Do not let de Menezes tragedy create anti-police paranoia
July 18, 2006 ~ 7:40 p.m.
A few days shy of one year ago, police believed a suicide bomber entered London's Stockwell subway station and rushed after the man to prevent a possible atrocity. It was only two weeks after the 7/7 incident in which London suffered four suicide bombing attacks and everyone was on high alert.
Police had been keeping surveillance on an apartment building near Stockwell station that was the home of a suspect who'd attempted a suicide bombing only the day before, on July 21, 2005. The heavy jacket and dark looks of the man, who actually turned out to be a young Brazilian by the name of Jean Charles de Menezes, had police convinced that he was a terrorist. Two policemen shot De Menezes eight times on the subway train he'd boarded. The policemen who performed the shooting, and their commanding officer, were recently cleared of charges..
A lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service, Stephen O'Doherty, had argued, "The two officers who fired the fatal shots did so because they thought that Mr de Menezes had been identified to them as a suicide bomber and that, if they did not shoot him, he would blow up the train, killing many people." Yesterday, the CPS delcared that no individual could be officially charged due to "insufficient evidence." But the Metropolitan Police force will be charged over a violation of health and safety acts.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is unhappy with how the surveillance operation was carried out. The IPCC questions the decisions made by the commanding officer Cressida Dick, and their report should be made public so that confidence in the Met can attempt to be restored.
However, the Met stands by Commander Dick and other officers who underwent scrutiny in the aftermath of the de Menezes shooting.
"We acknowledge and support today's decision by the CPS not to charge any officer with criminal offences for their part in the events of 22 July," the Met said in their statement. "However, we are concerned and clearly disappointed at today's decision to prosecute the Metropolitan Police Service for breaches of health and safety. Despite the uncertainty this prosecution will create we will not shrink from our key role of protecting public safety."
I side with the Met. Mistakes were obviously made that led to the death of an innocent man and the surveillance operation needs to be further analyzed to discover just what went wrong. But, the police did their job. De Menezes, despite the error in identifying him as such, fit the description and profile of a suicide bomber. For those who are quick to dump on the officers in charge of the operation, what if they'd been correct in their assessment and did nothing? What if a backlash by the CPS, IPCC and the public severely reduced the morale of police officers, affecting their job performance and ability to deal with terrorist threats? What if, through increased red tape brought about by the de Menezes tragedy, the police cannot effectively track down and end terrorist threats and plots?
Then the same people decrying police action in the de Menezes affair will be quick to say that the police did nothing, that's what. Fighting terrorists is a thankless job, in which the police are damned if they do and damned if they don't take action to prevent their atrocities. We must let the police do their job without getting overly critical of them. To charge police with murder would be preposterous�they are not civilians, they are in charge of protecting the public. They must be held to account for tragic accidents such as with the shooting of de Menezes, but they must be given the leeway to act on tips. And, as I wrote one year ago, it is vital that the police maintain their shoot-to-kill policy.
Yes, an innocent man was shot and that's a tragedy and the events surrounding his shooting need to be examined. But, let us not make the mistake of thinking that the police need to be saddled with even more red tape. In this war of the civilized versus the uncivilized, the police are on the side of the former�and us.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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