Shoot-to-Kill: Then you don't see it, Now you do!

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, a luckless victim of an unexplained police slaying, may sue the British police for their untowards action. Police officials continued the old line that the threat by suicide bombers made such police execution necessary.

How could they continue to peddle the unacceptable argument when the victim was an INNOCENT man.

I reckon what has brought about the unfortunate event has been either an Israeli indoctrination, or a reckless gungho plainclothes police officer, or a combination of the two factors. The fact was until the slaying, the police denied they had a shoot-to-kill order, but that denial was cast aside immediately AFTER the killing, with the shoot-to-kill order becoming a national rule of engagement.

Someone suggested that he was killed because his skin was brown.

Ironically, Menezes had expressed his fear of the London Tube bombers to his friends, even mentioning that he might avoid the Tube by getting a bike. Had he done so, he would be still alive today. Fickle Fate decreed for him to be killed not by the bombers he feared but by a policeman that he had expected to protect him.

His cousin denied that Menezes didn’t stop when challenged by police. He stated that in Brazil, if one didn’t stop when challenged, the police would shoot one in the back. And he added with bitterness, just like the British police shot Menezes in the back.

He dismissed the idea that his cousin would have ignored a police challenge or that he would not have understood it, considering Menezes had been stopped three times before on his moped and once at Brixton station, his usual stop, when a police sniffer dog showed interest in his bag. Then, the police instructed him to open his bag which he complied with immediately. Therefore the claim that Menezes ran away from police just doesn’t hold water.

I am inclined to believe that the plainclothes policeman was too hasty and eager to “get one”. Pumping 5 bullets into a man’s head when he was already pinned down tells you a lot about the policeman’s anger or over-enthusiasm.

The big brasses have now closed ranks behind the cop responsible for the tragedy, and even turned a non-policy into a standing rule of engagement of shoot-to-kill, which I believe is not a typical British approach.