Innocent Man Killed By Police in London Subway, Not a Terrorist

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair offered his condolences and regrets for the slaying of a Brazilian electrician in a London subway station last Friday. Officers mistook Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, for a terrorist because he was wearing a heavy padded coat while temperatures were in the 70s. Menezes was a Catholic from the small city of Gonzaga, which is located about 500 miles northeast of Sao Paolo, Brazil. He had worked in Britain for three years as an electrician. His cousin, Alex Pereira, who also lives in London, told reporters that Menezes "was a 100% good guy who never did anything wrong and had no reason to run."

Menezes probably wouldn’t have run if he had known the men chasing him were police, but the officers were in plain clothes and waving guns. Witnesses say the officers chased him into a subway car, knocked him to the ground, pinned him down, and shot him five times in the head and chest while shocked passengers watched in horror. Commissioner Blair initially said that Menezes had been shot because he was "directly linked" to the investigation of Thursday’s bombing attacks of London subways, but on Saturday police retracted that statement, saying that he had no connection at all to the terrorist attacks.

"This is a tragedy," Blair said Sunday of the shooting. "The Metropolitan Police accepts full responsibility for this. To the family I can only express my deep regrets." But in response to criticism about the shooting, he defended his department’s shoot-to-kill policy by saying that such action would be taken only when it appeared that lives are in danger. "I am very aware that minority communities are talking about a shoot-to-kill policy," he said. "It's only a shoot-to-kill-in-order-to-protect policy." Blair said that British police have been forced to follow the lead of other countries where terrorism runs rampant and suicide attackers are not out of the ordinary. "The only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head," Blair said. "There is no point in shooting at someone's chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be." Speaking of the problems faced by officers who have to make split-second decisions, Blair said, "What we have got to recognize is that people are taking incredibly difficult fast-time decisions in life-threatening situations. What's most important to recognize is that it's still happening out there. There are still officers out there having to make those calls as we speak."

According to officials, Menezes attracted the attention of the police when he was seen leaving a building that had been under surveillance following Thursday’s terrorist bombings. Officers in plain clothes followed him to the station, where they became suspicious because of his behavior and the unusual clothing he was wearing. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, who happened to be visiting London at the time, said that although Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had called him to express his deepest regrets, the government and citizens of Brazil were "shocked" by the killing, and he demanded that there must be a thorough investigation. "We cannot recover the life of the Brazilian citizen who died but it is very important to know all the details," Amorim said after meeting with a British official. Although Brazil has shown absolute solidarity with Britain and the world in the fight against terrorism, Amorim cautioned that "even in the fight against terrorism we should also be cautious to avoid the loss of innocent life."

Similar concerns were expressed by various public officials after the world learned that the suspected terrorist was only a Brazilian electrician, and not a suicide bomber. Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said that an investigation to determine whether police were too quick to kill Menezes would be vital for reassuring the public. "It's incredibly important that society remains united at such a tense time, it's very important that young Asian men don't feel that there is some kind of trigger-happy culture out there," Chakrabarti said. The secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, echoed those concerns by saying, "It's absolutely vital that the utmost care is taken to ensure that innocent people are not killed due to overzealousness."