Met chief admits serious mistake over de Menezes

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Met chief admits serious mistake over de Menezes

Postby nomo » Mon Jan 30, 2006 3:54 pm

Met chief admits serious mistake over de Menezes<br>(Filed: 30/01/2006)<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5RXRLTKEWCAUJQFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2006/01/30/umet.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/01/30/ixportaltop.html">www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...altop.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has admitted his force made a "serious mistake" in the way it dealt with the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian shot dead at Stockwell Tube station.<br> <br><br>Sir Ian said the Met should have corrected its original assertion that Mr de Menezes had been connected with the failed July 21 London bombings, but was "transfixed" by trying to catch those responsible.<br><br>He made the comments in an interview with the Guardian in November, but they were only published today amid claims that a police log was doctored to conceal the fact Mr de Menezes had been wrongly identified.<br><br>"Clearly the Met could have taken the decision on the Saturday when we recognised that we had killed an innocent man, we could have put the record straight," he said.<br><br>"Although we did put the record straight by saying he wasn't connected, we didn't put the record straight about all the issues around him, jumping over barriers and heavy coats and so on.<br><br>"In a terrible way, the Met was transfixed on other things. It was transfixed on: where are these bombers? And therefore, in a dreadful way, we didn't see the significance of that. That was our mistake. It was. It was a bad mistake."<br><br>Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head by anti-terror officers at Stockwell Tube station on July 22.<br><br>His family called on Sir Ian to consider his position again this weekend after the new claims emerged of a cover-up by police.<br>         <br>London bombings<br><br>The alleged cover-up meant blame for the tragedy would have been shifted to senior Scotland Yard commanders or the armed police who pulled the trigger.<br><br>Sir Ian faced criticism last week after saying that "almost nobody" could understand why the Soham murders became "the biggest story in Britain". He also accused the media of being "institutionally racist". <p></p><i></i>
User avatar
nomo
 
Posts: 3388
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:48 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Deceit

Postby antiaristo » Mon Jan 30, 2006 4:41 pm

First rule of deceit: when you get caught lying, tell all that it was a mistake, and how much you regret it.<br><br>Those "mistakes" were introduced by police plants pretending to be ordinary members of the public. One is a police forensic scientist.<br><br>Then you have to take into account that the part about vaulting the turnstile was included in a written police submission to the coroner FOUR DAYS after the murder took place.<br><br>The SAS were out for a hunt that day, and poor Jean Charles de Menezes was unfortunate to be chosen as the fox because Special Branch thought he was a wog.<br><br>There is an excellent thread in the archive, highly recommended.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm13.showMessage?topicID=78.topic">p216.ezboard.com/frigorou...D=78.topic</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
antiaristo
 
Posts: 2555
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 9:50 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

The Telegraph is MI6 Tool

Postby antiaristo » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:15 pm

Just looking at that Telegraph story, you'd think the big issue was not correcting "inaccurate" statements. But look at this from the Independent.<br><br>Which is the more newsworthy?<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="font-size:small;">Police 'faked Tube death log'</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <br><br>Special Branch 'altered record' in attempt to switch the blame for de Menezes shooting <br><br>By Sophie Goodchild, Chief Reporter <br>Published: 29 January 2006 <br><br>Extraordinary allegations that Special Branch officers deliberately falsified vital evidence to hide mistakes which led to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes at a south London Underground station were made last night.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br>Full story<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article341765.ece">news.independent.co.uk/uk...341765.ece</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
antiaristo
 
Posts: 2555
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 9:50 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Police lies around any incident.

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:58 pm

It would be logical to assume that there are a whole kettle of lies already concocted and waiting to be used when needed to slow public awareness of an event the police are still massaging.<br><br>Just as there are plans to invade every country already made and maintained at the Pentagon 'just in case,' there are media propaganda campaigns already to go for a number of grim purposes.<br><br>Stand by for fog deployment. <p></p><i></i>
User avatar
Hugh Manatee Wins
 
Posts: 9869
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:51 pm
Location: in context
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Police lies around any incident.

Postby antiaristo » Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:14 am

Hugh,<br>Don't be so pesimistic!<br><br>That falsification of evidence by Special Branch? Had it not leaked, it would have served to deflect responsibility away from the Queen's personal bodyguard, and onto the uniformed branch of the Met. Cresida Dick was so obviously set up from the beginning. How do you think the cops feel about that?<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="font-size:small;">Plot to oust Met chief denied</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <br>Press Association <br>Tuesday January 31, 2006 9:18 AM<br><br><br>A leading police chief has denied that more than 140 senior colleagues want Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to resign.<br><br>The Met's Deputy Commissioner, Paul Stephenson, refuted newspaper allegations that top officers are openly discussing how to oust Sir Ian.<br><br>The Daily Mirror reports that the country's most senior police chief held talks with Home Secretary Charles Clarke about his future on Monday - a claim denied by Scotland Yard.<br><br>It alleged that Met Superintendents, Chief Superintendents, Commanders and Deputy Assistant Commissioners are among those calling for his removal.<br><br>A senior police officer told the Mirror: "There is a serious issue over the confidence of the force in Sir Ian and his ability to lead it.<br><br>"Many of us think he has been too damaged by his own blunders to go on and that he should resign immediately. A view is building momentum that Sir Ian is now holed below the waterline."<br><br>But Mr Stephenson said: "I do not believe this story to be true.<br><br>"The Commissioner did not have any meetings with the Home Office, and he has my full backing and the overwhelming support of his senior colleagues."<br><br>Last week Sir Ian was at the centre of a storm of criticism after he said "almost nobody" could understand why Soham became "the biggest story in Britain".<br><br>He later apologised directly to the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman for his remarks at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-5582965,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/uklate...65,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>
antiaristo
 
Posts: 2555
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 9:50 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Postby PeterofLoneTree » Sun Feb 18, 2007 10:26 pm

Just pulled this off the Guardian website.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/menezes/story ... 79,00.html
If you hit the link there are linked articles entitled,
"Special report: Jean Charles de Menezes" and
"Jean Charles de Menezes: archived articles"

Met chief kept in dark over De Menezes

Senior officers criticised for failing to tell boss the wrong man had been shot

Vikram Dodd
Monday February 19, 2007
The Guardian

An official report into Scotland Yard's killing of Jean Charles de Menezes will strongly criticise the force, branding as "incomprehensible" the 24-hour delay in telling Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police's chief commissioner, that the wrong man had been shot.
The Guardian has learned that the still-secret report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission finds that senior Scotland Yard staff feared within hours that an innocent man had been shot but did not tell their boss, Britain's most senior police officer. Mr de Menezes, a Brazilian, was shot dead at 10am July 22 2005 after officers mistook him for a terrorist.

Sir Ian has maintained he had no inkling until the following morning, some 24 hours after the shooting at Stockwell underground station in south London.
The findings will raise questions about Sir Ian's management of his force. Sources close to him fear critics will use them to try and oust him from office.

The Guardian has also learned the report, which will not be published until next month at the earliest, contains some good news for Sir Ian. The IPCC concludes that there is no evidence to support the allegation that he lied about when he knew that the shooting of Mr de Menezes had been botched.

The IPCC finds that several people at Scotland Yard on the day of the shooting said information they received that the dead man was a Brazilian national led them to fear the man killed by police was innocent. A police operation mounted outside the south London flat where Mr de Menezes lived had been designed to track a male suspect of east African origin.

One senior police source told the IPCC that by that afternoon, top officers were working on the assumption that "we got the wrong person ... we better plan around this being a mistake". Around midday on July 22, Sir Ian tried to block the IPCC from investigating, writing to the Home Office to say that he feared an independent inquiry would hamper the hunt for bombers who had tried to attack London's transport network.

Just after 3.30pm that day, Sir Ian made a series of statements at a press conference about the shooting which his staff already feared to be incorrect. "This operation was directly linked to the ongoing terrorist investigation ... the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions," Sir Ian said. That led the family of Mr de Menezes to officially complain, and also to allege the force had tried to malign the name of their loved one.

The IPCC has sent more than 21 letters to Met employees warning them that they face criticism or that their accounts are challenged by other witnesses interviewed as part of the inquiry. The IPCC was told by Brian Paddick, deputy assistant commissioner, that members of staff in the commissioner's office feared on July 22 that an innocent man had been shot. Parts of his account are disputed.

A warning letter was sent to at least one Met employee in the commissioner's office on the day of the killing: Moir Stewart, then Sir Ian's staff officer.

The IPCC makes no recommendation that Sir Ian Blair should face disciplinary action, and it has found no evidence to support allegations that he lied about what he knew and when he knew it.

The report appears to support the theory that for some reason, which it describes as "incomprehensible", those under Sir Ian did not tell him about emerging clues pointing strongly to the fact that the man who had been shot was innocent, and not a suicide bomber about to attack London's transport network. Over the last two months Sir Ian has tried to pre-empt the report's impact by announcing it had cleared him of knowingly not telling the truth, a strategy some of his closest allies fear could backfire.

Senior allies of the commissioner fear there could be enough in the report that newspapers hostile to Sir Ian could use to attempt to hound him out of office. One senior ally said: "It could still be fairly devastating. Various people had more information, that was substantive, that was not passed to the top."

Britain's most senior counter terrorism officer, Andy Hayman, has received a "tough" warning letter from the IPCC. It investigated him over alleged differences in statements he made to journalists about how confident he was that a terrorist had been shot and those made to a crisis meeting of the Met's top officers on the day of the shooting. Sources say he has written a and robust response to the IPCC warning letter, though any decision about whether he should face disciplinary action would be taken by the Metropolitan Police Authority.

The report is the second by the IPCC into the shooting. Publication of the first which examined why the Met shot the wrong man has been delayed until a criminal prosecution of the force for health and safety violations is completed.
PeterofLoneTree
 
Posts: 343
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 12:10 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Postby Seamus OBlimey » Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:34 pm

More admissions..

Officers who shot De Menezes were covered in blood, inquest told
Jenny Percival and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 15 2008 17.25 BST
Article history

A senior firearms officer today told an inquest he "felt sorry" for the marksmen who shot Jean Charles de Menezes after finding them "covered in blood".

His voice cracking with emotion, the inspector, known as Trojan 84, told an inquest he saw the two firearms officers moments after the innocent Brazilian was shot seven times from point blank range in a tube carriage at Stockwell station, in south London.

Recalling meeting the pair in a tunnel the station, he said: "I just remember feeling sorry for them at that point.

"The reason for that was because they were covered in blood."

Trojan 84, who was at the scene relaying messages from the operations room at New Scotland Yard, described the shooting as a "tragedy".

"We thought we had caught a suicide bomber - it turned out we had killed an innocent man," he said.

De Menezes, who had been mistaken for Hussain Osman, one of the failed July 21 2005 bombers, was shot after boarding a tube train.

Trojan 84, who briefed the marksmen who shot and killed the 27-year-old, said he could not remember telling other officers that De Menezes had "launched himself" at the gunmen before they fired.

He also claimed he could not recall the details of a "brief" conversation with the pair in the wake of the incident.

Speaking from behind a screen as he gave evidence in open court for the first time, Trojan 84 admitted there was a culture of "paranoia" surrounding the incident.

He said he feared claims of "collusion" and "collaboration" in the aftermath of events, and admitted that better systems of debriefing could be in place for officers.

"When an operation is thought to be unsuccessful, people row to the shore and we are left to mop up what's left," he said. "That's why there's a paranoia."

Earlier, he said officers were ready to take a "critical" shot at De Menezes if the Metropolitan police Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Cressida Dick, was unable to make the "career-threatening decision".

"We felt that for any DSO [designated senior officer, such as Dick] to make a decision about a critical shot was a hugely difficult decision to make, and maybe career-threatening," he added.

"In relation to the critical shot, the instruction would come direct from the DSO, but what I also mentioned was that if we were able to challenge but the subject was not compliant, then a shot may be taken."

When asked whether officers were prepared to take the critical shot without word from higher up, he replied: "Yes."

"It was my job to tell the team they would be supported whatever decision they took because of the structures that were in place," he added.

The inquest heard how firearms police were not deployed on transport networks after the July 7 London bombings because officers were busy elsewhere.

Chief Inspector Vince Esposito, the senior adviser in the operations room at New Scotland Yard, said officers patrolling the underground were unarmed despite increased security fears.

Even after the failed attacks of July 21, uniformed police were not carrying weapons on the morning De Menezes was killed at Stockwell tube station, he said.

The experienced firearms officer, who joined the Metropolitan force in 1980 and helped develop Scotland Yard's anti-terror tactics, said De Menezes was shot in a "calm" and "controlled" manner.

"Everybody is human and we all get excited occasionally, but it is the training that enables us to carry out the duties as happened on this day in a calm and controlled manner," Esposito said.

He said armed intervention was used in only the most "extreme" circumstances, and De Menezes would have been shot whether or not he had been carrying a rucksack.

When asked whether De Menezes could have concealed explosives on his body or in his pockets, he replied: "It is very difficult indeed to say if he was carrying an explosive device."

The jury, at the Oval cricket ground, also in south London, was told yesterday how De Menezes was "virtually dead" from the moment he got off a bus to go to the tube station.

The inquest, due to last 12 weeks, was adjourned until tomorrow.

Guardian


Too many questions.
User avatar
Seamus OBlimey
 
Posts: 3154
Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2006 4:14 pm
Location: Gods own country
Blog: View Blog (0)


Return to 7/7 London bombings

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests