De Menezes ‘shot for 30 seconds’ to silence him? Why?

By John A Blacker
RINF Alternative News

Witness feared terrorists were attacking train as police GUNNED Brazilian, leaked statement reveals

Armed police officers under the control of “Common Purpose “ Agent Cressida Dick fired at Jean Charles de Menezes for over 30 seconds when they killed him at Stockwell tube station, according to a witness statement made to independent investigators and obtained by the Guardian Newspaper.

The witness says the shots were fired at intervals of three seconds and that she ran for her life fearing terrorists had opened fire on commuters. Indeed she was correct; police were shooting a commuter in the head at point blank range.

The murderous assassination of the innocent Brazilian, who could not have been mistaken for a suicide bomber because he was wearing only a light coloured open light denim jacket, is supposedly being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and what sort of face that will be is anybodies guess.

Much of the immediate eyewitness evidence after the shooting was covered up by the police except the fact that 7 shots were fired into the head of De Menezes – a fact which was not made public at the time.

The account from Sue Thomason, a freelance journalist from south London, gives new detail of the police “Common Purpose” murder of De Menezes:
In her statement she says: “The shots were evenly spaced with about three seconds between the shots, for the first few shots, then a gap of a little longer, then the shots were evenly spaced again.”

Mr de Menezes was murdered on July 22 on a tube train after being followed from his flat by undercover officers and soldiers who claim they were hunting terrorists.

On the morning of July 22 Ms Thomason was on her way to work, and was reading a book as the train pulled into Stockwell.

Her statement to the IPCC says: “When the tube was stationary at the platform at Stockwell I recall shouting, it was a male’s voice, it may have come from more than one male. People then started to get out of their seats and look in the direction where the shouting was coming from.

“I recall hearing gunshots… The shooting was coming from the carriage to the left of me. When I heard the gunshots I thought it was terrorists firing into the crowd. I thought about getting behind a seat… After the initial first shots… I left the carriage.”

She and other commuters started running along the platform to leave the station.
Her statement continues: “While I was making my way to the escalator I remember hearing more shots coming from behind me. I thought that I would be shot in the back… Half way up the escalator I remember looking behind me and hearing two more shots… Once I got outside the station my legs went. I would say there was 10 or 11 shots fired. The shots were … evenly spaced out (time wise).”

She says two IPCC investigators who interviewed her were equipped with a map of Stockwell tube, which had key features in the wrong place. This initially led them wrongly to challenge her account.

In an email of complaint to the IPCC she wrote: “If the people investigating such a serious matter… can’t even get the plan of the station correct for interviewees to point out where they were, then what chance does the rest of the case have?”

She also says a key detail she gave of the number of shots and the interval between them was deliberately missed out from her final statement until she insisted it be included: “I’m not anti the IPCC, I just want them to get it right.”

At the farcical Health and Safety ongoing trial Ronald Thwaites QC, representing the Metropolitan Police, told the Old Bailey: “He was shot because when he was challenged by police he did not comply with them but reacted precisely as they had been briefed a suicide bomber might react at the point of detonating his bomb.”

Mr Thwaites said most people challenged the day after London “was nearly blown to bits” would have put their hands up slowly.

Instead, he said Mr de Menezes had appeared “agitated” with his hands “held below his waist and slightly in front of him” and then “advanced to within three or four feet”.

There was a fear he might be “putting two wires together”, said the barrister.
Mr Thwaites suggested that Mr de Menezes might have reacted the way he did because he had a forged stamp in his passport and had taken cocaine, though he stressed he was not attacking the Brazilian’s character.

Speaking of the firearms team, he said: “These are not trigger-happy gunslingers ready to shoot anybody and everybody. These officers can, and do, act with restraint.”

The Metropolitan Police, which is on trial accused of a “catastrophic” series of errors leading to the death of Mr de Menezes, denies a single charge under health and safety laws.

Making his closing speech, Mr Thwaites criticised the treatment during the trial of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick (Common Purpose Agent), the officer in charge of the operation, saying: “She has been treated as badly as a common criminal.”

He added that the prosecution had been brought “without regard to the usual courtesies”.

Mr Thwaites said no individual officer was to be blamed for what happened, saying: “They all did their conscientious best. We live in a blame culture, when nothing can happen without somebody being called to account.

“What better for some people than the sport of prosecuting the police? They would wet their lips with relish at the thought of having the Commissioner himself, never mind his office, here on trial at the Old Bailey, to have the Commissioner of Police disgraced over the killing of an innocent Brazilian.

“This case should never have been brought by any conscientious prosecuting authority worth its salt, who looked coolly and calmly and comprehensively at the facts, but here we are, the Office of the Commissioner in the dock”

CCTV footage is said to show De Menezes walking at normal pace into the station, picking up a copy of a free newspaper and apparently passing through the barriers legitimately before descending the escalator to the platform and running to catch a train.

De Menezes boarded the tube train, paused, looking left and right, and sat in a seat facing the platform.