‘An Electrician on His Way to Work’
Jul 24th, 2005 at 11:36 am by Susie
I guess I’m waiting for someone to explain why it would have been okay to summarily execute a suspect if he was connected to the bombings:
LONDON, July 23 - Scotland Yard admitted Saturday that a man police officers gunned down at point-blank range in front of horrified subway passengers on Friday had nothing to do with the investigation into the bombing attacks here.
The man was identified by police as Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian, described by officers as an electrician on his way to work. “He was not connected to incidents in central London on 21st July, 2005, in which four explosive devices were partly detonated,” a police statement said.
I’m not certain this guy was summarily executed. That’s possible, I guess, but this seems more like a monumental screwup to me.
Does it really seem rational to SHOOT someone that MIGHT have explosives strapped to their body? I’ve read that these bombers are often squeezing detonators which, if released, set off the bomb. If that’s true, does it really make sense to shoot one of them in a public area and thereby set off the bomb?
How about: the officer(s) involved simply lost it. That’s unfortunate, but perhaps not all that uncommon. I wonder how much training their police have received in this area.
From one Dave to another, there’s a lot of things wrong with what happened here. You need to sit down, and think about this hard and serious. Is this shoot to kill policy really right? Do you think anybody that can’t speak English should be automatically a suspect?
A better question is, why, without proof of any threat, why did we have a security escalation here? Why should the NY subway be turned over to the nitwits and criminals at TSA?
There are so many things wrong with this, I’m going to stop and let other people have some fun at your expense.
I fear the time for our Republic is nearing an end.
Dave From Battlefield
Very disturbing events. Quite a bit more on this put in the perspecitive of British History with a ton of links at Underground and Over the Top
At some point people will ask who do we need more protection from? Our enemies or our defenders. What aches more, the gut or the spirit?
Hi, Dave;
Our system is a representative government. Each defined population, from congressional district to State, elects someone to go to Washington to represnt them.
Voila - representative government!
For decades now, those representatives at the Federal level can only get elected with major corporate funding, and major funding from wealthy individuals. They get to Washington, and represent those folks — not the unwashed multitudes, half of whom don’t even vote anymore.
That Republic you see receding is actually in your rear view mirror, Dave. We are living in the post-Republic already.
Only on the very local level does the representative model still hold water. Mayors and county commissioners. Even State legislatures are bought and paid for in advance nowadays.
Washington, DC is the same kind of la-la land that Marie Antoinette and King Louis felt so at home in.
Are you gonna eat that cake?
OK, the shooting of a panicky guy is a tragedy, and Iraq is a big fucked-up mess, and our rights are being frittered away like we’re frogs in a pot of slowly boiling water.
But did you read the articles? This guy was in a house that was suspected of harboring … somebody, they don’t say exactly. So they were watching the house, so they thought that someone who was dubiously political might live there. Then this guy comes out with a big coat, wrong for the weather. Then he goes to the tube, where twice in ten days bombs have been detonated.
They ask him to stop, and instead of stopping, he runs.
You are a cop, and this is unfolding before your eyes. What is your reaction?
Right. “He’s going to detonate another bomb.”
Re: the shooting in the head: some article I read says that Israeli experts recommend shooting suicide bombers in the head rather than in the chest so that they don’t have an extra few seconds to detonate their bombs with their last gasps.
Am I missing something? All this outrage at the shooting is better directed at the corrupt foreign policy that allows us to go on creating movements of people that hate us, rather than against the particulars of this shooting, it seems to me. I’m sorry he was shot, but the cops from what I read don’t seem to be at fault or trigger happy.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong (and you will, I know).
dveej:
You are completely correct, but here is the other side:
Imagine you are a brown-skinned guy from Brazil, London seems to be cold even in July so you wear a coat, you don’t know anything about the terrorists next door, and on your way to the subway suddenly a bunch of white guys with guns is chasing after you for no good reason.
That was just a no-win situation for both sides.
> who has not read a newpaper, watched TV or listened to the radio in the past 2 weeks > in police uniforms > as everyone around you is reacting toward you in some negative manner.
This is **not** a guy in a dim hall-way reaching for his wallet and being shot 47 times. I’m pretty much a fuzzy-headed liberal, but since I wasn’t there, I’m going to think the police acted correctly — the guy was guilty of Criminal Stupid, if nothing else.
The area of London in which Jean Charles de Menezes was shot is one in which it is safe and sensible to take to your heels if chased by possible muggers. This, and his limited English - not understanding whatever the plain-clothes men said - would explain the poor man’s running away.
There also is a point I have doubts about : first reports said that there had been ‘a house’ under surveillance. Later reports note that ‘a block of flats’ were being watched. Surely, ‘a house’ (English-style) which might hold perhaps ten or fifteen people is quite different from ‘a block of flats’ (American: ‘an apartment block’) which might house several hundred ? There would be a high probability that the wrong man would be followed.
The head-shooting, I’m told, was a product of training by Israeli policemen. Can’t be nice to live in Palestine, London.
Bryan.