Met Exonerated Over de Menezes Murder

So, two enquiries this week, one by the Courts under the auspices of Health and Safety Legislation, the other by the "Independent" Police Complaints Authority, have both, to all intents and purposes, found the Met not guilty over the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. The first ruling by the H&SE effectively found that the Met had placed sections of the public at risk through various failings in their operational procedures. In much the same was as a supermarket puts the public at risk when it mops the floor and doesn't put one of those folding yellow warning signs out. Rather than placing the public at risk by shooting innocent commuters to death on the tube, for instance. I suppose it's not the H&SE's fault in one sense, they are more often charged with fining companies with sub-standard wiring than being the arbiter of justice in a murder case.

The second investigation this week, by the "independent" police complaints authority, found that it had all been a bit of a shambles in the Met, sort of maybe thought about half heartedly suggesting that some actual people be charged and take responsibility, and called for a public debate about the incident and wider issues of how to police potential suicide bombers. Well, I'm all up for a public debate about the incident and the wider context of the "war" on terror. One, the people that shot Jean Charles de Menezes should be held personally accountable for his murder. From the goons with the guns right up to Ian Blair, those people in the chain of 'command and communication' responsible for an innocent man having his head caved in by 7 shots at point blank range have to be held to account. Secondly, I do agree that we need to have a series debate about the wider context of what we do in the 'film script scenario' we are so often presented with of "what would you do if a known suicide bomber was about to blow himself up on a bus" (interestingly, a close cousin of the other catch all question designed to trip loonies and lefties up "If a man was in captivity and knew the combination to defuse a bomb that was going to destroy new york city, surely it would be acceptable to torture him"). Well, for one, realise that this is a one in a million scenario and not worth the focus it gets as the centre point for all other discussions about how to proceed with a "counter terrorism policing policy". However, I will countenance this theoretical proposition in the context of Jean Charles de Menezes to uncover the stupidity which is central to it. Because of course, as everyone knows, prevention is always better than cure. So, the easiest way to prevent having to make those sorts of discussions is to make sure that you don't allow a situation to develop where there is a potential suicide bomber, a packed tube, and a pig with a gun. There are two ways of doing this, either ensure that the conditions do not exist to ignite radicalisation and extremism (the argument that is always overlooked as being unrealistic, wacky, soft, etc..., i.e. change our ways, remove our government, get the hell off of other peoples lands and resources and start working towards a way we can all live non-hierarchically unshackled from the restraints of governments and imposed systems of work, behaviour and rules), or if this has failed (or in our case not even begun to happen) then don't let the situation get to critical. In the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, don't let him onto a bus, then a tube, then shoot him.

Indeed, this is amply illustrated in the words of one of the officers involved, speaking at the H&SE hearing. 'Andrew' stated that officers were trained to fire "as a last resort, when conventional methods have failed". Begging the question what, exactly, were the conventional methods deployed to halt the journey of their so called suicide bomber? It is true to say that in this case pretty much fuck all other methods had been undertaken - the police didn't confirm Jean Charles' ID as the surveillance officer assigned to watch him was having a piss, they let him get on a bus, let him get off a bus, let him walk into a tube station, down two sets of escalators, let him get on a tube, sit there for two minutes, then shot him in the head 7 times without warning. With 'dumb dumb' bullets - bullets which are illegal and outlawed under the terms of the Geneva Convention and various subsequent treaties for military use on the grounds of being inhumane, but apparently perfectly OK loaded into the guns of London's finest the Met. But then that should come as no surprise to anyone - anyone that has ever had the misfortune to come into contact first hand with the Met; from Jean Charles de Menezes to anyone who has even been in London on May Day, anti-War marches, or demos in Parliament Square; knowns that the Met operate under a totally diffeent set of rules to everyone else.