Jean Charles de Menezes verdict

I haven't read the report yet but I will. I take it that all the lines of enquiry I mentioned were followed ? Or did they just actually examined just what happened that day, without looking for prejudicial circumstancial evidence, like they did in the Tony Martin case ?Tony Martin's bizarre lifestyle and views were used by the prosecution to undermine his self-defense plea and portray him as a psychopathic killer out for vengeance. it's only fair that a similar argument is allowed to be put forward in the DeMenezes case.I undestand that the DeMenezes jury went through the presented evidence. It's just a shame that it wasn't a murder or manslaughter prosecution, like in the Tony Martin case. In both cases a young man was brutally killed, you know.After all, we wouldn't want to encourage vigilantes going around killing dark-skinned people with big jackets, as you think would happen if they didn't prosecute people who shot perceived threats (Message 103)? Because they wasted the time and money for a court case where part of the evidence was like I described, i.e. what Martin's views on burglars was, what he did to his brother and other circumstancial trivia that help prejudice the jury and distract from the main point, which is that he was confronted by two intruders at night in his house!Also, you seem to believe that shooting a held-down man seven times in the face is *not* unreasonable force. Is this correct ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

People say many things in different contexts. Some of them are hyperboles intended to make a point, some are pure bravado, some are generalisations. Even if Tony Martin did say that, that doesn't change the fact that he was confronted by two intruders, at night in his own home. Why should his claiming his intentions to defend himself and his property using what he thought to be reasonable force -as the law prescribes- be presented as evidence against him? Before I respond to that I have to ask (again): do you think the force used in the DeMenezes case was reasonable? how do you know he was not surprised? Being in fear of a possible burglary doesn't mean you're not surprised when it happens. The only way that he wouldn't be suprised would be if he had prior information that the burglars would strike that night or if he had enticed the burglars to his house. There is no evidence to indicate that either of these was the case, so I don't know how can anyone decide that Tony Martin wasn't suprised. Did he know that the person was bending over? And, if yes, was he bending over in order to pull his handgun/knife from his ankle holster?Did he know that the person was fleeing through the window and not going to pick up his gun from the car or going to get the driver? Did he know the burglar was injured?The thing is Modulous neither us, nor the jury, can answer those questions. It's just the burglars' word against Tony Martin's. The police, CPS and jury chose to take the burglars' word over his. That's what I mean by saying that the law should place the benefit of the doubt with the victim, not the aggressor.Tony Martin claimed that he was blinded and deafened by the first shot and he just kept firing. He also claimed that he wasn't aware that he'd hit anyone. Both are very plausible explanations, under the circumstances of the incident. Why does anyone have to bring up the so-called 'evidence' that he said that burglars should be shot?Say that you accidentally run someone over in your car. It turns out that he's one of the suspects in the London suicide-bomb-plot case. Should the fact that you might have once said that terrorists don't deserve to live in this country, be used as a pretext to accuse you of murder? Would that be just, fair or even relevant? I think the answer's no. I'm just asking if that line of inquiry was carried out, as happened in the Tony Martin case. I somehow doubt that it did. well, the incident with his brother doesn't appear to have been presented, but other details about his lifestyle and his views were. The judgement (para 72) says as much:

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They [jury] knew that Mr Martin was a very eccentric man indeed and that he was obsessed with the security of his home. A large part of the summing up was spent dealing with this evidence with the judge making clear the undoubted relevance of what Mr Martin believed the situation to be.

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What does it matter if he was eccentric or that he was obsessed with the security of his house. At the end of the day if the security of his house hadn't been violated he wouldn't have to react. None of this changes the fact that two strangers forced their way onto his remote house at night!Also, how can anyone say that his views on burglars and security could be relevant to the situation that particular night?! This is wrongly implying that because he said that burglars should be shot and he worried about security that he didn't experience the fear for his safety, as any of us (including the judge) would have?! How fucked up and judgemental is that?Tony Martin, like just like Albert Camus' anti-hero, was judged and convicted on his 'strangeness', his being an outspoken outsider in a self-righteous society. so you're happy to support that not prosecuting Tony Martin would encourage people to go around killing burglars, but you don't accept that not prosecuting the DeMenezes police would encourage people to go around killing suspected terrorists ?!"M'Lawd, there was this dark-skinned man on the bus, probably Arab, looking well shifty and he was wearing this loose jumper, so I stabbed him in the eye. I mean, I thought he was going to blow us all up."why the double standards? Like I said, if it emerges that one of them said something bad about Arabs or terrorists, there's your motive for a vengeance killing(latter) or racial hatred (former). The *fact* that they shot a held-down man 7 times in the face shows the 'unreasonable force' which could only derive from the emotionally-charged state of the shooter, which shows that this was a vengeance /racially-motivated execution."I put it to the court that officer A, although unsure that this was indeed the identified terrorist, gave the order to shoot Mr DeMenezes so as to send a clear message to all future terrorists"Come on, any half-decent criminal lawyer would make a meal out of incidental details like the ones I mentioned. A really good one would have the jury believe that the introduction of a police state rests exclusively on their verdict.I think we both know that if the police/CPS wanted to make an issue out of this case they could and would, they just chose not to. Now you're just putting a spin on it! This implies that he was the one who initiated the encounter, which is blatantly false. *They* were the ones who broke in his house, so he couldn't have confronted them -they confronted him, . Unless you can show that he lured them into his house or that he knew they were coming that particular night, you can't say that he confronted them. He was confronted by them.Edited by Legend, : for appearance

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Yes I know it was, but that's not what I'm asking. Do *you* find the force used in the DeMenezes case reasonable? You're expecting me to prove a negative? Like I keep saying, the benefit of the doubt should be with the householder. I'm talking about surprise as in 'someone's breaking the window of my house'. Which the evidence clearly shows happened. Or he could have been looking for something to kill Mr Martin with. You know, like burglars often do. All the evidence shows is that it's unlikely that Tony Martin fired the shots from where he said he did. The evidence doesn't and cannot show what Tony Martin felt when he was firing those shots. As the evidence also clearly shows that these men forced their way into his home at night, there is no reason to pre-suppose that Martin wasn't frightened and confused like he said he was. Like you, I or anyone else would be. So...a middle aged farmer with a shotgun, who has no military or other specialised training, makes three extremely accurate shots in the dark of the night, that even an expert would have problems replicating and therefore it's concluded that he was intent to kill ?!Can't you even see how absurd this reasoning is? If something is so improbable as to be extremely (un)lucky, guess what? it almost certainly is!Using the same flawed reasoning you should also be supporting the notion that because the origin of life is so extremely unlikely then there must be a Creator!

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Say that you accidentally run someone over in your car. It turns out that he's one of the suspects in the London suicide-bomb-plot case. Should the fact that you might have once said that terrorists don't deserve to live in this country, be used as a pretext to accuse you of murder? Would that be just, fair or even relevant? I think the answer's no.

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Modulous writes:

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No it wouldn't be relevant. Unless I knew he was a terrorist, and it could be showed that I drove off road to get to him, rather than accidentally hit him in the middle of the road after the sun glared in my eyes.

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Exactly. To you he would just be a careless pedestrian who walked out in front of your car. You didn't make him walk out in front of your car, but he did. You could have seen him a bit earlier but the sun was glaring in your eyes, so you didn't. But someone who finds your driving maybe a bit too fast or whose car you may have chipped while reverse-parking remembers what you said in passing about terrorists that night down the pub. All of a sudden you're accused of waiting for the terrorist to cross the road before driving over him. After all there's no way to prove you didn't. And the evidence shows that your car was driving at over the 30mph speed limit, a speed that you well know -thanks to the endless media bombardment- results in an increased fatality rate. The evidence also shows that you left it too late to break. So there you have it, a simple accident turned into a murder conviction for you. It would be totally unjust, nothing but a witch-hunt, don't you agree? Based on our police/judicial's rich and colourful history of miscarriages of justice. Don't make me get out the list! (...the Guildford Four anyone ?) Based on the well-documented tendency to protect their own. Suffice to mention the simple example of conviction rates for speeding offences. For police officers this is about twenty times lower than for us common plebs. There's no conspiracy here, just the very human tendency to 'look after our own' and pick on those who are 'different'. Like I said we have a long history of cases in this country which show the police doing exactly that. I hope you don't make me present them all, I don't think this web site could cope with the volume.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

well, what do you know? As the facts begin to emerge, it turns out that the police who shot De Menezes did indeed use excessive and unreasonable force to counter what they perceived as a threat. Even worse, it's now obvious that the policemen came up with a pack of lies trying to cover-up their incompetence. For example, it turns out that they didn't shout out any warnings, that De Menezes didn't move towards them, nor was he aggressive or suspicious in any way shape or form. It's also been revealed that at least one piece of evidence has been intentionally changed by police in order to falsify what really happened.It's also quite ironic, in a tragic way, that -according to one eye-witness- the one person acting nervously and suspiciously in the carriage at the time was the undercover police operative who mis-identified De Menezes just before he was shot.It'll be interesting to now see if the policemen involved are going to face a criminal trial, like the rest of us would have.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"