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August 18, 2005
The de Menezes Killing and Police Responsibility
The Times of London has a timeline of events in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in late July. This was the case where the victim was being tailed by police as a terror suspect, and was reported as wearing a heavy coat (in summer), vaulting a barrier to enter the Tube station, running from pursuing police onto a train car, and then being hauled to the ground and shot in the head. At the time, I defended the police because, while the shooting was of an innocent, the police had no way of knowing that at the time, and his behavior did not appear innocent. Given the reported circumstances, the police acted correctly.
The key word is "reported". Apparently, those reports were wildly inaccurate. Mr. de Menezes apparently was wearing a light jacket, not a heavy coat. He apparently entered the Tube station normally, and walked casually towards the train. After entering the train, Mr. de Menezes apparently sat down. Police then entered the car and identified themselves, whereupon Mr. de Menezes got up and walked towards them. He was grabbed by an officer and pulled down, and was then killed.
If this sequence of events proves accurate, the event becomes much more troubling. In a case where there are clear signs of threatening intent, or of flight, the police would have been correct in their actions. Their killing of Mr. de Menezes would have been a tragic accident, but an unavoidable one if larger losses from terrorist bombings are to be prevented. But where there are no signs of flight, and the only signs of trouble are a vague match of body type and coloration plus leaving from a building under vague suspicion of housing terrorists, as seems to be the case here, it appears now that the Metropolitan Police acted irresponsibly. I don't have a problem with the shoot to kill policy, where there are strong suspicions that an attack is underway. But where the suspicions are vague and no threatening behavior is evident, the police have a positive obligation to act with caution, even if that means that their own lives are in danger.
If the police expect to be defended when they make a mistake, they need to only make such mistakes when there is clear evidence to guide them. Otherwise, public support for strong action to prevent terrorism will rapidly evaporate, and the police will have a much harder time preventing attacks in future.
As it is, it appears that the officer who shot first might well have committed murder (the officers shooting after that had reason to believe, by the mere fact that shooting was happening) that something untoward was going on that required a rapid intervention. I won't prejudge that - the investigation into the incident is not yet complete - but if that is the case, the police have acted unacceptably and should be accordingly punished. If events are other than the Times has reported them, whomever leaked the timeline has acted unacceptably and should be accordingly punished.
UPDATE: What he said.
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