London cops lied about the cold blooded murder of Jean Charles de Menezes who was shot 7 times in the back of the head when scotland yard cops forced him on the floor of a subway car Original Article Timeline: the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes By Jenny Booth, Times Online Leaked documents from the official inquiry have shed new light on how Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by plain clothes officers at Stockwell Tube station in South London. According to the leaked reports, this was the sequence of events: Friday July 22 Early: police monitor a flat in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill, South London, which they believed is linked to the previous days failed bomb attempts on London transport 9.30am: Officers see de Menezes walking to a bus stop and boarding a bus heading to Stockwell Tube station. He is wearing a light denim jacket and not the heavily padded coat capable of hiding an explosives belt that was initially claimed A surveillance officer at Tulse Hill checks the photographs of the terror suspects and decides "it would be worth someone else having a look" to see if Mr de Menezes matches them. He himself has missed Mr de Menezes's departure as "I was in the process of relieving myself", and was thus unable to transmit his observations and turn on his video camera Officers assume that de Menezes's "description and demeanour" match one of the terror suspects. During the course of his journey: officers pass on information to Gold Command, their operations centre, that he matches the description of one of two terror suspects, including Hussain Osman, the alleged Shepherds Bush bomber. Gold Command instructs them to stop de Menezes from getting on the Tube. It changes the status of the operation to "code red tactic" - from mere surveillance to an armed operation - and hands over control to CO19, the specialist firearms unit. 10am: CCTV footage shows de Menezes entering the station at a normal walking pace, picking up a free Metro newspaper, and slowly descending on an escalator. This conflicts with early accounts which described him vaulting over the barriers to the tube station, running to a Tube train and tripping over before being shot Hearing a train pulling in, he runs across the concourse, gets into the train and sits down on the first available seat. Witnesses say that he boards through the middle doors before pausing, looking left and right, then sitting down in either the second or third seat facing the platform At that point, armed officers were "provided with positive identification", the document says. The officers start to shout, including the word "police". De Menezes got up and advanced towards the CO19 officers, according to one surveillance officer. Another member of the surveillance team grabs him and holds him down in his seat. "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." De Menezes is shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder, according to the post-mortem examination. Three other bullets missed their target. The spent bullet cases are left lying on the floor of the carriage 10.50am: News of the shooting breaks in the media. The first reports indicate that a suspected suicide bomber, possibly one of the four failed bombers of the previous day, has been shot at Stockwell Tube One member of the public is widely reported saying that he saw about 20 police officers, some of them armed, rushing into the station before a man jumped over the barriers with police giving chase. Another witness says that the man had wires trailing from his jacket and what appeared to be a bomb belt Another says that the victim looked Pakistani and was wearing a thick winter coat. He describes him as looking like a "cornered fox" as he was "hotly pursued", that he half tripped on his way into the train and was then shot five times in the head 11.50am: Scotland Yard confirms that the victim died at the scene. 4pm: Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, tells a press conference that the shooting was "directly linked" to anti-terror operations. He says: "As I understand the situation, the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions." That afternoon: the Met issues a statement that suggests that officers were assuming that the dead man was one of the previous day's bombers. It reads: "The man shot at Stockwell station is still subject to formal identification and it is not yet clear whether he is one of the four people we are seeking to identify and whose pictures have been released today. It therefore remains extremely important that members of the public continue to assist police in relation to all four pictures. "This death, like all deaths related to police operations, is obviously a matter of deep regret. Nevertheless the man who was shot was under police observation because he had emerged from a house that was itself under observation because it was linked to the investigation of yesterdays incidents. He was then followed by surveillance officers to the station. His clothing and his behaviour at the station added to their suspicions" Saturday, July 23 5pm: Scotland Yard says that the victim was not connected to attempted terror attacks on the capital. A spokeswoman said: "For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets" It is announced that the death is being investigated by the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards, and will be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission 9.30pm: Scotland Yard confirmed the identity of the victim as 27-year-old Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes Sunday July 25 10.30am: Sir Ian Blair apologises to the family but says that there will be no change to the police shoot-to-kill policy 2.30pm: Tony Blair says that he is "desperately sorry" at the death of an innocent person http://news.ft.com/cms/s/b424e5c8-0f06-11da-8b31-00000e2511c8.html Leak disputes police claims on terror shooting By Roger Blitz Published: August 17 2005 11:08 | Last updated: August 17 2005 11:08 The Brazilian man mistakenly shot dead by the Metropolitan Police on a train at Stockwell station was killed by guns fired by two police officers, senior police sources said on Tuesday night. Documents and photographs presented to the investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and leaked to ITV News suggested that Mr de Menezes was not carrying any bags, and was wearing only a denim jacket. The Met had originally suggested Mr de Menezes was wearing a bulky winter coat under which explosives may have been hidden. As independent investigators sift through evidence relating to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22, it also emerged that the victim was mistaken for Hamdi Issac, one of the men suspected of carrying out the failed attacks on London the previous day. Mr de Menezes was the victim of the Met's shoot-to-kill policy, introduced to try to stop would-be suicide bombers from detonating explosives. ITV News also said the evidence to the IPCC said the CCTV cameras at Stockwell station were working and showed Mr de Menezes as behaving normally, and did not vault the barriers, another of the Met's early claims. He even stopped to pick up a free newspaper. He only started running when he saw a Tube at the platform. The evidence also suggested one surveillance officer watching the block of flats where Mr de Menezes lived lost track of him because the officer had to relieve himself. Harriet Wistrich, lawyer for Mr de Menezes' family, told Channel 4 News said the police appeared to be carrying out its shoot-to-kill policy even though there was no indication that Mr de Menezes was a potential suicide bomber. For the family they can be assured that not only was [Mr de Menezes] entirely innocent but he was doing nothing to warrant the police reaction, Ms Wistrich said. http://www.megastar.co.uk/world/news/2005/08/17/sMEG01MTEyNDI3MzI0MTM.html 'Stockwell shooting leaks' Phil Kemp Stockwell Tube station The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph both lead on the leaked papers which claim to expose the truth behind the shooting of the innocent Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, on the London Underground at Stockwell station in July. "He made no attempt to run away. He was held before being shot. He was fired on as he sat in his seat." These are the stark claims reported on the front of the Guardian, conflicting with earlier general reports that the man was fleeing police, and that "his behaviour had contributed to the 'catastrophic' error" (Telegraph). Meanwhile the Times gives another twist to the developing story. The paper says "Documents and photographs from the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation also reveal that one of the undercover team meant to be identifying the shot man was relieving himself as Mr de Menezes left his flat on July 22. "So (the member of the undercover team) could not tell if they had traced Hussain Osman, one of the alleged bombers," it adds. "It is also suggested that Mr de Menezes could have been taken alive." The Guardian claims too how it has apparently "emerged that Mr de Menezes: was unaware he was being followed; was not wearing a heavy padded jacket or belt as reports at the time suggested; never ran from the police; did not jump the ticket barrier". http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_id=359498&in_page_id=1787&in_a_source= Damning tale of fatal ineptitude 07:58am 17th August 2005 What is RSS? Scotland Yard has been under immense pressure since July 7 and in many ways has acquitted itself with distinction in the most testing circumstances. But senior commanders will not need to be told its performance has been badly tarnished by the shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by police officers at Stockwell tube station. Now, as the first full details emerge of the incident, the disturbing scale of the bungling becomes clear. A surveillance officer who should have had his video camera trained on the suspect's flat was relieving himself and so unable to get a picture... despite being a suspected suicide bomber Mr de Menezes was allowed to get on a bus and into a tube station... he used a ticket to get through the barriers - not vault over them - and even picked up a free newspaper before boarding the train ... he was not wearing a heavy coat that may have concealed explosives, merely a light denim jacket. And perhaps most damning of all he had actually sat down on the train and was being held by a police officer when he was shot seven times in the head. This was a high level failure of police intelligence. It does not augur well for the war on terror. And an innocent man has paid with his life.