Petition for a permanent memorial to Jean Charles de Menezes

This deserves support.

I get a lump in my throat every time I think about that young lad's death and what his family have had to endure at the hands of the UK Establishment. The very least we can now do is ensure that the Stockwell Tube memorial is made permanent.

The petition reads as follows:

Justice for Jean - Never Forget
Target: Mayor of London and Transport for London
Sponsored by: Justice4Jean Campaign

We the undersigned call on Transport for London and the Mayor of London to allow the Mosaic of Jean Charles de Menezes to be erected outside Stockwell Tube station as a permanent memorial.

Jean Charles De Menezes was an innocent man who died in tragic circumstances after being shot dead by police in 2005. His story has touched people worldwide. The family and local community have maintained a temporary shrine for 4 years, outside Stockwell station, to express the huge amount of public sympathy about the manner and circumstances in which he died. We believe the mosaic, made by the family of Jean Charles with local artists, represents the best and most fitting replacement to this shrine - it celebrates his short life whilst ensuring his tragic death is never forgotten.
signature goal: 1,000

Please distribute where you can

James Ashley and the immunity of the police

Good solid forensic stuff on police propensity for shooting innocent people from 'Obsolete'.

For all the assurances of police training and professionalism, the plain fact is that they are just ordinary guys and as susceptible as the next man to the subtle corruptions that are the natural accompaniment of any and all power. Give them powers not available to anyone else and, in pursuit of 'the baddies', they WILL be exercised - more often than not in circumstances that were neither envisaged nor intended - and to hell with any 'pain-in-the-ass innocent bystanders' that get in the way.

Thus, alleged 'anti-terror' legislation is used to harass photographers or remove a legitimate octogenarian heckler from a conference - that sort of thing. The big problem with 'Special' Armed Police Units is that the 'special' bit is apt to imbue them with a certain elitist gung-ho attitude as well. Couple that with the knowledge that they will pretty well ALWAYS be given the benefit of any doubt and you have a lethal cocktail that guarantees innocent victims and subsequent deliberate obfuscation - the 'Unit Corps God Country' code of the accused in 'A few Good Men', that relegates the innocent victim to the status of an mere inconvenience to be dealt with.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that giving ever more powers to the police together with constant fear-mongering about terrorism are emphatically NOT a part of it.

17 to 8 - So who do you believe?

According to the IPCC report (Stockwell 1) , all 17 public witnesses say they heard no warnings from police officers, nor any indication they were police officers, prior to the execution of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell Tube Station on 22nd July 2005. Whereas all 8 of the police officers involved say that 'armed police' warnings WERE shouted.

The police were allowed to prepare their evidence to the IPCC in collusion with one another. In other words they made sure they got their stories agreed first and, being police officers, understood the importance of closing ranks in their own defence. The public witnesses on the other hand, gave independent, non-collusive evidence with no interest other than providing individual accounts of what they witnessed.

So - rhetorical question - which would you put your money on:

1. All 17 public witnesses are mistaken?

2. The police are lying through their teeth?

For Jean Charles de Menenez RIP

The second IPCC report into the Stockwell Tube shooting of Jean Charles de Menenez is available online here

Unlike the 'Stockwell 1' report on the circumstances surrounding the shooting itself, this report has been made public - though to what purpose, considering the relative trivialities of its content, is unclear - unless to further divert attention from the substantive issues surrounding the public execution of an innocent man. The report deals only with the handling of public statements by the police in the aftermath of the shooting. It makes mild criticism of one senior officer but finds no other substantive fault.

So where does that leave us? The officer in overall control of operations that day has been promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police. The firearms officers themselves are back on firearms duty. No individual police officer has been, or is to be prosecuted for any offence. The Met is to be prosecuted under Health and Safety at Work legislation - honestly - HEALTH & SAFETY AT WORK - you just couldn't make it up could you?.

And we, the poor fearful sheeple, are expected to be grateful and accept that it was all just a ghastly accident - brave executioners under dreadful pressure, poor dears - and nobody is to blame for anything.

Phew! so that's alright then.

Two points:

1. The police know, with cast-iron certainty, that they will always be given the benefit of any doubt in pretty well any circumstances. That knowledge affects their behaviour. If somebody KNOWS they can get away with murder, we should not be too surprised when, under this or that pressure, they commit murder - and so it has proved. It's called moral hazard and it applies to the police in spades. They had constructed a narrative for themselves that day. It had them expecting to confront a dangerous armed terrorist intent on exploding a bomb in public. Their blood was up. They were hot on the heels of a serious baddie; they were going to nail him - and it destroyed their judgment. Neither report appears to have anything useful to say on that simple over-riding fact - although we'll have to wait for an indeterminate length of time to see the contents of Stockwell 1 - if it is ever made public.

2. The officers who carried out the execution were back on firearms duty a few months later. How can anyone who knows he has executed an innocent man be unaffected by it, to the extent of returning to similar duty in the knowledge that he may be called upon to do the same again - unless he is an automaton (a pseudonym for 'highly professional' these days one presumes) or maybe gets a kick out of killing people in cold blood knowing he will be neither publicly indentified nor held to serious account.

Update 1.
A report on the grilling of the Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair arising from the Stockwell 1 Report here.

Barrister Peter Herbert called on Sir Ian to resign, a demand the commissioner resisted: "I'm not going to resign over this issue. I hope the people of London will make a judgment on my commissionership on the whole of my stewardship."

Sir Ian said he wished he had known earlier that the wrong man had been shot. The questioning led him to admit: "We got it appallingly wrong, but we are not guilty of complete idiocy. My feeling is if this happened again the information would flow very differently."

Says it all really.

'Information flow' ?? - 'we'll get that right next time around - promise' - (and of course there will be a next time.)

Executing an innocent man?? 'oops, sorry. These things happen you know - but he was just a foreigner with an out-of-date visa, so it could have been worse'

God they make me sick.

de Menezes shooting officers back on full duty

I was taken aback at the news that the officers who carried out the public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes with seven shots to the head at point blank range are now back on full firearms duty.

No matter your view of their culpability or lack of it, the fact remains that there has STILL been no decision on possible disciplinary measures against them; but more important, surely the experience and knowledge of having executed a completely innocent man must call into question their suitability for continued civilian firearms duty - or are we to believe that they are automatons with no qualms about the possibility of being required to do the same thing again? - All in a day's work eh?

Is there no one in the Met with moral fibre?

In reply to Sir Ian Blair's special pleading whinging about the decision to bring a Health & Safety prosecution against the Met for the events leading to the public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, Richard Barnes, a Tory MP and Deputy Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority had this to say:

"Is there no one within the Met with the moral fibre and sense of personal obligation to recognise that Jean Charles's fate was sealed by systemic failure? The power to exercise ultimate force carries with it the responsibility to ensure all other possible alternatives are exhausted, even in such a fast-moving, fluid situation. Those obligations were not fulfilled at Stockwell, and Jean Charles paid the ultimate price for that failure.

I find it repugnant, and an affront to common decency, that the establishment can get it so wrong and then close ranks to protect its members from accepting and exercising the obligations of office. It is simply not enough to accept the glittering prizes, whilst ignoring the failures. Where is the man of personal stature and integrity amongst them?"

The shooting was followed by various leaks that intended to besmirch Mr Menezes' character. The source of this information is questionable, but it most probably came from those in authority. An innocent man was shot dead, and it was thought appropriate to traduce his character."

That's a pretty fair summary of a totally disgraceful shambles for which no one - and least of all the man in charge - is prespared to accept any responsibility.

Full report in The Guardian

On one level the Met Commissioner ought to be pleased about the prosecution since the matter becomes sub-judice thus delaying publication of the IPCC reports until after the trial. He will therefore be spared full public scrutiny of the gross incompetence that culminated in the shooting for another couple of years. With any luck he'll be gone by then and WE will be spared more of his puke inducing media appearances.

First anniversary of the Brutal Execution of Jean Charles De Menezes

Today is the anniversary of the death of the young Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, executed with 7 shots to the head at point-blank range by the Metropolitan police at Stockwell tube station whilst going about his business.

If the statements of both the Met and politicians to date are anything to go by, NOTHING has been learned from the tragedy and no individual is to blame, or will face prosecution.

What a TOTAL TRAVESTY. Whipped up fear of terrorism used to justify the most draconian legislative measures ever seen in this country and leading to a climate of panicked over-reaction to every suspected 'security risk'. Result: Summary public execution being regarded as a legitimate police tactic.

If there are no SERIOUS consequences for individual police officers for this type of trigger happy bungling, then it WILL happen again. Human nature being what it is, if they KNOW they can get away with it, they WILL get away with it.

There is to be a vigil at Stockwell tube station today

Tags: Jean Charles de Menezes, Menezes, War on Terror, Metropolitan Police, Police State

The Kafkaesque world of 'punishment' for public sector wrongdoing

"Met faces unlimited fine over Tube shooting" - Times Online

It's reported today that no individual police officer is to be prosecuted over the Charles De Menezes shooting but that the Metroploitan police WILL face prosecution under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974. If found guilty the Force faces an 'unlimited fine'.

WOW - sounds impressive doesn't it? But hold on a minute! Who will pay the fine?

No matter which headings record the resulting government ledger credit/debit transaction, fact is it won't be Sir Ian Blair and his trigger-happy band of incompetents who will be footing the bill; It will be the poor bloody taxpayer as usual.

Some 'punishment' eh?

Tags: Jean charles de menezes, UK Police

Sleep-walking to Police State Britain

Remember these scenes in Parliament Square on 15th September 2004 during the 3rd reading of the Hunting Act? I do too. I was present throughout and the experience turned my view of the police on it's head. From traditional friendly defenders and protectors of the public, they became the armed, bone-headed enforcers of an oppressive State.

Simplistic sounding I know. All I can say is that, when you have been on the receiving end of that kind of 'enforcement', then listened to the 'official' version of what is SUPPOSED to have happened (all very plausible to the public who always want to give the police the benefit of any doubt), your view of the police and the State can never be quite the same again.

I have been forcefully reminded of all this a number of times over the past 12 months, from the Charles de Menenez and Forest Gate shootings at one end of the scale to the detention and prosecution on 18th June of Steven Jago under the "Serious Organised Crime & Police Act" for - get this; it is taken from an article in today's Independant and 100% accurate:

...carrying a placard in Whitehall bearing the George Orwell quote: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." In his possession, he had several copies of an article in the American magazine Vanity Fair headlined "Blair's Big Brother Legacy". The police told Mr Jago this was 'politically motivated' material, and suggested it was evidence of his desire to break the law.

Please read that article. It is real eye-opener. It provides alarming insight into just how, on the back of whipped up outrage and fear, through the 'Respect agenda', 'fighting crime', increasing 'security' and the 'war on terror' the State is undermining what little there is left of our so called 'free society'

More on the Menenez and Forest Gate shootings

More on the Forest Gate and Stockwell Tube police shootings from The Observer and News of the World which has published leaked extracts from the Stockwell report - originally scheduled for publication back in April.

On the Stockwell tube shooting:

The leaked report details a catalogue of police blunders, including failing to pass on alerts from the undercover team that they were tailing an innocent man. It also suggests that there was a delay of five hours in deploying a specialist firearms unit that could have taken de Menezes alive.

And the Lawyer for the Forest Gate family said:

"..the officers failed to give a warning during the raid and did not identify themselves as police. The family thought they were armed robbers wearing helmets with their visors pulled down. Nobody identified themselves as police as they stormed in wearing terrifying black hoods and started bashing them over the head."

One of the Blairs will lose his job over this -trouble is it will arguably be the wrong one. Such bungling is a direct and predictable result of the politicisation of most public services in response to New Labour spin and the climate of fear/cover-your-own-back-first, that it has produced.

A licence to do 'whatever is necessary' - but necessary for what???

Last night John Reid, the Home Secretary, said:

“The police are acting in the best interests of the whole community in order to protect the whole community and therefore deserve the support of the whole community in doing what is often a very dangerous job often involving difficult decisions.”

Well, that does rather depend on how you define 'the whole community' doesn't it?

Unless there are consequences for the police for the type of gross over-reactions to dodgy 'intelligence' illustrated by the shooting of the Brazilian electrician and this latest fiasco, then we can expect more of the same. 'The war on terror' has been hyped to such an extent that the police, it seems, can get away with pretty much anything to 'protect the whole community'

How many more innocent people can the police shoot and subject to gross intrusions into their personal lives and destruction of property in 'the interests of the whole community' before they are made accountable for their actions?

And we are STILL waiting for the report into the Stockwell Tube shooting that was scheduled for publication in April. There is clearly some fancy footwork going on behind the scenes on that one.

Some solid background on the latest police anti-terror overkill here in the Guardian