London Plainclothes Cops Kill Innocent Man

Jean Charles de Menezes was a 27 year-old electrician who moved to London from his native Brazil for the same reasons lots of people choose to become Londoners. Mainly, he came to the city for the chances his home town of Gonzaga in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais couldn’t give him. After three years as a Londoner, he was shot to death in a mistake of the worst sort. Three plainclothes policemen killed him thinking he might be tied to the July 7 bombings – the police later said he was not and apologized. They also said it could happen again.

To North Americans or other Europeans, the shock that the British feel over this killing is difficult to imagine. To this day, most police in London patrol the streets armed only with a nightstick and a radio -- one in ten have a gun while on duty. The definition of a civilized city is one in which the cops don’t need guns. Not only did the police kill a man, which in itself is unusual in a way the Los Angeles Police Department should study, but he died under the flimsiest of pretexts.

There is a certain segment of public opinion in London and elsewhere that says Mr. de Menezes should have stopped when three plainclothes cops told him to do so. Maybe in Kensington or Hampstead that might do, but anyone with an ounce of street sense is going to run when three strangers call out a challenge in a place like Stockwell. Worse, as a Brazilian, Mr. de Menezes would have a different experience of the police than someone from Great Portland Street. Amnesty International says Sao Paolo police have killed 915 people in the last year, and in Rio, the cops have killed 1,195. Showing their warrant cards identifying themselves as policemen wouldn’t have helped the victim’s confidence in their intentions. And since it now appears Mr. de Menezes overstayed his visa, he may well have rightly feared deportation.

The police in London have adopted what is glibly called a “shoot-to-kill” policy over potential suicide bombers. They aim for the head. Sir Ian Blair, London’s top cop, explained, "There is no point in shooting at someone's chest because that is where the bomb is likely to be. There is no point in shooting anywhere else if they fall down and detonate it. It is drawn from experience from other countries, including Sri Lanka. The only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head." This is, of course, nonsense. A grenade with the pin pulled, or a bomb with a pressure trigger that explodes when a handle is released, would be set off by the death or incapacitation of the bomber.

Here are the ugly truths. Mr. de Menezes died because a few policemen in a highly worried state panicked. That will happen again somewhere. The people who died in London on July 7 perished because everyone is now on the front lines (and has been for ages without knowing it). More will die because not everyone can be protected. There is no defense against a suicide bomber, except to make sure one is never created. Europe must assimilate its immigrant populations better, the leaders of the immigrant communities must keep a better watch on their populations, and everybody is going to have to accept that this is now part of life in the big cities of the west. If one doesn’t like it, there are some charming parts of the countryside aching for new residents.



© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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