A report of the British Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), just released, has finally refuted all the rumours that Jean Charles de Menezes, shot by police officers at Stockwell underground station two years ago, was in some way responsible for his own death.
These rumours, spread by the police and the media, were that de Menezes had behaved suspiciously, or was dressed strangely, or had failed to stop after a police warning. The report, after an exhaustive examination of the evidence, shows that he did nothing whatever to cause the police to shoot him, and that nothing he had done or not done had contributed in any way to his death. There was nothing that he could have done to avoid his death, which was caused by circumstances entirely beyond his control.
There were several disturbing features of the report.
One was that a police press release had said that de Menezes had failed to stop after a warning. It turns out that this item of disinformation was routinely inserted in such press releases by the person who compiled them, regardless of whether they were true or not.
These were the same police sources that were urging the need for 90-day detention. It is yet another sign that Blair/Brown's Britain is more and more coming to resemble Vorster's police state in South Africa in the 1960s.
3 comments:
Yup, that's the polis for you. I suppose you saw the one about the police asking to be able to detain terror suspects indefinitely?
Walton,
I didn't see the one about indefinite detention, though I did see that Gordon Brown was planning to ask for 56 days. That's only 8/13 as bad as vorster, whereas Tony Blair went the whole hog. What was more disturbing, however, was that the Brit media were saying that in asking for that Tony Blair was taking the "high motral ground" -- which means they would think Vorster had the high moral ground too.
I'm glad that Jean Charles de Menezes has been exonerated, I followed the case at the time and found the behaviour of the police very disturbing.
It's also good to know that the world has not failed to notice the decline of the British political system and safeguards. We are all members of each other, or words to that effect.
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