself.

Wear a suit, walk slowly, have white skin and obey anyone that shouts or chases you or you may be executed.

"Forwards not backwards"

and understood English well, and made his choice - to ignore or obey the order "Armed police stop". What about the fear of those innocent people caught up in the bombings on 7 July, and those on the trains that were affected by this idiot's poor judgement on 21 July. Why is all your pity for this bloke who had a choice, after all, and not a word about everyone else?

I have many relatives and friends in London, and have to go there myself at times. I am very worried about the situation there!

And what is more, I don't think that the British police are evil. I just think that they include some people who lack the training and common sense to deal wisely with difficult situations.

But I wouldn't blame the victim at all here. It might be one thing if he'd run from uniformed police (doesn't mean he deserves to be shot, but would be a foolish thing to do under the circumstances). But Bennywhale is right - Brazilian cities have a high crime rate, and a Brazilian who finds himself followed and shouted at by two youngish men is not necessarily going to assume that they're the police. And as others have said on the board: what if someone is autistic or hearing-impaired or just not very bright?

Sympathy for someone who died from an error does not preclude sympathy for victims of terrorism. That's like saying that those who are concerned about the deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq don't care about the victims of 9-11, or that concern about people who were executed or even just imprisoned for many years for murders that they didn't commit means that we don't care about the victims of real murderers.

I certainly hope that the real perpetrators are caught, and soon!

shot in the face and head five times.

The "fear of those innocent people caught up in the bombings on 7th July" have zero impact on my levels of sympathy for an innocent man having his brains blown out by police in broad daylight.

"What about those on 9/11" was the cry that went up defending thousands of innocents being slaughtered in Iraq who had nothing to do with 9/11

Can you see the connection? Can you see how equally innocent these dead people are?

7/7 INNOCENT people killed by terrorists = wrong
21/7 INNOCENT man killed by police = wrong

One does not justify the other and i'm astonished that you are implying it does. You are blaming the man for the trauma the people went through on the platform that saw his brains being blown out byu policemen. Perhaps they should sue the bastard eh? What the fuck was he thinking running away from plain clothed glock carrying young men in South London. What a terrorist supporter.

those who have died and or been injured, bereaved or traumatised and who did nothing at all to "deserve" it.

I sympathise equally with all dead innocent people. In fact i have never dissected and categorised my "sympathy" in such a way. I don't think i care to either.

An innocent man is terrified by unidentifiable armed men and flees. he is then subsequently shot in the face and head 5 times. that man gets my sympathy along with the innocent massacred on 7/7. You save yours for someone more deserving if you like.

Perhaps its sympathy fatigue.

"Plainclothed white men with Glock 17's don't look like British policemen"

Who do they look like then? I stand to be corrected but do armed villains and thugs generally chase people into tube stations in broad daylight?

but what struck immediately is: the UK has enough electricians who are British. He could not, IMV, have got a UK work permit to be an electrician. So what sort of work was he doing, and was he earning enough to live on as an electrician.

The victim's address had been under observation for less than 24 hours, as I understand it - ie only because the contents of the rucksack bombs that had failed to explode led the police to that house (divided into flats).

Again, I am sorry he is dead but he had a choice, and in the circumstances (two weeks after four bombs do explode, and one day after four don't but the bombers themselves get away) he was extremely unwise to run when told to stop - and run onto an Underground train. Given the information available to them at the time, I think that the police were extremely brave and did the correct thing.

"the UK has enough electricians who are British".

Not in this part of the UK. Which, to be fair, isn't London - but isn't there a general shortage of tradesmen?

You appear to doubt that he was a legal immigrant. How exactly is that relevant?

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article301475.ece

Bad conscience made him run. Unfortunately for him.

and he was earning money to send home.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm

I am afraid that the family's proposed lawsuit is holed below the waterline.

young white men in plain clothes and handguns in south London is not something i would instantly associate with being police.

Being from Brazil (the second highest handgun deaths in world, NI August) he probably knew the drill when faced with this.

Fucking leg it.

Unfortunately he was executed in broad daylight

from terrorists in London. The four bombers whose rucksacks failed to explode on Thursday last are still at large. Given his behaviour, how would you have been able to tell whether or not this Brazilian was a bomber?

incompetence or worse.

this wasn't a split second decision. The man was chased down a street into a station across a platforma and onto a train.

Whereupon he was lying on the floor surrounded by five armed police. He was shot five times in the head.

I can't belive you think this is in any way justified or successful. Its somewhere between incompetence and execution.

And how would i have reacted to the bizarre behaviour of someone being terrified by gun carrying men chasing him. Well i wouldn't have shot him 5 times in the face.

That's like saying "9/11 changed everything"

years. There were no warnings - even the IRA sometimes issued warnings, and the IRA never used suicide bombers.

at least, the Provos did (thought the "Real IRA" didn't), to minimise civilian casualties.

murdered?

What about autistic people who make up a fairly large % of the population.

They can't "read" social situations well. if a group of men with handguns made one of them run should they be murdered?

Considering we are all living in such fear why not implement marshall law. Tell everyone so we all know where we stand. the ones doing the shooting will be in fatigues and if you don't obey you die.

This will leave the police to cleanse this great country of all that is wrong with it.

Right, that justifies everything.

Many people talk about this case as if he came out of the block of flats, walked across the road, and ran into the local tube station. That's not the case. He took a bus from his flat to the tube, and plainclothes officers followed him onto the bus. If they suspected that he was a bomber, why allow him onto the bus, given the recent bus bombings?

...were also advocating an enquiry. And I think that a public enquiry is pretty much essential now. How did this go so badly wrong?

I posted to this forum in support of the police day before yesterday, and admit I was completely wrong. This is pathetic. The so called war on terrrrrr has the police panicked and the public cowed into supporting the most atrocious and incompetent resulting police behavior.

This makes us all victims of the war on tourrrrists.

... I still stand by my comments.

I find it tragic that an innocent man has been killed.

The Brazilian was being followed as a suspected - not known - threat.
He left a building that was under surveillance following the recent
terrorist activities. The rules of engagement were explicit enough
and they were followed to the letter.

I still feel sorry for the armed policeman who is only now finding
alternative reasons to explain the suspect's death other than the
ones that his superior officers had told him to be prepared for.

I doubt anyone will know why an innocent guy ran, jumped over the
barrier and legged it down to the platform but behaviour like that
from a *suspected suicide bomber* is precisely the reason why the
armed officer killed him. There is no wiggle room here: if the
suspect had stopped when requested, he would still be alive today.

If I had been under surveillance, ignored police demands to stop,
hurdled the ticket barrier, ran down to the nearest platform, tripped
then struggled with whoever was trying to hold me down I fully
expect that I would have been killed in exactly the same way and
I am a white Englishman.

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for all everyone says about coming from Brazil (high gun-death rate etc), he lived in the UK for three years, surely long enough to know that people don't regularly pull guns & start popping away.

I have the deepest sympathy for his family, but also for the policeman who shot the wrong guy. The latter may not need my sympathy, but I suspect he's in a bad way himself. For those that say he had a choice, well did he? As far as the policeman was aware a suspect, potential bomber, was running away from him, into a busy confined area, refusing to stop when called at. He made a call, it was the wrong one & he will probably regret it for the rest of his life.

by an American who has been involved in investigations of shootings by the police. They said that very rarely can the final decision to shoot by the individual policeman be faulted; the mistakes have often happened in the way the incident got out of control earlier, when there were options other than shooting. Some reports say there were 10 policemen following this guy; you might have thought they'd have been able to surround him, which would have been a less fraught situation than a chase.

surrounding someone you think is a suicide bomber is surely about the stupidest thing you could do?
I'm sure you are right about the mistake happening earlier - for instance was a warning shouted? WHY were they certain that he was terrorist - did they make that call themselves, or did someone else tell them?

or similar (it's getting so hard to find the news stories in which I saw things by now). I'm still not absolutely certain if they challenged him in the street, and he ran into the tube station; or if he was in the station foyer. If the latter, I'd expect someone to be manning the ticket office at that time of day, so there ought to be witnesses. Even in the street, there should be a good chance, though I don't know how close they'd be (you'd think that anyone who heard it would remember - it would scare the shit out of me).

I suppose the distance at which you surround him may be crucial. How much knowledge the armed men had could make a lot of difference, and your point about who made the call is important - I fear there could have been 'Chinese whispers' which inflated the suspicion of him. If they'd convinced themselves he was a bomber, then maybe they'd give him so much room that he'd be able to run - and, in that case, he'd already be highly likely to get shot, given what the policy seems to be now. If they had some doubt, then they might have thought he'd stop if innocent.

they let him ride to Stockwell on a No2 bus while he was under surveillance. Which doesn't sound quite right, does it?

The decision was made just as he was entering the tube station, with the 3 man team (marksmen) told he mustn't be allowed on the platform and authorised to kill. Witnesses are disputing any warning was given. He was late for work, maybe he was the first to run trying to catch the train he died on, right as the shooters were being told to stop him reaching the platform at any cost. This whole Gold Command thing, sounds like he was killed by fucking quango.

No warnings given?



Late for work

By the time he'd leapt the barriers, he was clearly running away from the police, whether or not he realised they were police; I don't think the lack of warnings on the platform makes a difference. I'm not convinced that he was running because he was late (again, vaulting the barriers? Not common practice - and de Avila has said "OK" when told that Menezes would be late. Why risk getting picked up for fare dodging?)

that he legged it because he was here on an expired tourist visa - and who can blame him given the ridiculous hysteria whipped up about that by the press?
But I still don't understand why they let him ride the bus.

'conspirators'. I can understand they wouldn't try an arrest in sight of the flats under surveillance. Perhaps there were other people waiting at the bus stop, and they felt they couldn't do it.

Maybe the visa would make him panic when challenged. As we said, we need to know all the witness statements before we can get a good picture of what happened.

They didn't pick him up earlier because they wanted to see who he might lead them to.

Police have small block of flats under surveillance (block where they've subsequently made arrests)
Swarthy looking gentleman emerges.
They follow him but don't challenge him
They allow him to board bus (why? Not because they think he has a bomb, presumably to see where he goes)
He leaves bus and makes for Stockwell tube
At some point they challenge him (why? He hasn't led them anywhere - do they now think he has a bomb?)
He legs it (because he's on an expired visa)
They chase (because they think he's a bomber)
They catch him & kill him.

So when and why did they suddenly perceive him as an immediate threat to life and limb? That's the $64,000 question.


So it seems he died because he had the bad luck to be doing something a little bit illegal in a block of flats where the police thought the most wanted men in Britain were. And let's face it - I bet it never crossed the mind of a brazilian electrician that anyone could confuse him with an islamic fundamentalist terrorist.

Given he's been stopped and searched before without problem, he knew how to deal with police. If he knew they were police, he knew they were no ordinary police, and I find it hard to believe he'd run from what he knew to be armed plainclothes because of an expired visa. His family and friends say he knew what happened if you run from armed police in Brazil, you get shot, so it sounds like he knew how to deal with armed police too. (His cousin is denying police claims his visa was expired.)

I just found this. Under the revised guidelines, it sounds like they don't HAVE to give a warning.

but that was in the same interview where he linked the dead man to the bombings - so the information he had wasn't exactly top notch. Don't see why they wouldn't have shouted a warning - and whilst he was running surely his hands were in plain view?

Speculating again, but I could imagine no warnings for suicide bombers being justified by the policymakers because it gives them time to react and detonate. Doesn't make much sense in this situation though, they might not have identified themselves but they hardly took him by surprise either.

I'm not asserting he did run first, just speculating, no doubt he ended up running from the pursuers. But I wouldn't call jumping barriers unusual, not when there's a train there and your late. Is Stockwell overground does anyone know? If a train was pulling in would you know from outside?

What does seem clear is that the central order to "stop" him came very late, seems recklessly late, leaving very little time for officers on the ground to react.

On fare dodging, I'm sure I read somewhere he had a pass.

Having never been in the position of either the victim or the officer I don't know - really, really don't know - how I would have reacted in either of their situations and I can't put my hand on my heart and say I would have done otherwise or better ... especially in the mood which must have prevailed in London last week.

Yes, an enquiry is urgently needed.

The Skin

I think that both the policeman and the victim panicked, and that this led to tragedy. I might well have panicked too in such a situation.

One difference is of course that the police are trained to deal with crisis situations without panicking; most of us aren't. But I think we definitely need to know more.

On a more trivial issue: I am surprised at the statement that Britain has enough electricians. In most areas of Britain, there is a big shortage of electricians and other skilled tradespeople.

... at the time of the Tory pit closures. These coincided with the closure of a local power station, and the report suggested that electrical engineering skills - in an area where you used to be able to find a clutch of "pit sparkies" in every Club - would be lost to the District.

100% spot on.

The Skin

I notice this has been a cry from a substantial number of people. Now call me old fashioned, but I'm unlikely to care whether I'm shot in the head once or five times (to tell the truth, if I'm shot in the head once, I might survive terribly brain damaged, so five shots would - for me - be preferable).

But I digress, I've heard several people claim that this makes it worse. I find this very hard to understand, I cannot see why making sure a suspected bomber is dead is worse than probably killing him, but not being totally sure.

It'll never replace their relative, but something would be nice.

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is allowed in these cases?

That's new for me.

If you found out that one of the July 7th victims had been staying here illegally on an expired visa, would you think that made it quite acceptable for the terrorists to kill them?

Whatever anyone thinks of the police, and their reactions to this crisis, they would not shoot someone just because they were working here illegally!!!! So it's not relevant in any sense whatever!

And, since you've brought it up (though it's also not completely relevant) it would be quite possible for an electrician to send money home to Brazilian family:

(1) Skilled tradesment can earn quite a lot, especially in the current skills shortage.

(2) To relatively poor families in Brazil, quite small amounts of money can make a huge difference.

This article on the July 7th bombings says the Gold commander is appointed at the time of an emergency, and the second part reads like Chief Superintendent Chris Allison was Gold commander on the 7th. It only definitively says he was for the Live8 concert, but reads like he was by routine and had the same role on the 7th (confused me, seems to contradict the first part). For what it's worth, this simply says In the case of London, the metropolitan police commissioner (Ian Blair) is the 'gold commander' and all other services and agencies work to and with him."

Either way, on the 7th Allison was in touch with Cobra by video link and had access to cctv footage of "passengers emerging from the tube bleeding and in tears", so it could be that whoever gave the order to "stop" Menezes was watching him on cctv. Total speculation here, but maybe the first time the Gold commander saw Menezes was as he neared the tube station?

I need to read up on this Cobra thing, know nothing about it except the name is fucking stupid.

The media love using the term because it sounds like it comes from a James Bond movie. In fact the title it is really just the initials for the Cabinet Office Briefing Room where the Civil Contingencies Committee who deal with issues such as terrorism meet. The correct title for the group is CCC but that does not sound very sexy so the press do not use it.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmdfence/518/2050810.htm

I'm glad the name is a media contrivance, if it was official i'd imagine the people running it had watched too much Man from UNCLE.