Plainclothes British special forces chased and killed a supposedly South Asian-looking man on the London tube yesterday whom they suspected of being a suicide bomber (thanks, Ravi):
… he saw a man in a black bomber jacket and jeans running towards him being chased by the officers… The suspect, described as being of Asian appearance and wearing a thick, bulky jacket, vaulted over a ticket barrier when challenged by police and ran down the escalator and along the platform of the Northern Line…As waiting passengers and those already on a train that had pulled into the station dived to the floor, the suspect jumped on the train. Two witnesses said that as he entered the train he tripped, ending up half in and half out of the carriage, on all fours… the officers caught up with the man and pushed him hard to the floor. Witnesses said that they then fired up to five bullets into him at close range, killing him instantly. [Link]
“As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified. He sort of tripped but they were hotly pursuing him and couldn’t have been more than two or three feet behind him at this time. They unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He’s dead, five shots, he’s dead…” [Link]
Police are describing him as an “intimate accomplice of the cell”. His name and address were thought to have been found among the possessions left by the would-be bombers on Thursday… [Link]
Now they say it was all a mistake (thanks, Abhi):
It is understood that he was found not to have been carrying a bomb… After the suspect had been shot police sent a robot to examine the man, because of fears that any device could still prove a danger. But it is understood that no device was found… [Link]The man shot dead by police at Stockwell Underground station yesterday morning had nothing to do with Thursday’s abortive London bomb attacks, Scotland Yard said tonight… The Met said in a statement this afternoon: “We believe we now know the identity of the man shot at Stockwell Underground station by police… We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday…” [Link]
This is a Rashomon-like story. The cops’ version: they followed him from an apartment complex which they’d staked out in connection with the recent London bombings. He was wearing a suspiciously thick jacket on a temperate day and heading for the subway, so they decided to arrest him. He did not comply with their warnings and instead ran into the tube station, vaulted the gates and made it onto a train. Under those circumstances, it was their duty to stop a potential suicide bomber, so they tackled him to the floor of the train and shot him dead.
From the victim’s point of view, he left the apartment to go to work, got on a bus and got off at his tube station when he noticed he was being followed by men in street clothes. They started yelling at him and pulled guns, which British cops normally don’t carry. Believing his life was in danger, he bolted into the nearest escape vehicle, the tube, and he almost survived. The cops are saying he had no link to the bombings.
So the cops are saying, why did he run? And the victim would’ve said, why weren’t the cops in uniform? It’s Amadou Diallo all over again:
Diallo had come to New York City to study computer science… While he was walking near his building, police officers… in plainclothes but wearing their NYPD shields, approached him for questioning… they reported Diallo ran up the outside steps toward his apartment house doorway… He then reached into his jacket. Believing Diallo was drawing a firearm, Officer Carroll yelled “Gun!” to alert his colleagues… The four officers fired 41 shots, hitting Diallo 19 times. Investigation found no weapons on Diallo’s body, and that he had pulled out of his jacket and held in his hand his wallet… [Link]
In the UK, there’s an even more apt analogy, the table leg shooting:
Harry Stanley decided to help his brother repair a broken table on 22 September 1999… He stopped off for a break at The Alexandra, not his regular haunt, and ordered a lemonade, still carrying the table leg in a blue plastic bag. But someone mistook his Scottish accent for an Irish one and thought the bag contained a sawn-off shotgun. As Mr Stanley left, oblivious to causing any fuss, someone called the police. The father of three was only about 100 yards from home when he heard the shout: “Stop, armed police…” Mr Stanley turned around, and raised the bag, which they believed to contain a gun… [Inspector] Sharman, who said he was sure his colleague was about to be killed, shot Mr Stanley in the head. [Link]
Now, I don’t want to second-guess cops in the heat of the moment. London is under repeated attack right now, they’re on hair-trigger alert. If you’re highly certain the perp is a suicide bomber, shoot to kill. But a lot is still unclear here: what was the cops’ level of certainty, and how did they arrive at it? Because it seems they just executed in broad daylight someone innocent of the charge.
I look forward to your comments. Please remember that frothing at the mouth is only attractive when you’re drinking latte.
Update: BBC says the man was ‘thought to be Brazilian’ (thanks, Scarface).
Update 2: The victim has been named:
The man, who died at Stockwell Tube on Friday, has been named by police as Jean Charles de Menezes, 27… Scotland Yard said Mr Menezes, who lived in Brixton, south London, was completely unconnected to the bomb attacks… Mr Menezes, who was from the city of Gonzaga in Minas Gerais state, had lived in London legally for at least three years and was employed as an electrician. [Link]
Menezes’ family was Roman Catholic. When asked if he had become Muslim in Britain, Agostino Ferreira Rosa, a policeman in Gonzaga said: “According to his family, he had nothing to do with Muslims or Islamism. He was Catholic.”… [Link]
Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police… told reporters that officers had ordered the man to halt and had opened fire only after he failed to obey. But none of the witnesses reported hearing any warning. [Link]
The London police have been accused of being trigger-happy in the past:
The [Police Complaints Authority in 2003] examined a rise in police shootings and found that the London force was twice as likely as others to open fire on a suspect… The PCA looked at 24 police shootings, including 11 fatalities, between 1998 and 2001 and concluded that many of those shot were mentally ill or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The report noted that 55 shots had been fired by police and no suspects fired back. [Link]
Update 3: One possible explanation surfaces for why de Menezes ran:
Mr Menezes had lived for a time in a slum district of Sao Paulo and that could explain why he had run from the police… “The murder rates in some of these slums are worse than in a lot of war zones and that could explain why, when plain clothes officers pulled a gun on him, he may have run away…” [Link]
Update 4: De Menezes was shot eight times:
Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder… [Link]
He may have been worried the cops would deport him:
BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the type of visa Mr Menezes had been given would normally be valid for one-and-a-half to two years. He said Mr Menezes had not renewed the visa, adding: “… it might provide an explanation as to why he ran away…” [Link]
He hopped a bus first:
It took 26 minutes for Jean Charles de Menezes to get from his flat in Tulse Hill to the entrance of Stockwell Tube station. In that time the 27-year-old electrician did not appear to realise that a team of 30 Scotland Yard officers were following his every move… [Link]
Cops may have realized he wasn’t one of the bombers:
When Mr Menezes emerged from the communal front door just after 9.30am, the police must have realised from the photographs they carried that he was not one of the four bombers. [Link]
It’s not clear whether he was warned to stop:
By far the most controversial claim comes from a number of witnesses who have cast doubt on police statements that they shouted a warning or identified themselves to the suspect before opening fire. Lee Ruston, 32, who was on the platform, said that he did not hear any of the three shout “police” or anything like it. Mr Ruston, a construction company director, said that he saw two of the officers put on their blue baseball caps marked “police” but that the frightened electrician could not have seen that happen because he had his back to the officers and was running with his head down. [Link]
