The outcome of the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest late last year was an utter travesty and an injustice. And now we have the docudrama from ITV1, Stockwell, which follows that critical day of the 22nd July 2005.
There’s the preamble about the failed London bombings the previous day, the hunt for the bombers and the emphasis on Hussain Osman (‘Nettle tip). The pressure and tension on the cops to find the bombers, combined with public fear. In the background in the beginning and the end is the judge’s summing up from health and safety trial.
The programme went through the critical day of the 22nd July from the various briefings with John MacDowall and SO 19 Trojan 84 (‘might be required to use unusual tactics’).Again, the script came from the health and safety trial. Surveillance teams outside Scotia Road, with ‘Ken’ taking a piss while Jean Charles de Menezes leaves the multiple occupancy flat. The incompetency, no visible chain of command, technological failures, and no positive ID, which exposed a gigantic botched operation where an innocent man was shot and killed.
The programme displayed a formulaic approach. Dialogue is based on transcripts from a trial which makes watching very flat and the cops were portrayed sympathetically (dialogue based on their evidence and the veracity has since been thrown into doubt) but at the same time cops who couldn’t/wouldn’t think for themselves and desperate for orders from the chain of command.
It was haunting watching the final journey Jean Charles took without knowing anything that there was massive activity and surveillance determining his fate.
Towards the end you got the dramatic tension, radio silence where Cressida Dick is waiting anxiously while firearms teams vault over ticket barriers, racing down the escalators, and the surveillance team already on the tube. The slo-mo style where frantic firearms teams were heard shouting, ‘armed police’ (well, the inquest jury didn’t believe that was shouted!), running onto the tube where a calm Jean Charles de Menezes was sitting.
He was shot 9 times in the head, 7 bullets entering his head. The officers used 9mm 124 grain hollow point bullets (dum-dum bullets). At the end we see Sir Ian Blair peddle the lies about Jean Charles de Menezes at the press conference after the man’s death.
Politically, this docudrama paints a picture of incompetency and human error. A mere accident, a lawful killing. The cops under enormous pressure are sympathetically drawn yet don’t think beyondt heir orders. The top brass are depicted as standing around at New Scotland Yard. Technological faults, no positive identification, breakdown in communication. Why couldn’t there have been reenactments of people actually giving evidence, along with the legal proceedings and then juxtaposing it with the ongoing narrative of the 22nd.
It’s an uncontroversial programme that looks no deeper than at police incompetence and breakdown of command. No exploration of the cops attitudes such as their readiness to make assumptions, racism, poor briefings, ‘shoot to kill’, lies, and cover-ups …add all that and there could have been a more controversial potent mix that gave a much more honest and political account about why an innocent man was shot dead.
The establishment can sleep easy as regards to Stockwell.
[...] 2009 — RickB Have to wait until a recording of it makes it’s way to me tomorrow, but Harpymarx writes about it here. Posted in Media. Tags: Jean Charles de [...]
“At the end we see Sir Ian Blair peddle the lies about Jean Charles de Menezes at the press conference after the man’s death”.
I saw the drama and of course know the sequence which you are refering to above. I would like to make an observation on this. I have been trying to get access to the full Blair mid afternoon press conference of 22 July – when he (so he later claimed) did not know an innocent man had been killed.
Being an ordinary joe soap I have had no luck with accessing a full transcript which clearly must exist. I do not dispute what you say about Blair’s remarks but the footage shown in the drama was that precise portion that immediately proceded Blair’s extraordinary comment that “any death is unfortunate”. I saw his lieing remarks on 22 July 2005 also as something of a tactical diversion away from the identity of the victim after his “any death is unfortunate” comment. Because when he had said the latter you immediately conjecture – well who the hell have you shot? And we know he did not want to reveal that until he was good and ready.
Police do NOT do commiserations in such circumstances so why the very strange comment that I have recounted. I knew that night immediately I heard Blair’s commiseration of sorts that they had killed someone innocent. Blair is supposed (he claims) not to have learnt who had been killed etc., till the next day – utterly unbelievable.
Hardly uncontroversial!
For a start this programme in common with news and tv media in general wipes the name of the innocent Abdi Omar from history. The 42yr old bus driver who really did live at 21 Scotia Road (though abroad at the time) was misidentified as the 24yr old Warren Street bomber Yassin Omar. This programme “based on evidence” would have you believe police were looking in Scotia Rd for one suspect only, Hussain Osman who actually lived with his wife and children at 40 Blair House, Stockwell. When Menezes came out they were not sure at first if he could be either of two suspect members of the South Bank Gym but this programme couldn’t be bothered with any little detail like that. Osman had a joint gym membership using Omar’s address but there is not one scrap of corroborative evidence to show that he had ever been present at the block of flats in Tulse Hill.
In avoiding an unlawful killing verdict a key part of the two armed officers testimony at the inquest was that they ran down the escalator with no preconceived idea of what they would do next. They claim to have shouted a warning to which they say Menezes reacted aggressively “closing us down” and creating in their minds the “honest belief” that he “was about to explode a device”. The jury decided there was no warning and no aggressive reaction but the Coroner insisted the “belief” of imminent threat to life and limb was honestly held. Absence of that essential “honest belief” would imply unlawful killing which would in turn imply murder. Legal subtleties lost on a dumb programme like this.
I’m not sure exactly what impression this programme was trying to convey of the two firearms officers who fired the fatal shots but it appeared to show them entering the tube intent on shooting dead someone they believed to be a terrorist bomber and carrying it through without having any particular regard or honest belief as to whether there was an immediate threat of an exploding bomb or not. If that is really what the programme makers are meaning to imply then it amounts, wittingly or unwittingly on their part, to an accusation not merely of unlawful killing but premeditated murder.