London police guilty over Brazilian's shooting

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - London's police force was found guilty on Thursday of putting the public at risk over the killing of an innocent Brazilian, gunned down after being mistaken for a suicide bomber in 2005, the BBC reported.

Police shot electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, seven times in the head after he boarded an underground train in south London on July 22, 2005. They had wrongly identified him as one of four men who tried to attack the city's transport system a day earlier.

The Office of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police faces a large fine now that it has been found guilty of the single charge of breaching health and safety rules which require it to protect the public.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071101/wl_nm/britain_menezes_dc;_

[OhioChick]

1. Oooh........You Beat

Me to it. Please delete mine. :)

[saigon68]

2. His only crime was having dark hair and a swarthy complexion.

He looked like an islamic to the thug police

Who proceeded to shoot him 27 times

[DCKit]

9. Not to mention....

They IMMEDIATELY lied about him wearing an overly large coat which must have concealed a bomb.

Psycho cops are a universal problem.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. he must have known something

might have 'spilt the beans'

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

4. A guilty verdict in a police shooting?

See, American juries, it is possible.

[High Plains]

5. Except who is guilty? No one. Just the department.

Looks like the killer cops walk another time. Just like in the USA.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Better than nothing, right? This has been a nightmare.

The highhandedness with which the police treated this event has been loathesome from beginning to the bitter end. What a ferocious shame.

[Blue_Tires]

7. a large fine? that's it?

no one loses their job or goes to prison??

[Judi Lynn]

8. Profile from the Guardian of the victim:

~snip~
De Menezes studied at the Escola Estadual Sao Sebastiano and took odd jobs as an electrician. He wanted to do his military service but his mother worried it would be dangerous. Relatives remembered he wanted to do something to improve the lives of his family of poor rural workers, and so he decided to come to the UK.

He flew to London in 2002 as a tourist and then obtained a student visa to remain until June 30 2003.

Living with his cousins, Vivien and Patricia, in the red-brick block of flats, De Menezes took a four-month course in English in nearby Norbury, achieving near-fluency. He soon found work as an electrician and as a kitchen porter. He regularly sent money to his parents and phoned them three times a week.

When De Menezes returned to Gonzaga in 2004 he told friends and family that he planned to stay in London for a further three years so he could earn enough money to fulfil his dream of buying a cattle ranch. After that he would return to Brazil permanently.

Back in London, his student visa had expired. He turned to the black market and obtained a forged stamp in his passport purporting to give him indefinite leave to stay in the UK. The Home Office later said the stamp in his passport was not in use at the date marked on it.

De Menezes had been stopped twice by British police during his time in London, relatives have said. On one occasion they searched his bag, but let him go when it was found to contain nothing but tools.

Back in Brazil, his mother, Maria Ambrosia de Menezes, warned him to look out for himself.

"I told him to take care (in England) ... but he laughed," she told the Guardian after the shooting. "'It's a clean place, mum. The people are educated. There's no violence in England. No one goes around carrying guns. Not even the police.'"
(snip/)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/menezes/story/0,,2203316,00.html