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?

white and a woman!

On all trains, buses and Tubes? Ideal scenario, maybe...but not practical.

no - but looked it (to me) apparently his dad was Jamaican.

but surely "random" searches should be just that? Random. It's not "random" if you're just targetting the ethnic minorities

(I'm not saying this has been happening in Wellingborugh, but when the police here bothered to get down to the station for 3/4hr that's all they searched)

A failed one?

Not one I understand, JanH!

more

well aren't the 4 'captured' - allegedly suicide bombers???

Hardly left the scenes of explosions though, did they?

not in the UK and not a suicide bomber but he was white

Not in the UK and not a suicide bomber...bit irrelevant?

you asked about 'caucasian' suicide bombers HM.

"The question being asked is: What led a "bright and quiet" middle-class child from California to fight against his fellow Americans in a far-off country?"

The question being asked now is what led a few bright (as most of them appeared to be) people who were living in the UK turn against the people' they'd been living and working amongst for several years?

OK, wasn't clear about the UK, but still - suicide bomber?

"what led a few bright (as most of them appeared to be) people who were living in the UK turn against the people' they'd been living and working amongst for several years?"

they are being taught hatred by religious extremists - if anyone saw recent documentaries on BBC - its scarey stuff

Perhaps if you are very bright and from a relatively affluent background your mind is freed up to more idealogical idealistic thinking. This combined with naivety can be easily manipulated.

I went to Kings in London in the early 90s and can remember witnessing the beginnings of islamic fundamentalist groups targetting middle class affleunt young men. There were always protests and security being called in to get rid of them, i dated a muslim and he was targetted by one such group for deserting the cause and polluting his gene pool by being with me! There was an article in the Independent yesterday talking about similar events at another London university a few years earlier.

the man was half responsible he shouldn't have run he was obviously worried about something! fair enough they shouldn't have shot him 5 times but what if he was a suicide bomber? he should have just put his hands up and then this wouldn't have happened! if he did have explosives on him which the police suspected he did have then more lives could have been taken. i think the police did a good job.. they deserve a holiday! the man should't have been so stupid and run when he new all what was going on!

If the police had been found to be institutionally racist towards tall blondes then you might change your mind Assumedname..If as a tall blonde you were subject to constant (negative) attention and routinely discriminated against in the workplace...hang on..

loulabelle, there were another couple of threads about the Stockwell incident where people pointed out that Stockwell is a dodgy, high crime area, where running away from a man in plain clothes pointing a gun at you is fairly rational, actually. The police haven't actually said they shouted a warning, IIRC. Even if they have, they've changed their story several times (suspect/not a suspect, suspect address/not a suspect address/ heavy coat/fleece. We can't assume they shouted a warning.

And physiologically - if you are under threat, your body is flooded with adrenalin which is called the 'flight or fight' response for a reason - you either hit out or run. Your natural instincts take over and you don't act calmly and carefully. That applies to victim and policmen - that's why armed police undergo training, to try to overcome the natural effects of adrenalin.

I don't think it is justifiable to blame this poor man for running and say 'it was his own fault'. We don't know the full circumstances yet, but running away from men pointing a gun at you is a pretty normal thing to do.

Twinset, you are dead right about our naivety towards radical groups in universities. That's what the French journalist was talking about in an article on our attitude to minorities I posted on the Islam threat - she said the UK attitude to multiculturalism was wrong because we had tolerated people inciting hatred on the grounds of freedom of religion rather than seeing it as political.

Let's hope we don't go the way of the US, which kidnaps terrorist suspects and takes them to countries which practice torture. Or promotes the people responsible for torture in Abu Grahib (Rumsfelt and Rice).

HM, I think it is important to put ourselves in the shoes of this man's family, and for that to inform policy decisions. We shouldn't take decisions that target 'others' comfortable in the knowledge that we won't suffer. It's easy to say 'shoot suspects' when you know perfectly well that it is very, very unlikely that anyone you know and love is going to be the victim of that decision - see Jimjam's posts about her autistic son. He is the sort of person who may well be seen as acting oddly in a public place.

'Islam thread' not 'Islam threat'. Oops.

I was routinely discriminated against in the workplace, monkeytrousers. I am female, worked as an apprentice electrical engineer in a male-dominated workplace.

Whistles, porno mags, soft porn calendars - you can't do that, you're female etc etc etc by Asians, whites and blacks.

I don't doubt it Assumedname. There is unfortunatley a hierarchy of discrimination and women generally enter the chart under men of any race.

The police are institutionally sexist as well as racist too.

Edam, did you see Tariq Ramadan speaking on BBC news this morning? It touched on similar issues from the article.

Tariq Ramadan

Thanks MT.

By the way, I am very impressed that my post saying I didn't agree with shoot-to-kill wasn't shouted down. I was a bit nervous about saying it.

Thanks to everyone who has posted, whether you agree or disagree, for keeping this thread on course. When people feel very passionately about a subject, or feel threatened (as well all do) it would be easy for things to get heated. Try to avoid cliches, but "MN at it's best" seems not inappropriate...?

TR makes some really interesting points, btw. "I will have transmitted my values" to my kids but then their decisions are up to them sounds as if it's in the tradition of European Enlightenment rational thinking to me....