Tag Archives: jean charles de menezes

Ken Livingstone should stop trying to smear Jean Charles de Menezes

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Tipped off by Nich Starling, I’ve been reading what Ken Livingstone said on Andrew Marr’s program this morning about the shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes. Our Ken talked about de Menezes making a movement that made the police think he was a suicide bomber.

The implication of this to me is clear – it was in part de Menezes’s fault for behaving like a suicide bomber and there was no mistake or misjudgement by the police – especially as Ken didn’t enter into any caveats or further explanations.

So let’s be absolutely clear – that’s nonsense. The report into his death was very, very clear:

Nor must there be any attempt to blame Jean Charles de Menezes himself for his fate. He did nothing out of the ordinary.

So what to make of Ken’s comments? Well, to me they sound like a crude smear – blame the victim rather than face up to the police’s failure. Shame on you Ken.

How Ian Blair and Ken Livingstone got it wrong

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In amongst the debate about whether Ian Blair, London’s top cop, should quit (my view? yes), not much has been said about what the IPCC investigations into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes actually found – so I thought it worth quoting in some detail some of them:

[The key questions are] ‘If they thought he [Jean Charles de Menezes] might have a bomb, why was he allowed twice to get on a bus and then on the tube?’ ‘If they thought he didn’t have a bomb, why did they shoot him?’

Nor must there be any attempt to blame Jean Charles de Menezes himself for his fate.

He did nothing out of the ordinary.

He looked over his shoulder as he walked to catch his bus; he got back on his bus when he found Brixton tube station was closed; he texted his friend; he hurried down the final few steps of the escalator when he saw a train was already on the platform; and, like other passengers, he got to his feet when police officers burst onto the train. These actions may have been misinterpreted by police officers hunting a suicide bomber but they were entirely innocent.

… the most fundamental problem on that Friday was the implementation of the strategy set by Commander McDowall, the Gold Commander, that everyone leaving the premises was to be stopped once they were a safe distance away and questioned either for the intelligence they could provide or as a suspect. That never happened – and could not happen because the firearms teams needed to support these stops were not deployed in time to do so.

… failures of communication occurred in a number of ways: at the briefings of firearms officers; between the surveillance team and both the control room and firearms teams; the firearms and surveillance teams were not used to working together; the officers in the control room whose job it was to monitor the surveillance complained about the noise and confusion in the room; there was a lack of clarity in the command to ‘stop’ Jean Charles de Menezes entering the underground system; police radios did not work underground.

In other words – this wasn’t one mistake with tragic consequences – it was as catalogue of failures across vast swathes of the police operation.

And most damming of all:

The Commissioner [Ian Blair] attempted to prevent us carrying out an investigation.

(Source: IPCC news release on the Stockwell One report)
Says it all really about how Ken Livingstone’s turned into a neutered Labour loyalist that these days Ken doesn’t speak out against a top policeman trying to block an inquiry into the shooting of an innocent man. Oh Ken, how have you changed?

Ian Blair should go

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I worked with Iain Blair for five years when I was a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. He was Deputy Commissioner to John Stevens when I arrived. It was clear throughout the years he was deputy – that he was more than focused on succeeding to the top job when Sir John retired. And that’s what happened.

It is awful really to have watched him make errors of judgement – virtually since day one. He clearly set out to do things differently and to be the best-ever top cop – and it has all gone so horribly wrong.

And his errors have been the big ones and the public ones. He also politicised the police unforgivably when it suited, and made some very inadvisable media decisions – such as participating in Question Time.

There is no hiding place for him now and I don’t truly understand why he is hanging on rather than going gracefully. I guess he feels that it’s not fair to be judged on the extraordinary but tragic incident shooting of one person rather than the rest of his record where crime has fallen overall in London.

But – firstly – with us all paying for extra police and those extra police and PCSOs now on duty – it would be rank failure if there weren’t crime figures he could point at. And – secondly – the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes happened under him. The findings are damning in terms of the number of mistakes that were made. An innocent man died.

Blair has to go – because he carries the responsibility for overall whether the Met is up to scratch or not. And those damning findings of a catalogue of mistakes tell us the answer – it wasn’t.

In the end – getting the organisation right, the procedures and processes in order, helps the policeman (or woman) on the front line when they face that split-second decision as to whether to pull the trigger or not – because with the right systems they can make their decision confident that it is the right one. If the system behind you isn’t up to scratch, you can’t.

That’s why Iain Blair has to go – so that in future our lives will be protected, including by a proper and effective deployment where necessary of armed police.