Summary of the incident from the Guardian:
Confusion, delay, disaster: how police got the wrong man
From a vital clue to a fatal case of mistaken identity, officers were hampered by lack of communication
Vikram Dodd Crime correspondent
Friday November 2, 2007
The Guardian
On the morning of July 22 2005, Scotland Yard was hunting four people who had tried to bomb Londonās transport system the previous afternoon. The devices failed to go off and police were in a race against time to catch the bombers before they struck again.
The force was under the most pressure it had faced in living memory. The attempted attacks, coming just a fortnight after suicide bombers had killed 52 and injured 750, had left the nation on edge.
The trial, which ended yesterday, presented new facts as to why Jean Charles de Menezes, a white Brazilian electrician was confused by police for a terrorist of east African origin. Over two years since the shooting many key questions remain unanswered or in dispute.
Why did police follow De Menezes?
In the middle of the night police made a breakthrough. One of the failed devices recovered from Shepherdās Bush underground was in a bag that contained a gym membership card belonging to one bomber, Hussain Osman. Police linked him to 21 Scotia Road, in Tulse Hill.
The breakthrough came just after 4.30am and by 5.05, Commander John McDowell had ordered surveillance teams to the south London address.
The plan
The surveillance teams were to be backed up by elite firearms officers from the SO19 unit. The aim was to stop and detain anyone emerging from the premises and to rule them out or in as being Osman. They would be stopped a safe distance from the flat, to avoid alerting any terrorists still inside the block.
The surveillance officers were from special branch and some of them were armed for their own protection. They lacked the training to enact a āstopā of a suspected determined suicide bomber.
The first problem the surveillance team ran into was that the suspectās address was in a block of eight flats and people were leaving through a shared door. The first surveillance team was outside the flats by 6am, a second team was in place by 8.33. The Met had several large operations under way that morning but 21 Scotia Road was one of the most important.
The operation was run from a special control room several miles away, based in room 1600 at New Scotland Yard. In charge was Cressida Dick, then at the rank of commander, who had vast experience in firearms operations.
Was he ever identified as the terrorist?
At 9.33 De Menezes left the flats through the communal door. There was no way for officers to tell from which flat he came. In fact he had left flat 17, which was not the suspect address.
One surveillance officer seconded from the SAS was relieving himself as De Menezes left. He was codenamed Frank and radioed in to the control room at Scotland Yard. He said he could not tell whether the person was Osman, but correctly identified him as white and as not carrying anything. He said: āIt might be worth somebody else having a look.ā
De Menezesā final journey saw him walk a few minutes and catch the No 2 bus to Brixton tube station. Surveillance officers were following him and at 9.36 an officer called Edward thought the suspect looked north African.
De Menezes took the bus to Brixton station but it was closed. He then double backed on himself and took a bus to Stockwell underground station. This innocent action was taken by some officers as a tactic to try and shake off surveillance.
According to Ms Dickās evidence, at first the reports from the team on the ground were that the man being followed was not Osman, whom police had given the codename Nettletip. That changed, and Ms Dick said she was told five times that the team thought the suspect was Osman and was told the confidence in the identification grew stronger.
Ms Dick explained the factors behind her eventual order that the subject be stopped. The first factor was the surveillance teamās repeated belief that the man was the terrorist suspect they were hunting. She added: āSecondly, from the behaviours described to me - nervousness, agitation, sending text messages, [using] the telephone, getting on and off the bus, all added to the picture of someone potentially intent on causing an explosion.ā
Was the plan followed?
Commander McDowellās plan, drawn up at 5am, stated that firearms officers from SO19 should be present to stop people emerging from the premises, but they took over four hours to be assembled, briefed, and to get in the area. One special branch officer told the jury the delay was unacceptable. It meant De Menezes could not be stopped as the plan stated.
The crownās case was that because SO19 took so long, the public was put at unnecessary risk. If De Menezes had been a suicide bomber, the delay meant he was allowed to ride two buses and get on a train.
Furthermore, according to the evidence of one surveillance officer, six people emerged from the block of flats before De Menezes and were not stopped. The police in court said the plan Commander McDowell had laid down was āfinessedā once it was realised there was a communal entrance to the flats.
The order
Ms Dick insisted she never gave an order for the man police were following that morning to be shot. She wanted him stopped before entering the tube system.
Furthermore, a special shoot to kill tactic called Operation Kratos was not ordered that morning. Kratos is a tactic developed by police to tackle suicide bombers in which officers could shoot dead a terrorist about to explode a device without shouting a warning. It had been thought the Stockwell shooting had been carried out under Kratos, but the trial revealed it had not.
The crown said that orders from the control room described the chaos. At 10.03 they were told the subject was off the bus and heading for the underground. One minute later Commander Dick ordered that he be stopped before entering the station, but with SO19 still not on the scene she ordered that the surveillance team tackle the subject, despite them being inadequately trained.
Seconds later she countermanded the order after a senior colleague told her SO19 were now at the station, and would make the stop. The firearms team went to āstate redā meaning they would intervene and arrest the suspect. In the control room they expected the suspect to be stopped outside the tube station.
But by now it was too late. De Menezes was going down a station escalator. Surveillance officers saw him pick up a free newspaper and put his ticket through the barriers. After getting on the train the Brazilian had undercover officers surrounding him, posing as commuters.
The train did not move, staying in the station because a surveillance officer jammed a carriage door with his foot. As the train waited the SO19 team hurtled down the escalators and reached the carriage.
They were not undercover, but wore caps identifying them as police officers. One had a long barrelled weapon visible. If De Menezes had been a suicide bomber he would have had ample time and warning to detonate his device, said the crown.
Why did the police open fire?
The firearms officers said they were briefed that morning that they may face a determined suicide bomber and may have to use lethal force.
They entered the carriage having heard over police radios that the man their colleagues had been following was the suspect for an attempted suicide bombing the previous day. They entered aware of the command for the suspect to be stopped.
They entered the tube carriage where they were recognised by surveillance officers, who at first quietly pointed in De Menezesā direction, then one said: āHeās here,ā and pointed again.
What happened next is still disputed by the Brazilianās family. Police say they shouted a verbal challenge at which point De Menezes stood up. An official investigation could find no independent witness on the train who heard the police shout any warning or to back up the substance of their account.
After De Menezes stood up, a surveillance officer called Ivor told the jury that he āinstinctivelyā grabbed him. He said that De Menezes arms moved downwards, heading towards his midriff, an action interpretable as a motion trying to detonate a device.
Ivor told the jury: "I grabbed Mr Menezes, wrapping both my arms around the torso, pinning his arms against his side, pushing him back to the seat with the right hand side of my head against the right hand side of his torso, pinning him to the seat.
āAfter a few moments I felt his head turn towards me. I was aware of an SO19 officer kneeling on the seat to my left. I heard a gunshot very close to my left ear and was hit by a shockwave of a gun being discharged.ā In all seven shots were fired, five hitting the back of De Menezesā head, one his shoulder.
In the chaos, running towards a man they say they believed was about to explode a bomb, the firearms officers thought even Ivor was a suspect and dragged him to the floor.
Ivor found himself facing his own colleagueās guns and told the jury: āI was aware that the long-barrelled weapon was levelled at my chest and the barrel of a gun was at my head.ā The officer said he was then wrenched out of the carriage. His arms were still in the air and he then put on his chequered police cap.
āI could hear several gunshots and shouting and screaming,ā Ivor said. āThe scene was extremely violent, extremely noisy and obviously distressing. Members of the public were emptying the carriage, obviously in distress. There was a lot of gunsmoke.ā
The train driver was chased down a darkened tunnel by armed officers, commuters screamed and fled.
Back in room 1600 at New Scotland Yard, they waited. Police radios did not work underground meaning once officers entered the station, they could not receive or ask for further instructions.
At 10.08, 35 minutes after Jean Charles de Menezes left his flat to go to work, came the message from Stockwell. The suspect had been shot.
Minutes later, Commander Dick told the jury, she began to fear that an innocent man may have been killed. Barely 15 minutes after De Menezes had been shot, an explosives expert confirmed he was not carrying a bomb, and documents on him revealed his name and identity.
