Brazilian ambassador: No cover-up by British police in shooting death

[Freddie Stubbs]

By Mara D. Bellaby
ASSOCIATED PRESS

8:06 a.m. August 23, 2005

LONDON – Brazil's ambassador said Tuesday he has no reason to believe there was a British cover-up in the fatal police shooting of a Brazilian who was mistaken for a terrorist in London's Underground last month.

When asked about a cover-up, Ambassador Manoel Gomes Pereira said: "No, at this point, no. ... At the moment, we don't have any reason whatsoever to assume that."

more: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20050823-0806-britain-bombings.html

[bemildred]

1. How diplomatic. nt

[Karenina]

30. Indeed!

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1303&id=1801922005

[bemildred]

36. Anyone with real integrity would commit seppuku,

after first taking responsibility and apologizing,
throwing a few handsfull of his own entrails at
the audience to show a bit of panache in finishing up.

[wli]

2. wtf? everything about the incident has been a coverup!

Bliar is sending death squads out to run amok in the streets of London and this is the sum total of the outrage that can be mustered?

More likely Bliar said he'd nuke Brazil or something if they complained.

[Taxloss]

22. You are, presumably, joking?

Blair said he'd nuke Brazil? Do you really think that?

[wli]

25. no

OTOH this far more strongly resembles be the product of a threat than any assessment of reality.

[Taxloss]

28. Do you think a British threat to nuke Brazil would have ANY credibility?

Seriously?

We'd kill millions of people to ineffectually conceal incompetence in our police force?

[wli]

41. more likely threats of assassination

It's among the BFEE's modus operandi.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

47. Perhaps you should hide in your nuclear bunker

The evil British are going to attack with their nukes.

[wli]

48. wtf?

Cheney's dropping thinly-veiled hints at nuking Iran, so nuclear threats are far from out of the picture as far as the BFEE goes. Also, the comment I ade was whipping out an example of a threat that was more a statement of how morally bankrupt it's apparent Bliar is than what is likely to actually be done.

[Warren Stupidity]

49. Since they are defending the indefensible their tactics are

to attack all who post on this subject from the opposite side and to attack them on side issues and definitions. Can't work with the pertinent facts, so they have to work in irrelevancies.

[Taxloss]

57. As opposed to your tactics, of course.

As a poster who has thus far failed to link to a single "pertinent fact" and is apparently happy to ascribe opinions to other people.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

29. Do you have any proof that...

a) Tony Blair has sent death squads to "run amok" in the streets of London? (there are 8 million people in London, I think some of them might have noticed if this was so)
b) Tony Blair has threatened Brazil with a strategic nuclear strike?

I think I already know the answer, but if you do have any links please provide me with something other than infowars, prisonplanet, David Icke.com or something of that same ilk.

[wli]

53. okay, let me clarify

a) death squads in the streets are evinced by de Menezes and the statements regarding the programs surrounding him. I would qualify those programs as death squads.

b) Nuclear strikes against Brazil were not mentioned in the context of actual actions. The mention I made of such threats were illustrative of general threats Bliar and Bushler are expected to use against Brazil and other countries. It is far more probable that assassination threats were used, but no concrete evidence exists of either nuclear or assassination threats. The claim is based on expected behavior given moral character, not evidence or specific incidents.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

55. Hmm...

a) Then by the same logic there are death squads in every city in America.

b) When have Bush or Blair ever threatened Brazil?

[wli]

54. okay, let me clarify

a) death squads in the streets are evinced by de Menezes and the statements regarding the programs surrounding him. I would qualify those programs as death squads.

b) Nuclear strikes against Brazil were not mentioned in the context of actual actions. The mention I made of such threats were illustrative of general threats Bliar and Bushler are expected to use against Brazil and other countries. It is far more probable that assassination threats were used, but no concrete evidence exists of either nuclear or assassination threats. The claim is based on expected behavior given moral character, not evidence or specific incidents.

[jsamuel]

3. hmmm... how sudden...

[Taxloss]

4. Menezes death "cover-up" doubted

Brazilian officials have said they do not believe there was a Scotland Yard cover-up over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

But ambassador Manoel Gomes Pereira said he had been "perplexed" by leaks from the inquiry that contradicted early police and eyewitness reports.

He "completely" trusted the Independent Police Complaints Commission, he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4175688.stm

[mzteris]

5. I dunno

I heard the morning of the shooting on BBC the eyewitness account - doesn't sound like there is much to work with on a coverup. They shot him without provocation other than he was running. They shoved him down and shot him.

[Taxloss]

6. The early reports turned out to be lies.

He wasn't running. But this was still simply an awful blunder, not a sinister conspiracy.

[mzteris]

7. I concur

with this, "simply an awful blunder, not a sinister conspiracy"

but the eyewitness report sounded pretty on the spot and authentic... It was immediately after the fact live on BBC.....

[Taxloss]

8. I once interviewed a police officer whose responsibilities included riot

control. We were talking about the difficulty of piecing together how these things start, and he said that they expected HUGE divergence in accounts - people who were standing next to each other telling completely different stories, as if they had been at different riots. Indeed, he said that the one thing that would make them deeply suspicious would be if too many accounts concurred. THAT would be suspicious. The aberrant witness report is a curiosity; the missing CCTV footage is more suspicious.

[mzteris]

9. ok

there was another "eyewitness" who claimed to have seen wires and things sticking out of the guy - only as I remember it was only reported he said that, not the guy himself........ but maybe he did........ aaaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhh - - - I don't remember!

[lockdown]

26. Accounts

of de Menezes leaping the barrier and running have turned out (at least partly) to be from eyewitnesses who saw some officer(s) jumping the barrier. Maybe the wires account is something similar, and in the blur of the moment and bodies someone saw wires from an officer's headset or walkie-talkie or something and in the panic thought suicide bomb?

Memory is a wild thing though, could well just be someone imagining what they would expect to see rather than what was there, along those lines.

[Taxloss]

27. Exactly, as I said, memory is a strange thing.

[Warren Stupidity]

38. your persistent defense of the indefensible is noted.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

43. How is he defending the indefensible?

[Warren Stupidity]

45. u-2 eom

[Anarcho-Socialist]

46. your persistent incomprehension is noted

[Taxloss]

58. Your persistent reluctance to argue your case without

resorting to put-downs is noted.

Come on, you're sure of your facts, let's have links and evidence. Why are you unwilling to argue this courteously?

[jsamuel]

10. they can "doubt" it all they want to, I don't

[Taxloss]

11. What about what the lawyer for the De Menzes family said?

Harriet Wistrich, lawyer for the family, said: "There is incompetence on the part of those watching the suspect and a serious breakdown of communication."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1550504,00.html

There's no suggestion there of a conspiracy or a pre-ordained killing. Just incompetence. A blunder.

[Briar]

12. A blunder

caused by a flawed policy which was adopted in secret by the police.

[Taxloss]

13. Yes, a catastrophic blunder in those terms, but not "death squads"

[Warren Stupidity]

40. so a team trained to execute targets without warning

is not a death squad. Got it. And the policy behind this calls for exactly this sort of action, but this was a 'mistake' a 'blunder'. Keep up the good work.

[Taxloss]

56. According to witness reports, there was a warning.

Is it common practice for death squads to be fully and thoroughly investigated by independent bodies after they "execute" someone? And for the members to face criminal charges?

Still, don't let little things like that bother you.

[lockdown]

62. So those

witness reports are accurate you think?

[bemildred]

64. I read that the "witnesses" can't be found now. nt

[Taxloss]

65. I don't know. But there is at least some evidence that he was

warned.

[jsamuel]

14. I have been following this story very very closely

Just google for other stories and you will see plunty of info. Every other story that comes out changes in tone, but that doesn't change what the facts are.

[Taxloss]

16. I've been following it carefully too.

The facts seem to be that there was some sort of catastrophic breakdown in communication and an innocent man died. It seems that there was a panicky and clumsy attempt at damage control by the police in the hours following the killing, which has since blown up in their faces and rightly created a great deal of anger. But I do not see any evidence of a sinister conspiracy, racist motivations, or calculated malice. Just a horrible, horrible blunder.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

34. De Menezes lawyer is in on the conspiracy!!

De Menezes family is working for Bushco and is on the BFEE payroll. I read infowars, I know the truth. Don't believe the msm!!

:evilgrin:

[Warren Stupidity]

39. ah another shock 'anarcho-socialist' to the defense!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

42. Fancy seeing you here

[daleo]

15. The shooting may or may not have been an accident

But I don't see how the lies afterward can be described as anything by a coverup attempt. Perhaps it was poorly done, but it was attempted. The police obscured the truth rather than revealed it - to me, to obscure something is to cover it up.

[jsamuel]

17. yes, at very least there was a bad coverup

just the fact that they claimed there were no tapes and that there were tapes

or that they said he ran and he didn't run

or that they said he jumped the turnstile and he didn't jump it

or that they said he was wearing a huge coat but was wearing a denim jacket

or ....

or ....

[Taxloss]

19. You're right that the tapes thing stinks to high heaven.

Everything else about the story smnack of panic and chaos, not a sinister scheme.

[Taxloss]

18. It smacks of panic to me.

And the speed with which the truth came to light is evidence that it was hardly a finely crafted conspiracy - more administrative panic and bureaucratic chaos.

[daleo]

20. It was not a well done coverup.

Neither was Watergate, as it transpired. But that doesn't make either attempted coverup any more excusable.

[Taxloss]

21. This was far more bungled and at a far lower level.

Watergate took years to expose. This took hours.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. Right. All the lies in the original storyline were just accidents.

[Taxloss]

24. It seems that there was a bungled attempt at a cover-up.

Very badly bungled. A hopless disaster, in fact. I think what the ambassador means is that there is no enduring cover-up; things are now out in the open.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

32. When someone tells me that "there is no enduring cover-up"........

...I start to look even harder for what's not being revealed.

[Taxloss]

35. Well, there's the "mysteriously blank" CCTV tapes.

That strikes me as the stinkiest part of the invesigation. But I fail to see how this investigation could be any worse for the Met - not only have they spectacularly lost the trust of the public just when they most needed it, they are being pilloried daily in all the press - even the right-wing, usually police-loving press. If this is their preferred version of events, I struggle to imagine what the alternative was.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

33. It's the nature of media

The media for a lot of the time is happy to print/report anything (including hearsay) because they're desperate to add anything extra to a news story. I saw similar patterns during the early hours of the Iraq War.

One example is that a junior British military officer dealing with the media was asked how long he thought the war would last before the Coalition got to Baghdad. He replied "maybe 2 or 3 days". By the end of the day, all major 24 news networks were reporting that the Coalition expected to be in Baghdad in 3 days.

The media do this either consciously or subconsciously because they don't want you to change channel.

[Zhade]

31. "At the moment"

At the moment.

We'll see.

[Warren Stupidity]

37. I suppose this is actually true.

The lies from the British police were so numerous and obvious that to call it a coverup would be an insult to power abusing cabals of politicians all over the world.

[Warren Stupidity]

44. T'aint no mistake: a google primer on what went down.

Operation Kratos
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4716645.stm
But the threat of suicide attacks meant that shooting a suspect in the head was sometimes the "proportionate" response.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20050724&articleId=732
The shoot to kill policy was undertaken under the auspices of "Operation Kratos", named after the mythical Spartan hero. It was carried out by the London Metropolitan's elite SO19 firearms unit often referred to as the Blue Berets. The latter are described as the equivalent to the US SWAT teams, yet in this particular case, they were not wearing uniforms.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2003-48,GGLD:en&q=operation+kratos
Code-named Operation Kratos, the policy was put in place after the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks in the United States. "Shoot first and ask questions later...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kwh/Operation_Kratos
Operation Kratos is the code word used by the SO13 branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service to refer to policies surrounding "shoot-to-kill" tactics to be used in dealing with suspected terrorists and suicide bombers. The tactics were developed shortly after September 11th, and are based in part on consultation with Israeli and Sri Lankan law enforcement agencies on how to deal with "deadly and determined" attackers. Little has been revealed publicly and officially about the policies, which were apparently first activated after the bombings of July 7, 2005 in London, and were first exercised in the mistaken shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22, 2005.

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/British-Cops-Israel24jul05.htm
The shoot to kill policy was undertaken under the auspices of "Operation Kratos", named after the mythical Spartan hero. It was carried out by the London Metropolitan's elite SO19 firearms unit often referred to as the Blue Berets. The latter are described as the equivalent to the US SWAT teams, yet in this particular case, they were not wearing uniforms.

[Taxloss]

59. So the existence of a horribly flawed policy that

seems to have inevitably caused a mistaken killing automatically means that the killing was not a mistake? A system that is so achingly inadequate that it seems a breeding ground for mistakes is incapable of making a mistake?

Even given Kratos' inherent flaws, what inadequate checks and balances it provided weren't even applied in this case. So a bad system was badly applied, leading to an almost-immediate public independent investigation - on purpose?

[Matilda]

50. When Sir Ian Blair says "we made a dreadful mistake,

we are terribly sorry and we are reviewing our shoot to kill policy",
then I'll believe there's no cover-up.

[Gyre]

51. Hmmmm.

I seem to recall that Menzies had tripped, was on the ground with the cops all over him when they pumped him full of lead. That, combined with the immediate removal of all cameras in the area makes this whole thing kind of stink. Glad we're not the only country with lying cocksuckers at the helm!

Gyre

[Lilith Velkor]

52. No coverup, they blatantly murdered the poor man.

[oscarmitre]

60. You know you should let someone know

that you know that and then give them the evidence, it will be important for the continuing investigation. Then you might like to read the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines on prosecution in a matter like this. I'm sure the information you have will be a huge help. There's a link at the end of my post.

Now about this continuing rubbish about Operation Kratos and the "shoot to kill" policy. Those more foamy-mouthed posters might like to quell their trembling fingers on the keyboard and take a deep breath and ask themselves a question. If there was a shoot to kill policy and you were in a team that was given those top secret instructions that you should now shoot to kill, how would you feel if there was no legislative change that allowed you to do just that? Would you trust the person in government that told you, "it's alright lads and lassies, you have the green light to shoot to kill, don't worry that the legislation hasn't changed, we'll ensure you're okay, so get out there and start blasting away!"

Your fevered fingers have been working harder than your fevered minds. Think about it. Instead of relying on "The Scotsman", which appears to doing its best to denigrate those Sassenach coppers (and in so doing ruining its reputation if it ever had one) think for yourself.

Read this and tell me if this is evidence of a shoot to kill policy. And if you are going to come back at me with "but it's a secret shoot to kill policy!" then understand that that will be lamest response imagineable, a product not just of a feverish imagination but a naieve one at that. Hello this is the real world speaking.

Now read this link

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/section5/chapter_d.html


it's too long to post here or I would cut and paste it for you.

[Lilith Velkor]

61. 'Twas only snark, man. Relax.

I haven't even been following this case closely, it just looks to me like the cops in London adopted the *unofficial* shoot to kill policy one finds in most large cities in the US. Such a thing upsets me emotionally and comes out in bitterness.

Maybe I was out of line. You can get even more upset if you want, or you can tell yourself there's some fkn loony Yanks out there, some of whom have seen cops shoot innocent people and have a horrible feeling in their guts that that shit is starting in England. I hope I'm wrong. Seriously.

[lockdown]

63. "It's a secret shoot to kill policy"

The guidelines are classified, for all that has reached the public domain about it.