Hurray for juries, one of that last mechanisms where people can challenge the power of institutions, they didn’t fall for the Met’s bullshit-
The Metropolitan police was today found guilty of a catastrophic series of errors during the operation that led to firearms officers shooting Jean Charles de Menezes dead on the London underground. The force was fined £175,000 and ordered to pay £385,000 costs after an Old Bailey jury found it had breached health and safety rules and failed in its duty to protect members of the public in the killing of the innocent Brazilian electrician at Stockwell station, south London, on July 22 2005.
And what do the establishment think?
The Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said after the verdict that he would not be resigning and would go back to New Scotland Yard to “get on with my job”. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said Sir Ian retained their “full confidence”.
Fuck you, we like executing brown people- in other words. In fact it could happen to any of us-
Clare Montgomery, prosecuting, told the court De Menezes had been acting no differently to “hundreds of others” when he was gunned down.
The case is still not fully investigated-
Speaking outside the Old Bailey, Mr de Menezes’s relatives said they wanted to see a “full and thorough” inquest into his death. Harriet Wistrich, the family’s solicitor, said the police had been an “unstoppable force” when they pursued him, and the defence had “descended to the gutter” to blacken his name.
And while the catalogue of incompetence, laziness, ass-covering and arrogance is a tempting explanation, it doesn’t quite cover it all. Something wicked was at work here and the truth is still concealed. Even this detailed summation has holes, what was the full role of the SAS? Why do we hear so little from members of the public who were witnesses? Why did the Met lie so much in the aftermath and why should we think they are not still lying? Why are whistleblowers subject to intimidating arrest and searches? Why is everyone keeping their jobs and some being promoted?
1 November, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Presumably Brown and Smith have ‘full confidence’ in Blair ethnically cleansing London. It can’t be in his ability to bring justice, that’s for certain.
1 November, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Well I’ve just finished watching the season 1 boxset of ‘The Wire’ so I’m seeing dysfunctional institutions everywhere, I think that applies here, Blair chilled on cash/honours and BAE and Brown is paying back, they really think they can top people at will. As they pursue further immoral military action they know they will need more brutal forces of control at home, fear of being shot is pretty effective. Many of the security personnel had single cover names at the trial, that is not an open society. They went out that day and they ‘got some’ whether that was just their idiot idea or came from higher remains to be seen. One place it definitely came from though is popular culture & Mel P’s brand of fascism. 24 & Andy McNabb et al helped get Jean Charles killed as much as any ‘incompetence’.
2 November, 2007 at 12:37 am
The more I read about this, the more I get the perverted inside joke in Hot Fuzz.
2 November, 2007 at 12:50 am
Which one?
2 November, 2007 at 1:43 am
Getting rid of the undesirables, and that its the supercop that puts a stop to it.
2 November, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I think you must be the first person to connect Hot Fuzz to the deMenezes killing! But it does have cultural relevance, the film does rely on our suspicion that latent fascism hides beneath British respectability, of course what is fantastical and comedic about it is the supercop. Whistle blowers usually have evidence planted on them and are silenced, allegedly…
2 November, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I don’t think its uniquely British, I mean we are all easily seduced by the idea of safety and peace and getting rid of the undesirables seems to fit that bill. But that way lies madness….
2 November, 2007 at 10:26 pm
The tories and nulab are both trying that seduction technique unfortunately, anything to distract from the true undesirables, the greedy & power hungry rich.