A Death in London
As if the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an unarmed Brazilian man in the subway, isn't bad enough, now the British authorities are making it worse by insisting that they did nothing wrong in killing him. Instead, they are defending their new "shoot in the head" policy to stop suspected terrorists.
I still haven't read a good explanation of why this man was shot in the first place. That's because there is no good explanation.
Here, from Sarah Lyall's report in the New York Times, is the reason Menezes was shot and killed:
"Having found the address in a backpack left behind by one of the bombers in the failed attacks on Thursday, the police were watching the building where Mr. Menezes lived. But they failed to realize, apparently, that there was more than one apartment there. So when Mr. Menezes left the building to go to a job on Friday, they followed him. They trailed him onto the No. 2 bus, bound for the Stockwell subway stop, a little more than 10 minutes away."
Let's just emphasize that: the police didn't know that there was more than one apartment in the building. And yet they are considered competent enough to make a split second decision about shooting someone in the head.
According to the police, Menezes was wearing a "bulky jacket," which made them think he might be hiding something. Plainclothes policeman allegedly identified themselves, Menezes—who had been attacked by a gang a few weeks before—panicked and ran. He actually ran headfirst into a train and fell on his stomach. The police then shot him, from behind, five times in the head.
I'm going to emphasize the word "allegedly" here, because that's what cops always say after shooting someone in the back of the head—that they properly identified themselves first.
So let us consider two things about this incident. Jean Charles de Menezes would never have been shot if he didn't have dark skin. And if he didn't have dark skin—if he were, say, a white Oxford student—the British authorities would be apologizing, and the British public would be demanding it. But Menezes is Brazilian, and so he is dead.
