Police officer who shot innocent man dead on holiday paid for by Met Police

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BBC Online is saying the police officers who shot Jean Menendes, the innocent man killed in Stockwell, are on holiday at our expense.

"The officers have been moved to non-firearm duties for the duration of the IPCC probe, expected to take several months.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "An officer has had a break paid for by the Metropolitan Police, authorised by the commissioner, to allow him to take his wife and family away from the family home."

One of the other officers is already on a family holiday."

Full story here

Wonder what everyone thinks? I can see why they are on leave - but not sure Met (we) should be paying for the holiday itself. Wonder if the Met, or the Home Office, will be contributing to the man's funeral expenses - it won't be cheap to repatriate his body to Brazil. Or his father's cancer treatment - apparently he was sending money home to help his family. If we are paying for the holiday, don't we equally have an obligation to pay funeral expenses?

i feel sorry for the man who pulled the trigger and agree with previous posting about being a puppet acting under orders. he was just doing his job. he must be devastated and i don't see this holiday as a reward - it's a practical solution to dealing with the immense stress he and his family must be under. imagine having the media hounding you while you are trying to get over having killed an innocent man.

in paid leave which he may use as holidays as long as he is not receiving any extra holiday money?

Excellent point, HM.

And what would any of you had wanted him to do if you'd been sitting in that carriage with your children?

"What if" they couldn't afford to go away and the Met are worried about revenge attacks?

The authorities may want to hide him from the press in case he says something embarrassing for them. The police authorities are not known for their generosity and compassion. I would hate to be in this mans shoes.

Chandra, No need to patronise me about the workings of the police in other countries -- I have actually worked in countries such as Central America where I know police actions are not appropriate but this is backed up by corrupt politicians and governments..

I did not make any comments about being unsympathetic to the victims family either....

What I objected to was your use of the word REWARD for shooting an innocent man as if our police are commended for just knocking off a few illegals this is not the case in this country as you would well know if you were to put your prejudices down for one moment and look at the situation objectively.. imagine all the people involved in this awful situation... the family of the policemen carrying this huge burden, the people of the train, teh victims family... there are no winners so how the HELL CAN THERE BE REWARDS?

I think he shouldn't be at work, so I suppose I think he should be off on full pay. I have no idea as to his state of mind and am certainly not going to assume he is racked with remorse.

The only relevance the expired visa has to this case is that it may have increased his wariness of the police, who as I've mentioned before are not actually top banana favourites with many young non-white men in South London, although of course they are totally wrong in this.

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We don't know how he's feeling.

I imagine they wanted him (and his family) out of the way in case the press have got hold of his identity - last thing they would want at the moment is to have to send loads of police to protect him and his family

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I get the feeling some posters would be happy to see the Stocks back then you could go down to the town square with your rotten tomatoes and let the guy know how you feel personally.

there are lots of things taxpapers pay for that I don't agree with but let's not go there! give the guy a break - I wouldn't be in his shoes and to call it a 'reward' is one of the stupidest things I've every heard.

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From the BBC:

Apparently it was a female commander who gave the order to invoke the shoot to kill. I wonder whether she has been given a paid holiday??

Whilst I am baffled as to how the police should have got this so wrong, I am strangely very supportive of this guy getting a decent break before it all kicks off.

I have seen first hand the stress of profession negligence cases in my profession and I have seen how it totally destroys people

Add to that the fact that this person killed an innocent person and I feel that this person will have a very difficult few months ahead. Letting him enjoy some special time with his family now is a kindness and at the end of the day I think what makes us a civilised society!

Afterall this person will face the music soon wnough - but I wonder what will happen to those behind the scenes!

They had to do something - whatever the police commissioner authorised would be controversial to someone - he's on holiday, presumably this is cheaper than body guards etc.

I don't know what I think, but I can't think of a better alternative.

of course we are going to be paying compensation to this man's family, that's already been in the news.

Supppose you were this man - or woman, could be the one who authorised it. You've had your family holiday, couldn't afford another and were collapsing under the strain? Or they were your kids, being tormented by the press? This person is on a break to get away from home. It could be a crummy caravan in Bognor. (No offense to anyone in Bognor, just thinking of the King's comment).

This has been authorised at the highest level and they knew what the press reaction would be. So I really have to think all our police are total idiots or that this was badly needed. Never been a great fan of the police but neither do I think they are all barking mad.

The man who was shot left a flat that was under surveillance. The address was in a rucksack with a bomb that failed to detonate. He had a heavy coat with wires trailing from it and ran away from armed police onto a tube train. It was a terrible mistake. If you'd been the cop would you really have risked the lives of the people on the tube?

This police officer threw himself on top of a man he thought was a human bomb, and shot him in the head before he could detonate himself. This policeman has a wife and a family and he risked everything to save a carriage full of tube passengers. He was following an order to shoot to kill.

Blimey, if that was my husband, I would be a nervous wreck. Normal life would be impossible for a while and I would want to get away, wouldn't you? IMO he deserves a break at taxpayers' expense. If intelligence had got it right, he would probably be up for a medal for bravery. As it is, he now has to face an inquest and an inquiry.

I am sure that the procedure for repatriating the deceased and any compensation is set out in law. Any compensation probably takes into account an amount for funeral expenses.

So I think these are two separate issues which bear no relation to each other.

That poor, poor man. Whatever he did - rightly or wrongly - he did for us - all of us. Imagine waking up every day and seeing it in all the papers. He must be reliving it every day. I have absolutely no problem with him having a paid holiday - I hope he got to choose where he wanted to go and is finally getting a bit of peace. I also hope we will pay for as much councelling as he needs, and boy, is he going to need it.

As for the Brazilian and his family, I think that's quite a different issue. But I can't imagine our government making the family pay for repatriation of his body (if nothing else, the media would have a field day with that) and there has already been talk of the Met paying compensation to his family.

This thing "he threw himself on top of the man and shot him" - not according to eye witness reports.

I think we need to remember that there is an awful lot of misinformation being (deliberately?) circulated. The guy was wearing a thick jacket - I've heard 2 versions, 1 was that it was a fleece, one was that it was a denim jacket. He had wires coming out of said jacket, being an electrician. Rubbish. Electricians don't walk about permanently wired. He jumped the barrier. Channel 4 news reports say police confirmed he used his travelcard like everyone else. A woman gave the order of shoot to kill - no such order would ever come - the officer on the ground is entirely responsible for the split second decision s/he makes, s/he can't be told to shoot someone by somebody else, because there's a perfectly sensible assumption that someone sitting in an office isn't as qualified to take the decision as someone who is actually there on the spot.

The point I'm making is that until there's a proper investigation, there's an awful lot of misinformation, I believe deliberately being circulated, so that by the time the real findings come out, the facts will have been buried under a wave of urban myths about this case.

But yes, I agree the bloke probably needs a holiday. I don't begrudge him that.

Object to the media's use of the word 'holiday' which they know will immediately provoke a reaction because of the connotations of the word itself. It's the same way in which the daily mail would say that 'yobs' in care get 'holidays' at taxpayers' expense, etc.

We don't know the whole story yet - maybe never will - about the incident itself; about the man who was shot dead; about the officer's feelings and his removal from duties. The whole thing is a tragedy, as is what's happening to the climate of fear being exploited and made worse by the media.

wires coming from the jacket was taken from an eye witness report. Still those are notoriously unreliable. The officers doing the surveillance would have been ordered to shoot to kill if they thought the suspect was a risk to the police. Hence the comments about a woman commander. Clearly the actual decision at the time was made by an officer but within a policy set earlier, possibly by a female officer. You can't shoot someone in the head without getting pretty close to him and he was on the floor at the time. So in my view the officers were still being brave whther they jumped him or not.

I agree we won't get the full story until after the court hearing.

Haven't read the whole thread but I doubt he's sitting on a beach in the Maldives working on his tan, fgs. I have no problem with him having some paid time off - I can't believe it's what most of us would consider a 'holiday' though.

I bet he'd rather just be getting on with his life than having this enforced holiday.