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| LONDON (Reuters) - London's police chief initially tried to block an inquiry by an independent watchdog into the shooting of a Brazilian who police officers mistakenly thought was a suicide bomber, the supervisory body said on Thursday.
Police shot electrician Jean Charles de Menezes eight times on an underground train on July 22, the day after four attacks on London's transport system failed when bombs did not explode. Two weeks earlier four suicide bombers had killed 52 commuters. (...) Initial accounts said the Brazilian, 27, was dressed suspiciously in a heavy coat on a warm day, fled armed officers, vaulted over ticket barriers and ran on to a train. But the documents leaked to ITV indicated statements from police and other witnesses showed he was not wearing a padded jacket, had walked calmly through the station and stopped to collect a free newspaper before sitting down in the carriage. Lawyers representing de Menezes' family accused Blair of trying to block an official inquiry, saying he asked the government for an internal police investigation into the killing rather than hand over the probe to the IPCC. (...) Under the IPCC's mandate a fatal shooting case must be handed over by the police force involved by the end of business on the working day after the incident. But in the Menezes case it took five days for files to be sent, an IPCC spokesman said. |
How has that happened? As a Brazilian, this one hit me hard. I think the terrorists are finally accomplishing their goal: people have become so paranoid as to see enemies everywhere, for the sake of security. Even if that means gunning down innocents, only because they look "foreign". Maybe we're going back in time, when people just couldn't freely transit between nations. What will the future look like? Meanwhile, Blair says he's sorry and that all of that was just very "unfortunate". And of course, loads of money are being sent to his family in Brazil. But it seems a bit useless against their sorrow.
