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

[edam]

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?

Haven't posted before because I feel quite indignant about it, really. These people are normal human beings, not gun toting cowboys. They are highly trained and carefully selected. Of course they are going to be distraught at their actions. Of course they need time away, I'm sure the press would just love to get their hands on them.

Do we know who is paying for Mr Menendes to be sent home?

"He had a heavy coat with wires trailing from it"

Like I said I hadn't even heard this 'eye witness' report..........but do you think that suicide bombers really walk around with wires "trailing" from their pockets?

Come to think of it, apart from walkmans etc I've never seen anyone walking around with wires 'trailing' from his pockets.......and I have a strong suspicion that if he DID have wires coming from his pockets, they would have tried to stop him LONG before he reached Stockwell Station.

Back to the whole supposing thing --- perhaps he had been listening to his walkman on the bus, got really into the music and had to stuff his headphones away in a rush - hence the wires trailing where no wires had been before.

True Flossam - although I'm suspicious of these particular 'eye witness' reports I doubt suicide bombers would be so careless to show their wires as they walked along the street (if only they were so careless then we'd be able to catch them very easily)

I agree with carla and manc mum.

The bloke who shot the victim is a victim in all this too, under orders to shoot to kill. No single person can be blamed for the death as it was a desicion taken by many people, based on lots of evidence and public policy. The guy who pulled the trigger must be going thru hell at the moment.

The point is not just that he's on paid leave, which you would expect since officers who shoot are suspended while there's an inquiry, but that the Met are paying for the holiday. Just seems unjust when the victim here is dead and his family are in poverty and facing major expense (and loss of income).

I may have some sympathy for the officer who pulled the trigger - assuming he is distressed by killing an innocent man. We don't know what his reaction is. I'm slightly suspicious because the Met reaction in other wrongful killings has been to demonise the victim in order to reassure themselves that they are the good guys. But I hope you are all right and this officer is a good human being who feels sorry for killing an innocent man, even if he believes he had no alternative given the orders and information he was acting on. I think you can do both at once - feel that you had no alternative while accepting that a terrible mistake was made and maybe things should change to minimise the risk of any more killings in similar circumstances. I'd like to believe that's how this officer feels, but I have no idea, of course.

I think its sad that an innocent man was killed but at the end of the day if I was being pursued by armed anyone! let alone police I think I would stop and put my hands up, if he'd had explosives on his body he would have blown up the police and anyone else in the vicinity, what would be the reaction if they hadn't shot him and he had done just that? Everyone would be saying, they were armed why didn't they do something? The Police are in a no win situation. Blame the terrorists not the Police, if those scum were not threatening the lives of many innocent people this wouldn't be happening. What about all those innocent people who were murdered by them on the 7th? They HAVE to have a shoot to kill policy, they can't give a terrorist the chance to detonate themselves, it only takes a second to do that.

Hang on, he wasn't entirely innocent. He may not have been a bomber, but he had been in the uk illegally since 2003 and had a forged immigration stamp in his passport. That doesn't make it ok to assasinate him, but it does mean that he wasn't entirely innocent.

My brazilian cleaner says that the police routinely do sweeps of illegals (particularly brazilians) at tube stations. Now this may or may not be true, but she believes it to be true which means that jean menezes may have believed it to be true and it would explain why he ran when he thought he was being followed by policemen.

I agree with mancmum (and others)....the poor policeman who did the shooting would have thought that he was risking his life and saving those of many others and how traumatic that would have been for him to find out that menezes was not in fact a terrorist and just an illegal immigrant. I don't blame him for needing a break for him and his family.

"He may not have been a bomber, but he had been in the uk illegally since 2003 "

SO?? Should the Australians start shooting all the Britains living over there illegaly - after all British people make up the largest number of illegal immigrants in the country!

have fainted.

Don't be ridiculous. Of course shooting illegal immigrants is not a way of dealing with things (personally don't think there should be any immigration restrictions), but it is misleading to refer to him as an innocent man. He wasn't completely innocent. He just wasn't a bomber.

and TBH that's not waht this thread about - it's about the officers 'holiday'

"but it is misleading to refer to him as an innocent man"

He was innocent of the 'crime' for which he was shot though. If someone goes to court for a crime and is found to be innocent.....we don't then so "oh but we know he's done x wrong too so he's guilty" - do we?

Strongy agree with QoQ. He was an innocent man. He was killed because the police treated him as a suicide bomber. Which we now know he wasn't. Quibbling about him not being innocent because he'd worked on a student visa, or whatever it was, is insulting, frankly. The poor man is dead.
I bet 95 per cent of the people on MN have had some trouble with the law, even if it's only speeding or parking. Doesn't mean they aren't entitled to be called 'innocent' though.

"Strongy agree with QoQ. "

OMG - I think I'd better go and lie down - this is a rare phenonomen (see I can't even spell it lol) for me to have someone agree with me

I would imagine that the police officer is having pschological de-briefing in some form or another. The rules have all been changed and a shoot to kill policy means that this will, sadly, happen again.

I don't think that the officer had any choice in this situation. He was acting on intelligence (of whatever quality) and following orders. To suggest that his holiday is a reward is cruel IMO. He will live with the knowledge that he killed this young man for the rest of his life.

'y'

Not half as cruel as shooting an innocent man dead, bubble. Reward = 'that which is given in return for good (sometimes evil), or in recognition of merit, or for performance of a service.' (Collins)

Now Ian Blair, head of the Met, is attacking Birmingham police for not shooting a suspect dead. He's already said there will be more police killings of the innocent, which hardly fills me with confidence that he's trying to limit casualties or changing anything as a result of this dreadful tragedy. Now he wants every other police force to kill suspects too. Terrifying.

"SO?? Should the Australians start shooting all the Britains living over there illegaly - after all British people make up the largest number of illegal immigrants in the country! "

Sorry to say this but I think you're losing the plot!

(just for the record - I've never seen anyone on these boards condone illegal immigrants anywhere)

Eugenius - do you have a problem with me - if so just say it.

Who were you before using the name Eugenius?

I haven't read the whole of this thread, but think I've got the gist - apologies if I'm repeating or if the thread's moved on...

I honestly don't think blaming the policeman who shot him is appropriate. Although we can't know how the policeman is coping, if it was me I would be traumatised. But we can't forget what a desperately high pressure scenario the police were working in - there simply isn't time to work out all the different possibilities - it appeared to the policemen that there was a strong probability of another suicide bomber and they took action accordingly. It's tragic that they shot someone whose only crime was being in the country illegally. But they simply didn't have time to examine all the arguments etc as MN has done here and on other threads - it was a fast moving situation that needed urgent action. If he had been a suicide bomber and had got on the train and they HADN'T taken action, they would have been slammed in any enquiry - 'we thought he probably was a suicide bomber, but we didn't have definite proof, so we waited until he detonated his bomb killing lots of people on the train' - I can guarantee there would be a whole load of threads asking for more decisive policing.

It's a horrible horrible situation, but I really don't think the policeman who pulled the trigger is to blame. If anything it's the terrorists who create a world where we have to worry about random people blowing us up.

I'm with Mancrum (sp?) et al on this one.

As far as this Police Officer was aware, he was putting his life at risk for the sake of others. It's such a shame for the man and the family at the other end, but frankly I think given the situation AT THE TIME (retrospect not being available in the heat of the moment and all), he had the makings of a hero. Had it been a suicide bomber (as he mist have thought it was), we would all be begging for him to get a reward.

Do I believe in shoot to kill? Hmm, not in mnost situations no, but when a suicide bomber is climbing onto a train- absolutely, I see no toehr option.

It does go without saying that my utmost sympathies anre with the family of the victim in this.

Tortoiseshell- IMO bang on- all the victims in this (I include policeman involved in this) were victims of the terrorists and the culture of fear they created.

And we need to wait until the investigation is over to find out who is to blame