Julian Sanchez | August 17, 2005
Yesterday, Matt Welch reported on news that Jean Charles de Menezes, the young Brazillian shot by British police last month, had not (contra initial claims) fled police, worn a bulky jacket, or jumped a ticket barrier in the Underground. Now, commenter Phil points to this story, which if accurate is pretty damning:
But the revelation that will prove most uncomfortable for Scotland Yard was that the 27-year-old electrician had already been restrained by a surveillance officer before being shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.
The documents reveal that a member of the surveillance team, who sat nearby, grabbed Mr de Menezes before he was shot: "I heard shouting which included the word 'police' and turned to face the male in the denim jacket.
"He immediately stood up and advanced towards me and the CO19 [firearms squad] officers ... I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side. I then pushed him back on to the seat where he had been previously sitting ... I then heard a gun shot very close to my left ear and was dragged away on to the floor of the carriage."
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So evidently Josh Gibson lives in a world where guys who walk
into train stations, pick up a paper, and run for a train they're
late for get six slugs to the head and that's just peachy.
Right?
Someday we'll figure out that overreaction by police is one of the
biggest weapons that the terrorists wield.
I expect Jeff Fecke is referring to John Gibson, the dude from Fox news who apparently lives in a wind tunnel. A couple of points regarding his peachy-ness; 1) this wasnt a single white female killed on spring break. 2) when you cant shoot immigrant blue collar workers without warning, the terrorists will have won.
I initially supported the police, or at least found their
actions to be a tragic but understandable mistake.
Now that it has become apparent that the version of events the
police initially made public was a tissue of lies, I have to
withdraw that support.
The other issue here is that, now that the British police have
shredded their own credibility, the next time they have to take
action against a legitimate threat, no one will believe them.
But, as Joe might say, when a city experiences a couple of
terrorist bombings in the same month, then it's safe to assume that
it is now a warzone not unlike Tel Aviv, and civil liberties
(including the right to not be shot in the head for looking
suspicious) can be suspended. Desperate times call for desperate
measures, and if shooting innocent people in the head 8 times is
the price we have to pay for perceived safety, then so be it.
[/joe-sarcasm]
now that the British police have shredded their own
credibility, the next time they have to take action against a
legitimate threat, no one will believe them.
And nobody should believe them. Sometimes, when people are scared,
they give the police/military/government the benefit of the doubt,
and they abandon that healthy skepticism that should always be
present. So, if this episode jolts people back to that healthy
skepticism, then maybe it has a silver lining after all.
I intially took a wait an see position. Well, we've seen. The
armed response team went into the Tube to execute that guy, then
lied about it.
I'm glad this is a source of amusement for you, Evan. If you can't
call people who disagree with you apoligists for the murder-state,
then the terrorists will have won.
Why aren't there a bunch of accounts in the media from civilian witnesses of the shooting? Am I missing something here?
whoops.
they shoulda sent in the PFJ crack suicide squad instead. It would
have been just as effective.
Ben-
Would you want to testify against those cops after they executed an
innocent guy in cold blood? I'd sooner go to a rural part of
Northern Ireland with a big British flag. The result would be about
the same either way, but the Irish would provide a better last
meal.
I've seen statements from civilians in the press. For example, a guy in the entrance was the source of the "jumped over the turnstiles" report, but it turns out it was one of the plain clothes cops, not the victim, he saw jumping the turnstiles.
"Would you want to testify against those cops after they
executed an innocent guy in cold blood?"
These are leaks from an - as yet incomplete - independent
investigation. There's really no evidence that the authorities are
going around taking out witnesses.
"I'd sooner go to a rural part of Northern Ireland with a big
British flag. The result would be about the same either way, but
the Irish would provide a better last meal."
Er. Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
Er. Do you have any idea what you're talking
about?
Not really. Mostly just trying to be dramatic.
The cops lied, the videotapes of the event mysteriously disappeared--I see no reason to trust ANYTHING those bastards have to say from here on out. But I'm curious about those who initially said "Well, let's give these brave police officers charged with protecting the public the benefit of the doubt." Will they say the same thing NEXT time the cops shoot someone they claim was dangerous? Or is this just some weird fluke that will certainly never, ever happen again?
I suppose that depends on 1) who you're talking about and 2)
what you mean by "the benefit of the doubt."
I didn't immediately join the "let's charge the cops with murder"
brigade before the body was even cold, but I wanted an inquest to
find out what happened.
If you did, joe, this is the first time you've ever mentioned it. Aside from noting that there were various "unknowns" and "variables," you spent many keystrokes defending the decision-making skills of the British cops.
"Will they say the same thing NEXT time the cops shoot someone
they claim was dangerous?"
I will. I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until
there is evidence against them, which includes both the victim and
the perpetrator.
When I initially read that the London cops had shot a "terrorist",
I did not jump to the conclusion that he really was a terrorist
(having seen so many instances where alleged terrorists turned out
to be nothing of the kind). Likewise, when it turned out that he
was not a terrorist, I did not jump to the conclusion that the cops
had acted in a stupendously, criminally irresponsible manner.
Kind of the same way that when a patient dies in surgery, I don't
assume that the surgeon was guilty of malpractice unless there is
evidence to show it. Regardless of how many times surgeons are
actually guilty of malpractice.
OK, volunteers to backtrack to the threads from three weeks ago, sign up here...
You know joe, you sound an aweful lot like Krauthammer when you go on about how the rights of the individual fluctuate depending on the situation. It kinda drives home the point how similar the left and the right are when viewed from a libertarian perspective.
You know, metalgrid, your insistence that the proper action of the government remains exactly the same regardless of what is actually happening outside kinda drives home the point that libertarians are more interested in their formulaic models than in actually addressing real world problems.
I was one of the people who defended the cops' decision-making,
but I did so on the basis of information that had been released
that has now been revealed to be false.
If the victim here had, in fact, been wearing a large and bulky
winter jacket, and had, in fact, run from the police and jumped a
turnstile and then run towards a train, I would STILL say, "Let's
give these brave police officers charged with protecting the public
the benefit of the doubt."
It is the fact that all of these claims seem now to be disproven
that leads me to change my mind.
By all means, crimethink.
Though you didn't seem to have any trouble mischaracterizing what I
was saying the first time, so I'm not hopeful you'll get it right
the second time around.
joe-
I subscribe to the quaint notion that no matter how screwed up
things are, deadly force should be a last resort applied under only
the most stringent criteria.
If you had simply said that you were withholding judgement until
more facts were available, that's fair enough. But you said that
the cops should be cut some slack given what was going on at the
time. That's different from cutting slack until you get more
info.
Will people be more jumpy when there's a threat of bombings?
Absolutely. Stressful situations are precisely the reason why
authority figures should be subject to stringent discipline and
training: To compensate for stress. Nothing can eliminate fear, but
we expect the professionals to do their best to put that aside and
exercise sound judgement in trying situations. That may sound
"unfair" but (1) well, authority carries with it certain burdens
and (2) the more dire the situation, the more crucial it is that
somebody maintain a level head.
OK, joe, which of these
comments is the one questioning the police's decision-making
and calling for an inquest?
1. If the government wants to have the level of cooperation it
needs for anti-terror security measures, and wants to avoid
dangerous incidents, it's going to have to pass on prosecuting visa
violations, drug possession, and other non-dangerous crimes
discovered in such stops and searches, and make sure the public
knows that policy.
Otherwise, people are going to run away, assault the police,
endanger others, and get shot in the head.
It's one or the other, and they have to choose.
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 11:10 AM
2. I just want to say, there are a lot of unknowns and variables
going on here, and the threads about the incident on this site have
contended with them admirably.
Other sites I've seen, left and right, have treated this situation
as if the right answer is obvious, and anybody who doesn't
immediately rally to the 'right' answer as an idiot. I think we've
done a good job not getting out ahead of ourselves.
I have to go put my arm in a cast now. ;-)
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 11:37 AM
3. "In the Menezes case, the cops never had anything close to
probable cause. At most, they had reasonable suspicion."
I'm not so sure - the circumstances (an ongoing campaign of subway
bombings, a fleeing suspect in a subway station, add in certain
details about his hands and what he was wearing) could change the
standard that allows force, increase the level of confidence the
police reasonably had that there was imminent danger, or
both.
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 12:03 PM
4. There's "subdued" and "held down" are not the same thing.
Especially when you need only press a button in your pocket to kill
everyone within fifty feet.
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 01:12 PM
5. "joe is right on target..." That's a really unfortunate choice
of words.
"How did the police know he didn't have a dead switch, and if his
finger left the trigger, say after he was shot, it would explode
the bomb?"
They didn't know, Mr. Oliver. They were playing the
percentages.
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 01:58 PM
6. quasibill,
"Further, the only way someone "forces" you to do something is when
they hold a gun (or similar) to your head."
Are residents of NYC perfectly free to avoid being searched by the
police, because their necessity to take the subway is the
consequence of the building and transportation system, rather than
having guns to their heads?
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 02:25 PM
7. Hakluyt,
"If cops kill somone, especially an unarmed man who they admit had
no criminal intent, etc., the default position is that cops acted
wrongly."
I think it would be better to say, "the default position is that
something is wrong," rather than to assume the problem was with the
cops on the scene. Especially in this case, when, yes goddammit,
the police in the London subway need to be prepared to use deadly
force to stop someone who looks just like a normal subway rider
from slaughtering a dozen or more people.
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 02:54 PM
8. Seamus, "My defense of the police? Except for that one post,
I've been riding them hard all day. Gimme a fucking break."
I feel your pain.
I'm an apologist for the Stalist Murder State.
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 09:18 PM
9. Hack,
I could bother to look up and discuss the details of the thread you
seem to remember, but I don't think that's the point. joe+something
half remembered about Cold War politics = apologist for Stalin,
whatever the actual conversation was. As I half-remember it, that
was pretty much your position on the thread, too.
joshua, the most innovative IT companies and the most important
financial companies choose to be in major cities, regardless of
technological advance, because you can't use technology to
replicate face time and being in the middle of things.
Comment by: joe at July 31, 2005 10:51 PM
English is only my first language, so I might need some help seeing
it.
OK, I can't find any threads related to Menezez on the day of his death (7/22). Strange thing is, there's a thread that day about NYC subway searches, and a couple of people make reference to the London subway shooting, but the thread itself seems to have disappeared...
thoreau,
I don't think the criteria were wrong. The facts were wrong. If the
police have reason to believe someone is about to set off a bomb in
a subway, they should kill him. That criteria is just fine. The
problem here was, they didn't have reason to believe that. There
was a huge screw-up in doctrine and communication that led them to
believe they had a "ticking bomb" scenario when they didn't.
"But you said that the cops should be cut some slack given what was
going on at the time." And given the facts, as they were first
reported. That's a pretty significant factor to leave out,
thoreau.
The cops didn't go off half-cocked. They weren't 'jumpy.' They
seem, instead, to have been deliberate and professional. You're
diagnosing the wrong problem with this line of thought.
crimethink,
#2, where I disuss the unknowns and variables.
#3, where I say "I'm not so sure"
#7, where I say that something went wrong
#8, where I refer to other posts criticizing the police
The others don't really address the issue one way or the other.
But thanks for demonstrating the "you're either with us or
against us" mentality so well, Phil.
You see, by saying I didn't know where the mistake had been made, I
was saying that everything was done right. By saying it may well
have been appopriate to respond that one in one set of
circumstances, I was saying that the police should make this
standard procedure for all of their operations.
Sharp as a bowling ball, aren't you? I'm sure your EFL tutor can
help you with that idiom.
My name is Phil, not crimethink.
None of those posts questions the police's decision-making, nor
calls for an inquest. Not one:
#2 merely notes that there are "unknowns and variables," which I
suppose could encompass the police's decision making, but certainly
is not explicit. No call for an inquest.
#3, the thing you're "not so sure" about is whether "reasonable
suspicion" rises to the same rules of engagement as "probably
cause." This is as close as you ever get to questioning the
police's decision-making. No call for an inquest.
#7 you explicitly disavow that the problem could be the police's
decision-making: "I think it would be better to say, "the
default position is that something is wrong," rather than
to assume the problem was with the cops on the scene.
No call for an inquest.
#8 you feel Seamus' pain not because you have been riding the
police hard, but because Hakluyt has called you an apologist for
blah blah blah. No call for an inquest.
Try again.
If the police have reason to believe someone is about to set
off a bomb in a subway, they should kill him. That criteria is just
fine.
I sure hope he doesn't have any useful, actionable intelligence
that might make it worthwhile to subdue him. In any case, assuming
terrorists are able to adapt, they'll all simply use dead-man's
switches now.
Comment by: joe at August 17, 2005 12:04 PM
Actually joe, it's the libertarian mentality to see actual rights
as a zero sum game. If government is in the business of doling them
out and rolling them back as it sees fit according to situation,
then rights aren't exactly inalienable or natural to man and as a
result, aren't rights but priviledges. Much along the lines of
having the priviledge to not be 3/5ths of a full person.
You know, I would think that claiming that you wanted an inquest
would result in an easily-locatable sentence of the approximate
form, "I think there should be an inquest to determine what
happened."
Or, you know, you could just respond like an immature,
oversensitive shithead.
So the argument, PHIL, is that I didn't actually use the word
"inquest" in the exact posts you pulled, nor did I follow up
statements like "there are a lot of unanswered questions" with
"...that need to be answered."
Wow, I guess you got me there.
joe,
That's not the thread I'm talking about. In the thread he linked
to, everyone knows which side you're on. In the original thread, we
were all shocked.
Though this exchange shows that you were still defending the cops
even after their story was shown to be false....
"In the Menezes case, the cops never had anything close to probable
cause. At most, they had reasonable suspicion."
I'm not so sure - the circumstances (an ongoing campaign of subway
bombings, a fleeing suspect in a subway station, add in certain
details about his hands and what he was wearing) could change the
standard that allows force, increase the level of confidence the
police reasonably had that there was imminent danger, or
both.
Comment by: joe at July 29, 2005 12:03 PM
---
But apparently the cops' story was full of holes--he was NOT
wearing a heavy coat. and they did not shoot him as he was
running--they shot him AFTER they'd subdued him and he was on the
ground.
Why don't they just release the film, already? What is it they so
do not want the world to see?
Comment by: Jennifer at July 29, 2005 12:06 PM
-----
deliberate and professional
I don't know joe. I'm having a hard time with the idea of a crack
surveillance team. If the "bomb is ticking", why
head to the loo?
crimethink,
"Though this exchange shows that you were still defending the cops
even after their story was shown to be false...." No, it doesn't. I
wasn't defending the cops' behavior given the emerging facts, but
the appropriateness of that behavior, given the facts as they were
first presented.
"the circumstances (an ongoing campaign of subway bombings, a
fleeing suspect in a subway station, add in certain details about
his hands and what he was wearing) could change the standard that
allows force, increase the level of confidence the police
reasonably had that there was imminent danger, or both."
Get it? "The circumstances could..." I set up a number of givens
(some of which have turned out to be false) that would, if true,
make the cops' behavior justifiable. I still say that, in a case
that approximates the story as it was first reported, the cops
behavior is defensible, or at least not immediately to be condemned
based on those facts.
You didn't use the word "inquest" anywhere at all in any of the
related threads, JOE*; and extrapolating from your attitude as
expressed in the various NYC subway search threads, and what you
actually said about the police's actions, I took it that
you were completely satisfied with the London shooting. Nothing you
said indicated otherwise, and you certainly never claimed to be
"reserving judgement" or what have you. If you aren't, it's your
job to say so, not everyone else's job to read your mind. Although
requiring the latter certainly provides you a lot of cover when you
turn out to be, you know, wrong.
*It isn't a hard task to look at the name of the person on the
post, joe. And it's rather immature to respond so churlishly when
you get one wrong.
Happy Jack,
Two sets of cops here - the ones who were staking out the apartment
building (who do have to go to the loo every once in a while), and
the armed response team.
I was referring to the armed response team - they didn't shoot this
guy because they panicked, or because they were under stress. They
shot him because that's what they were sent to do.
"I took it that you were completely satisfied with the London
shooting." Yes, this sort of thing happens a lot. One of the risks
of taking the minority position on a thread - people eager to read
your position as the opposite of their own.
"Nothing you said indicated otherwise" Now that's just indefensible
wrong. The quotes you pull show otherwise.
joe, fair enough. But if I were to speculate, that's where the
breakdown occurred (surveillance/apprehension).
That's why I'm having a problem. At the crucial moment, the guy
can't hold it? After the jacket, turnstile jumping, etc., the truth
from the police is somewhat elusive.
Jack, there may well have been a breakdown there.
But the fact that killing the guy was, apparently, the armed team's
first reaction, even though the subject was not a known "ticking
bomb," not even a terror suspect, but merely maybe a terror
suspect, seems like a much bigger problem.
joe,
I wasn't defending the cops' behavior given the emerging facts,
but the appropriateness of that behavior, given the facts as they
were first presented.
... the 'facts as they were first presented' were already known to
be false when you wrote that post. Why did you base your argument
on false statements?
So is this thread now officially a Mock Trial of joe for perjury, or is anyone actually interested in discussing the issue at hand?
Of course, the point that's going to be missed here is that if
the stakeout cops had had guns, they could have apprehended the
suspect before he got anywhere near the subway.
Britain's much-venerated tradition of unarmed cops got this guy
killed.
Biff,
We cannot let joe escape this time. I won't let him sit there, with
his smug sense of superiority, at his Macintosh, stroking his
goatee, and chuckling as he digs in to a carton of Ben &
Jerry's.
Well, that's how I've always imagined him at least...
crimethink,
The sentence you're zooming in on begins with the words "the
circumstances could." Why is it so unbelievable to you that I was
talking about principles and not the specific events of that
day?
And the facts were not definitively known to be false at that point, though evidence had certainly called them into question. That's why I began with "the circumstances could..."
"We cannot let joe escape this time. I won't let him sit there,
with his smug sense of superiority, at his Macintosh, stroking his
goatee, and chuckling as he digs in to a carton of Ben &
Jerry's."
um, crimethink, um... you just described me.
well, just add "spanking into a STATA manual" and then it's me.
:)
look, I'm someone who is very ignorant about this topic. I am
suspicious of police power, but know several fantastic people who
are cops, and i've been helped in a serious situation by a
cop...
but it seems to me that you all are talking by each other on this
topic.
One should use new/better/more (relevant) information in decision
making. Isn't that what all of you are in vehement agreement
on?
I don't think getting on joe for doing that here is hitting the
main issue. We can probably get on all of us for our various strong
opinions that we either change due to more info or where we simply
stay entrenched. so... taking a big step away from the postings of
personal destruction for a moment......... (Warren: pour a coupla
rounds here, please)
taking personalities out of it, what are the basic issues where
there's agreement and disagreement - isn't all of this a case of
"if we knew then what we know now"?
respectfully,
drf
I think crimethink's onto something about the unarmed English
police. If you declare the subset of police who have firearms to be
the "Special Armed Response Team," it's very, very likely that they
will come to see themselves, and be seen by policymakers, as "the
guys you call when someone needs to be shot."
Contrast this with American cops, many of whom work for 30, 40
years without ever firing a shot.
When did this forum go from well informed reasonable discussion
to dogpile on the unbeliever?
From the way alot of you are dealing with joe i can understand why
most main stream folks think we're all like the guy handing out
cigarettes and toy guns to kids.
When i read those posts of joe's i see a regular law and order type
taking a rather reasonable decision. He suspends judgement until
the evidence comes out. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
BTW, i think he's right when he says,
"I think it would be better to say, "the default position is that
something is wrong," rather than to assume the problem was with the
cops on the scene."
It sounds like the cops on the scene were called in as a hit squad.
They did exactly what they were trained to do, which was to
neutralize a "dangerous terrorist". It seems to me that the fault
lies in the folks who did the original investigating, the folks who
called in the hit squad, and (primarily) the folks who authorized a
group with shoot to kill orders in the first place.
So why, exactly, are a bunch of libertarians dogpilling a "statist"
for pointing out that the problem may lay with giving the police
too much power?
decision = position in the third paragraph above.
I suppose i ought to proof read.
The amusing thing, I'm not a "regular law and order type."
I'm an ACLU-sympathizing, anti-prohibition liberal.
I think crimethink's onto something about the unarmed
English police. If you declare the subset of police who have
firearms to be the "Special Armed Response Team," it's very, very
likely that they will come to see themselves, and be seen by
policymakers, as "the guys you call when someone needs to be
shot."
That does make sense.
From the way alot of you are dealing with joe
Because Joe is an asshole, Brian. He is a smug, dismissive
sort who likes to label people who disagree with him as fanatics.
People who've reacted badly to that are jumping to criticize him as
much for his deriding their reactions at the time as for
his reactions.
I'm not personally attacking him on this issue because I actually
tended to vaguely agree with him at the time, pending evidence. And
on that issue alone, I thought he was mostly reasonable. But I can
understand the temptation for someone who disagreed, especially
after his sanctimonious proclaimation (during discussions linking
the incident to New York's idiotic bag searches) that being too
wedded to a nice idea like civil liberties would lead to "blood in
the streets" just like any other crazy ideology.
"I'm not personally attacking him on this issue because I
actually tended to vaguely agree with him at the time...
Now THAT'S someone who needs to lecture other people on proper
etiquette and intellectual decency.
Heh. You don't even wait for a little scroll-buffer to try to
distort my post, joe.
Hint, in the very next sentence: "And on that issue alone, I
thought he was mostly reasonable." As in making arguments, not
simply being a contrarian and trying to piss people off.
I'll say it in smaller words for you, then.
After deigning to lecture us on the terrible practice of attacking
someone personally because you disagree with them, you wrote, "I'm
not personally attacking him on this issue because I actually
tended to vaguely agree with him at the time..."
Ha ha ha.
Joe, I haven't lectured on any subject. I haven't decried any
terrible practices...I've just pointed out to (someone I haven't
seen around much and who was marvelling at the hostility you
receive) that you are a prat.
But, if you really want a lecture, Joe... If you're going
to excerpt from something I say in order to misrepresent me, you'll
have better luck if you don't do so directly below my
post.
I wonder what kind of music joe likes to listen to. Let's
speculate!
He's certainly much more interesting than some ne'er-do-well who
got shot in the head a couple of times. I say rub some dirt on
it!
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