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?

get your intelligence right

i haven't read all this thread and i have had a lot of wine to drink tonight so don't shoot me down but if your husband had been the policeman who shot the the brazilian guy then how would you feel right w?
would you be glad he had some time at home to get over the tremendous shock of having killed someone or would you be saying ' well this guy is innocent?'
the police are doing the best job they can do the last thing they need is people slagging them off and undermining them at a time like this.
we don't live in a country where people are being shot by the police left right and centre- give them a break ffs.

So, back to the original point ( well sort of)... will anyone be demoted? be punished? or be held to account for this?

(and again... I am not talking about whoever pulled the trigger)

Somehow, I doubt it.

Caligula, I think (IIRC) someone was asked this question a few days ago on MN.

For me, YES, I would feel angry, YES, of course I would feel complete sorrow about him, my sister and his children, but I'd just count my blessings that my whole family hadn't been murdered.

Does that make sense?

alexsmum- we aren't blaming the police.

assumedname - I know that's what I said - but the thread HAS since moved on.

"I would have thought anyone - in these difficult days - would not object to being searched whatever their ethnicity - its for everyone's benefit"

Well when it's only the ethnic minorities being searched he did admit to feeling somewhat uncomfortable - especially the looks he (and others that were searched) had once they'd boarded the train.

QoQ - I thought it had 'moved on' before, when you didn't.

sticks tongue out at assumedname and runs off to the other controversial thread

If the bombers were tall, blonde women, then I would not object to being searched as a potential suspect.

Damn, must have missed that one.

sorry QoQ - rather feeling uncomfortable for a few minutes than a major catastrophe.

we all get our bags x-rayed and some of us (it happened to me recently) frisked at the airport - no-one objects because its for our own safety

if the bombers had been tall brunette women with wonky smiles then i would not care how many times i was stopped and if i had police vfollowing me saying stop i would stop not run away onto a a tube train.

"if the bombers were tall, blonde women, then I would not object to being searched as a potential suspect."

Perhaps not - but if it was ONLY the tall blonde women being searched you may feel somewhat put out (especially as the police have been quoted as saying EVERYONE should accept being searched). Just because they fit the "current" description for the terrorists doesn't mean that other people wouldn't also be involved

We're back to the much-reviled 'Sus' law here. Police are not likely to be searching caucasian grannies for firearms/bombs are they? Before anyone jumps down my throat, I do realise that Islammic militants come in all different nationalities/guises.

So IMO it comes down to this. The rights of an innocent Asian/African/Balkan-looking bloke to walk along a tube station platform with his back-pack full of books without being searched by The Transport Police. Or for the police to search every 'likely looking' passenger before they board a train/tube. If I were that innocent bloke with books in my rucksack I suspect I would choose the latter. Better to suffer the humiliation of a routine search and sit in a tube/train carriage safe in the knowledge that I'm not going to be killed than to insist that I and every other likely -looking person isn't searched and take the chance. Humiliation or death? I know which I'd choose.

QoQ, was he there all day? Did he see everyone who was searched?

"sorry QoQ - rather feeling uncomfortable for a few minutes than a major catastrophe. "

Actually the trian from Wellingborough to London takes 1hr - he said straight out if they'd been searching people from ALL racial backgrounds it would't be so bad - but targetting ONLY the ethnic minorities could quite easily cause even more distrust!

"QoQ, was he there all day? Did he see everyone who was searched?"

He got the busiest morning train to London the 2nd one (there's only 3 that get there in time for most with 'city jobs' to get there one time). Wellingborough now has a very large number of commuters now (because house prices are so cheap LOL) - another friend of mine took the 3rd train - and they'd stopped searching by then!

No, I wouldn't feel put out if only tall, blonde women were being searched, if the police were on the look-out for women like that. It only makes sense.

I have been frisked prior to flying and not found it humiliating - rather reassuring that the authorities were doing a good job.

How many Caucasians have been suicide bombers?

none - yet.....

and the police themselves have said that people from ALL races should be stopped and searched randomly. It makes sense - if you start making a massive thing of ONLY searching ethnic minorities that's only going to serve to widen the already growing mistrust of the police!

If they have limited resources (which they do) and time (again, they do), should they prioritise who they search?

Wasn't Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, going to be one? Was he white?

Not saying they should, btw - agree with it provoking mistrust. Just asking the question.