So the Met go on trial today for the killing of Jean Charles de menezes in London 2005.
They are being charged with breaching Health and Safety regulations.
I know that nothing will bring him back but ffs, the guy didnt fall down a hole in the fucking pavement.
he was shot. deliberatley.
how does this happen?

Dear Charles Family.
we realise that Charles was just on his way to work when suddenly a possibly already racist cop - who's feelings were maybe fueled by a right wing facist racist press with sensationalsit headlines and a governement implementing reactionary policies - saw your son wearing a rucksack and a padded jacket. Based on this, the decision was made to pump bullets into him which tore through his body, on a crowded london underground station, surrounded by strangers.

We have decided that this breached Health and Safety regulations and that Charles, in fact, should not have been shot. We hope you will be happy to hear that those concerned will be charged.

Up yours

The British Criminal Justice System.

While I agree with you Shay, could you at least spell his name right in the title of this thread please?

BBC report

Let's remember the context, a series of bombs one of which killed nearly 60 people the other would have produced a similar result but for faulty equipment.

JCD's death is an awful thing to happen to him and his family but so was the original terror that lead to this fatal mistake and it was a mistake unlike the religous fanatics who set out to maim and kill innocent people.

It very nearly happened again with the bigot at Glasgow airport.

Our police have a very difficult job which they mostly do well.

and occasionally do really, really badly, Mick.

are you saying JCD's death is ACCEPTABLE? fucking hell.....

I do see how shooting someone in the head 8 times can ever be acceptable...

I just reread my post I used the word awful I stand by that. My point is our police etc are much more professional and careful than say the security forces in Myanmar/Burma for examble of Brazil or any Al Qaieda bomber.

As for China and their police state...

Just because they are better than countries with the worst human rights records in the world, doesn't make them good.
Jeez Mick, aim a little higher than Burma... when comparing "professional and careful" cops.

so the death of JCD is an acceptable, unfortunate error is it Mick?

i repeat. Fuuuuuucking hell.

I'd say our police were better than the french or US police also which I hope is aiming reasonably high.

I still say it was an awful thing to happen, but I do think the security services have almost always got the right person after all they captured the failed bombers without having to shoot them which I think indicates they are not generally trigger happy.

I'd rather live here than many countries that would make up the caliphate.

Ha!

Wow! That was pretty hardcore.
The way I saw it, was that this was a serious fuckup, with tragic consequences for the people involved. (And a complete embarrassment for the police.)
It was procedural and down to training and best practice, (or what ever they call it these days).
And those responsible should have their careers severely reappraised.
But using language like: just sounds like the Socialist Workers Party.

interesting that you won'r actaully answer my straightforward question Mick H... you should be a politician.

Nev you havn't addressed every point I've made, why do I need to address every point you make?

It seemed a rhetorical point to me, none the less as you insist, no its not acceptable to tolerate a bad mistake lessons need to be learned so that another innocent family won 't suffer in the same way.

The police are not the criminals the fundamentalist terrorists are.

Mick, apart from the fact that it was "awful" that a man lost his life, do you not find it absoloutley beyond comprehension that it is being reduced to a Health and Safety issue?
A mans life was taken due to no more than his appearance!
My issue is not just with the police but with the entire fucking Criminal Justice system!

Damon - seriously - what was hardcore about that?

swp? . No it doesnt, it sounds like me!

to be fair, you haven't actually dierectly asked me a question mick.... where as i did ask you one.

i think a police force who shot and killed an innocent man as a direct result of a series of mistakes of their own making are pretty close to having acted criminally.

the loss of life can certainly (in my opinion) be labelled as 'criminal'.

I laughed my cornflakes over the cat when I heard that this morning. Talk about sending the wrong message!

Actually I think the label Health and Safety is a bit of an insult, but I understand why some people in the establishment want to find an instituition guilty not an individual.

If you run the state you need to arm some people and they wouldn't do it if they could get prosecuted (soldiers/spies/police)

I think thats the realists answer.

and what wrong message would that be exactly?

...that the shooting is being considered a health & safety issue will be setting a precident for further police shootings to be judged in a similar vein? I'd imagine it also has the potential to be judged by a body other than the appropriate firearm related judiciary, which I'd hate to see happen, but this incident seems to be heading down that path, don't you think?

...and also that the cat shouldn't try to pinch my cornflakes

From a pure legalistic perspective, dealing with the case as a Health and Safety issue may actually have more impact; to take it through the criminal courts would probably only be possible if the individual officers concerned were being accused of acting in contravention of instructions - i.e. if the suggestion was that the death resulted only from the wrongful action of those policemen.
Whilst taking it through the Health and Safety route may seem to trivialise the case, it actually potentially puts the responsibility far more firmly onto the Met as an institution, which in turn would make a repeat less likely.
Health and Safety procedures are used to deal with industrial fatalities on a regular basis and can impose sanctions that are as serious as those applied by the criminal justice system.

My issue with this , as distinct from the right or wrongs of killing him is the fact that the police lied and lied to cover up their error . The coroners report 5 days later states that he was killed running from police and jumping a barrier. 5 days later....

He was wearing a large heavy coat , he ran onto the train like a frightened rabbit , he refused to stop when ordered to. he jumped the barrier , he ran down the stairs , none of the CCTV cameras worked that day...
we followed operation Kratos taught to us by the Israelis ,

Maybe the reason that this has been taken up by Health and Safety is that it's the only way we can get an inquiry from a Police force and Government in cahoots with each other that have PROMOTED the senior officer in charge that day and used every trick in the book to stop investigations by normal means.


Pete

Or what we've since discovered (from the CCTV footage and the court case) was that he was wearing a light jacket (and no bag), stopped to pick up the Metro and used his ticket to go through the barrier and was sitting down on the train when they shot him.

Utter shambolic wankers.

one of the most consistent themes issued to the press at the time was the fact that the Police followed operation Kratos as advised to us by the Israeli police , IE shoot to kill rather than let the bomb be exploded. This was repeated several times as a format for the action taken , but then casually not mentioned anymore after the first few months. The reason why ? Even the Israeli police don't shoot to kill unless they see wires coming out of the person or other direct visual evidence they are carrying a bomb, IE in probably the most deadly area in the world for Terrorist attacks they don't shoot to kill unless they see proof.
What do we do , we lie lie and lie again , use the press to influence public opinion without facts, PROMOTE the person in direct charge , refuse to have any kind of official enquiry , it takes our Health and Safety laws to bring them to court , keep the fact that we pulled a gun on the train guard and told him we'd shoot him if we didn't move the train totally secret , and bring in more and more laws to be able to stop any kind of protests against the elected government within the next 5-10 years.

In years to come Menezes will be seen as a martyr , without him shoot to kill would already be in operation as standard on our streets



Peter

I agree wholeheartedly with the whole of Muppedo's last post.

Id also like to ask the question - where is Ken Livingstone in all this? A man is executed by the police in London - and the mayor has hardly said a word these last 2 years.

The old Ken wouldve been jumping up and down.

He's too busy hugging homophobic,antisemitic,misogynistic immans,telling rail workers to cross picket lines,
and crawling to the old bill to see what's important nowadays.

Also as Ive said on here before,- the local 'labour' MP - Kate Hoey? Hardly a peep.

That's just about the level I would expect.
What did she do wrong SL?
Get a capital letter in the wrong place?
(ie: it should ave been de Menezes not De Menezes.)

Great point.

Sometimes you're properly seriously annoying. Cor!








I've nothing of substance to say except, I was on the tube from Stockwell before his and I'm so fucking glad he wasn't carrying a bomb.

All the best-

Walshy

You might find it annoying Walshy, but not actually checking how someone's name is spelt is incredibly disrespectful, that was all I was pointing out - it only takes a quick google after all.

I'm glad he wasn't carrying a bomb either but it was entirely clear from the outset that he wasn't - the police knew that and still shot him then fed the media lies for weeks about what he was wearing/how he behaved.

And the report yesterday that he had coke in his blood stream - well so fucking what, what does that prove? Half of London (and most in his age range) have coke in their system - means absolutely fuck all!

Its obviously a gross exaggeration to say that half of london have coke in their bloodstream, and that most young people do - however I agree with Sarah that its irrelevant.

Its disgusting the way the police try and twist these things, and blacken people's names in this way. They lied,lied and lied again over this case and now they try and imply he was a junkie or something.

And given how they lied initially in this case, - and given how they lied lied and lied again over the guildford 4,brum 6, etc - can we be absolutely sure there was cocaine in his bloodstream?

Commuters beware



I'm thinking the mentality of the police that day was the need to reach a quota, not come back without a body?

I'm presuming (hoping) that Jon's post above, was a failed attempt at humour or irony, like my comment about sticking things up your arse was.
(It probably was).

Wrong (again)

Jon, we're not all as clever as you. I only understand plain speaking. You write one sentence and expect everyone to get what you're saying. And when someone (like me) asks for a clarification, you have a tendency to just laugh at, and mock them.

When you said: it could (to some people) seem that you were saying that the police didn't care if they shot an innocent man - as long as they killed somebody that day.
Now I know you can't have meant that. But you are so brief in your posts, that there can be some ambiguity to your real meaning.

Hmmm - for what little it's worth I think the forum bungs capitals at the start of every word in a thread title automatically - whatever you actually typed in the box. It's a feature I noted with dismay a while back when I was attempting to use strange capitalisation for comic effect.

No, just you - shame on me .


Did you not click the link?
Have you not followed the story?

Here's a bloke who was acting like everyone else and doing nothing.
The armed police were called and are all 'fired' up, tense and anxious with adrenalin pumping.
De Menezes gets killed (for doing nothing and acting like everybody else on the train who were also doing nothing) Then there's the countless cover-ups.
As the chap got 8 shots to head, you surely can't say it was an accident, no?

I read the link, and have followed the story.
That there might be some sleazy cover up going on is quite possible.

This kind of thing just shows stupidity
I consider your view on this case, to be about the same as that of pink shay.

...Nah.

could you just tell me what that is please Damon? maybe through posting links and with the aid of thought probes?

Watch it pink shay, I think Jon is trying to distance himself from you here

What's the matter with shay's opening comments on this thread Jon?

And as for this:
accident might not be the right word, but a deliberate murder of an innocent man is also a pretty far fetched suggestion.
I wonder sometimes how people think policing could work, with out some rough edges.
In most of the world, the police carry guns routinely. There are always cases of wrongful killing. (Just look at Brazil).



This behavoir (tense, fired up, adrenaline pumping) by the police involved, was perfectly normal.
They're people, not robots.

Damon, serously, do I strike you as the kind of woman who needs every opinions validated buy others.

Shouldn't think so!

If people make personal judgements based on my grammar or my more stoopid posts - that bothers me big time - but if its a difference of opinion - no worries!

I am very secure that all the opinions i hold are correct - or i obviously wouldnt hold them



No Damon, they're people with guns!!!!!!!!!

Um, .. um... no.
No way.

Of course not.
Validated?
No need for that.
You are everywoman.


(Matt W )

What does that mean?

Nothing at all pink shay.
I knew (about two hours ago) that I had to edit out what I quoted from you (in a clumsy way), and am glad that you didn't requote it there.

So then, why did you sexually harass her in the first place? Same reason you threatened me with violence?

That certainly wasn't my intention.

Btw Zippy, I was brought up to think that being the class snitch was dishonorable.

You and the Metropolitan Police.

They've since found the Met guilty of Health and Safety Breaches , fined them half a mill or so ,
is anybody else disappointed with Ken Livingstone?
20 years ago he would have made this a personal campaign to either get rid of the guys in charge or create laws to stop this happening again, now he as near as damn it comes out and says a judgement like this is a result for terrorism. I thought that he was just playing the labour party line up to now , unfortunately I think he's become a rabid convert. This will do him no favours at the next election, as we don't know or trust the man anymore.


Pete

Thinking about this further , I was going to start a new thread about Ken , but maybe I haven't been here long enough to be allowed to, So , am I the only one to think that Ken is seriously letting down the people that he previously swore to protect and did so well for back in the 80s?
He's brought in oyster cards , made them cheap but effectively charging huge fines for those that don't have the smarts to go on the net , buy them for a £5 through their Debit cards , fund them up with tenners etc , IE knowing the ropes.

A desperate person living hand to mouth , or those with no living skills , or those that simply don't organise effectively , all those that reasonably are at the bottom of the pile and paid as such, are being shafted to subsidise the cogniscenti. Every time they get a bus they're being charged £2 !!
a tube trip of one stop in the centre of london is £4!! no wonder bus drivers and LT staff are being abused like never before.

If anybody with more site options than me can put this into a separate thread I'll be glad to expand on this when I come back onto the Forum.


Peter Flynn

Muppedo - I think there is already a Ken Livingstone thread, you'll just need to search for it...

Oh for god's sake - what tosh.

Have you any idea how much money LT was losing by all the reselling of travelcards. It was a huge problem. Oystercards are easy to get hold of - you can put as much or as little as you like on them - and you can do it at the window or at many newsagents and other shops. They are not difficult to understand and they speed up transportation.

Subsidising the cogniscenti. My arse.