A Political One

I’ve not commented on the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by the Police last week, but since it’s caused me to shout at the television I think I probably should.

The government line on the incident seems to be that it was ‘a tragedy’ but the police were doing ‘a difficult job.’ Sir Ian Blair the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is spinning the line that ‘What if he was a suicide bomber?’ Aye what if? It’s not even as if they had shot a guy who didn’t have a bomb on him that day but did the day before. Sir Ian Blair: “He wore a padded jacket, that might, didn't, but might have concealed a bomb.”

In my opinion this is a national tragedy where the Police fucked up big time. The ‘what if?’ defence is akin to a doctor wrongly diagnosing that a patient has cancer and removing a testicle or a limb and then saying ‘Ah but what if I was right? If I hadn’t got it so 100% wrong, then I would have been 100% right.’ An utterly nonsensical childlike argument that just doesn’t wash.

You have to look at why Jean Charles de Menezes was targeted that day by the Police. What suspicion did he bring on himself? Why did they follow him from his home? What made them so sure he was a suicide bomber intent on blowing up the tube station?

From what I’ve read he did very little. He left a building Police had under surveillance. Should they not then have known who he was? If it was a building with multiple occupants, are they all suspected suicide bombers?

You have to also wonder why then did they let him get on a Number 2 bus? If they were so sure he was a terrorist why not intercept him then? And why get on the bus with him, to sit a few feet away?

Some folk say, “Well he had the chance to stop when the police warned him.” But did he? The police didn’t approach him, they were plain clothed officers who came from behind. And it’s certainly not unusual for someone to ignore people shouting at them in the city. Perhaps the police were aware they were caught up in some sort of city saving big mission, but Jean Charles de Menezes certainly didn’t.

Why did he run? Well, the story emerging now is that he didn’t vault the barrier but in fact accessed it thru his travelcard. The ‘he jumped and ran’ story according to de Menezes’s family was spun by the police later in the day. But if he did run, who’s really surprised? He was obviously a frightened guy, aware that people were following him, in what had become a dangerous area.

The police were only protecting the public goes another of their defences. Well Jean Charles de Menezes was one such member of the public that they were meant to protect. Instead he got shot 8 times, seven in the head. Tony Soprano wouldn’t have executed anyone so brutally.

But they risked their lives! Well, no, they gunned down an innocent unarmed man. If they wanted to risk their lives they could have held him down after they had pounced on him and checked under this suspiciously enormous jacket he was wearing to see if there was a bomb there. If they were risking their lives they could have lain on top of him to shield others from the bomb blast (I saw it in a film). No, the only life they were risking was that of Jean Charles de Menezes.

What these guys were after wasn’t to risk their lives and save the lives of others, what they were after was Hero Pussy. Stanhope tells it better than me, but the hero status seemed to be what was driving these guys. They surely didn’t seem able to make a calculated judgement on the situation. Why didn’t they call for some sort of back up to cut him off and face him down? “The guy who wrestles an alligator is risking his life, but he’s never done it without an audience.”

Recently I have found myself in the odd position of supporting the police. During the G8 riots for example and I thought they deserved credit for seemingly being on the ball in tracking down the suspected London bombers. And on that second front they still, bar this gigantic cock up, look pretty much on the case.

Should the police be held accountable? Oh yes. They made a huge mess of their jobs and should be accountable the same way anyone else would be. Shoul the Met Commisoner be saying that this could happen again? No he should not.