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BRITAIN: Police Response More Frightening Than the Killing
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Jul 26 (IPS) - That an innocent Brazilian was shot dead on the
London Underground is tragic; but the near justification of that killing
by the police is frightening.
The police have now openly declared a shoot-to-kill policy, and declared
that they can shoot to kill just on suspicion. And that suspicion arising
not from reliable intelligence or anything like that, but from just how
someone may behave somewhere.
Until the other day everyone thought that a Brit licensed to kill was a
character in a James Bond film. Now that is official British policy.
London's police commissioner Sir Ian Blair expressed ''regret'' - and no
more - over the death of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.
That ''regret'' was accompanied by the remark that there could be more
such killing of innocent people.
Ian Blair said the police had a shoot-to-kill policy to stop suspected
suicide bombers. ''This is not a Metropolitan (police) policy, this is a
national policy and I think we are quite comfortable that the policy is
right, but of course these are fantastically difficult times...there are
still officers having to make those calls as we speak. Somebody else
could be shot.''
Not many police chiefs of cities around the world who carry the
responsibility of protecting their citizens would say this. The chilling
message is that right or wrong, if an armed policeman is suspicious of
your movements, it is okay, in fact required by national policy to
instantly shoot to kill.
His predecessor John Stevens spelt out in bloody detail in an article
in 'The News of the World' weekly what his police had learnt from the
Israeli police. ''I sent teams to Israel and other countries hit by
suicide bombers where we learned a terrible truth. There is only one sure
way to stop a suicide bomber determined to fulfil his mission - destroy
his brain instantly, utterly. That means shooting him with devastating
power in the head, killing him immediately.''
Charles was shot eight times, seven times in the head and once in the
shoulder. Given the police environment these days, he could be penalized
for getting one of the eight shots wrong.
But Stevens expressed more than just regret. ''My heart goes out to the
officer who killed the man in Stockwell Tube Station,'' he wrote. Some
people thought at first they had read that wrong. But no, his heart was
not going out to the man killed, or to his family and friends; it went
out to the policeman who killed him.
The lies after lies that came thick and fast after that shooting uncover
just how hollow the suspicions might be on the strength of which they
have been given powers to shoot to kill.
First, that he was being watched and shadowed as he left his block of
flats to take a bus to the station. That he was then followed to the
train and shot when he ran. But there is now no word from the police why
they were shadowing a Brazilian electrician - if they were shadowing him
at all, that is. They said they shadowed him 15 minutes on a bus, but not
a word why they did not intercept him earlier.
Then came the announcement that he had been ''directly connected'' to
inquiries over the attempts to plant bombs on trains a day earlier. Then
the admission that this was not so at all, though the police
were ''comfortable'' with the policy that made such a mistake possible.
Followed the announcement that he was an illegal immigrant and that he
therefore ran when he saw the police. It then turned out he was not
illegal at all. And no word why he ran, or even whether it was the case
that he was challenged by the police and was running from the police. And
there was more, that he came from a suspect neighbourhood, that his
jacket was too heavy for that hot summer dayà
It was always frightening to know that you had to do all of nothing, just
be somewhere some time to get blown up by a terrorist. Now people know
you could be doing almost nothing to get shot by the police. There needs
to be as little sense to a policeman's suspicion as to a terrorist's
madness.
Save us from the terrorists; but please also someone save us from our
saviours. (END/2005)
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