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57238 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Edmond%20Yu | Shooting of Edmond Yu | Edmond Wai-Hong Yu (; October 2, 1961 – February 20, 1997) was a Hong Kong Canadian former medical student whose death after being shot by a constable of the Toronto Police Service sparked debates about the police's use of force, mental illness, and the treatment of those diagnosed with a mental illness.
Early life and mental illness
Yu was raised in Hong Kong and immigrated to Canada in 1982. While young, Edmond won the Hong Kong city boxing championship. He attended York University from 1982 to 1984, studying pre-medicine. In 1984 he was accepted as a medical student at the University of Toronto.
In 1985, police arrested Yu and took him to the Clark Institute of Psychiatry, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Death
On February 20, 1997, Yu assaulted a woman at a bus stop, then boarded a bus. Police attempted to board the bus, at which point Yu, according to witnesses, raised a small hammer. Constable Lou Pasquino fired six shots, hitting Yu three times.
An official inquest in 1998–1999 cleared the police of wrongdoing and resulted in a number of recommendations. The inquest concluded, "Housing is a mental health issue and the absence of decent housing is a major determinant of health."
A foundation to fund "a housing project for homeless men with mental health problems" has been set up in Edmond Yu's name. There have been a number of other memorials to Yu, such as Edmond Place (part of Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre, which claims to be "a low-stress, high support, and non-medical organization for psychiatric survivors of the Mental Health System who also experience homelessness and would be considered 'hard to house' people", and The Edmond Yu Project.
David Hawkins made a documentary on Yu, The Death and Life of Edmond Yu, and Laura Sky made a documentary as well, Crisis Call.
References
Ann Curry-Stevens, An Educator's Guide for Changing the World: Methods, Models and Materials for Anti-oppression and Social Justice Workshops (Centre for Social Justice), p. 29
External links
9th Annual Edmond Yu Memorial
10th Annual Edmond Yu Memorial
https://web.archive.org/web/20120502141859/http://archive.ww3.tvo.org/video/176664/edmond-yu-clash-schizophrenia-and-homelessness The Death and Life of Edmond Yu
1961 births
1997 deaths
1997 in Toronto
1997 crimes in Canada
Canadian people of Chinese descent
Crime in Toronto
Deaths by firearm in Ontario
February 1997 events in Canada
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Canada
People with schizophrenia
Toronto Police Service |
1093498 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Victoria%20Snelgrove | Shooting of Victoria Snelgrove | Victoria E. Snelgrove (October 29, 1982 – October 21, 2004) was an American journalism student at Emerson College in Boston, who died after being shot by officer Rochefort Milien of the Boston Police Department using a less-lethal weapon. The shooting took place following the victory of the Boston Red Sox over the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series. In 2005, the city of Boston reached a $5.1 million wrongful death settlement with Snelgrove's family. After filing a wrongful death suit for $10 million against FN Herstal (the manufacturer of the weapon), the family agreed to an out-of-court settlement in June of 2006; the final amount of the settlement was not disclosed.
Incident
In the early hours of October 21, 2004, after the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in Game 7 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, the Boston Police Department took action around Fenway Park to control a crowd that had gathered, some of whom were throwing bottles at the police. Approximately 90 minutes after the game ended, officer Rochefort Milien shot Snelgrove with an FN 303 blunt trauma / pepper spray projectile. Snelgrove, who was not acting in an unruly manner, was not Milien's intended target; he had fired at a different person in the crowd. The crowd-control projectile hit Snelgrove in the eye, causing her to bleed heavily. Ambulances were blocked by the excessive crowds, which still refused to clear the area, preventing prompt medical attention from arriving from the dense medical area only a half-mile (0.8 km) away.
Snelgrove died at 12:50 p.m. EDT at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, about 12 hours after being shot. According to the autopsy, the pellet opened a three-quarter-inch (1.9 cm) hole in the bone behind the eye, broke into nine pieces, and damaged the right side of her brain.
Boston's Police Commissioner, Kathleen O'Toole, placed Milien on paid leave. O'Toole later attended the hour-long funeral on October 26, 2004, at St. John's Catholic Church in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, along with Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino and Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney.
Investigation and aftermath
Commissioner O'Toole accepted the police department's responsibility, while condemning the "punks" who turned the event into a near-riot as the real cause. The investigation into Snelgrove's death was led by Donald K. Stern, a former United States Attorney best known for prosecuting mob figures, including fugitive Winter Hill Gang leader James "Whitey" Bulger. Through the investigation, Officer Milien was identified as the person who fired the shot that killed Snelgrove. The report from the investigation outlined 12 recommendations for the Boston Police Department, including a review of use-of-force policies and improved training for less-lethal weapons. On May 2, 2005, the city of Boston announced a $5.1 million wrongful death settlement for her family's lawsuit.
On September 12, 2005, the district attorney for Suffolk County, Daniel F. Conley, announced that he would not prosecute any of the officers involved. Four days later, Commissioner O'Toole demoted the police superintendent who was in charge the night of the shooting to captain and suspended two officers, including Milien, for 45 days without pay. The deputy superintendent outside Fenway Park at the time of the incident was also criticized for poor decisions that led to Snelgrove's death, but had already retired. , Officer Milien was still on the Boston police force.
The weapon that killed Snelgrove was manufactured by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN Herstal). Because of the incident, several police forces, such as the Seattle Police Department, discontinued use of this weapon. In June of 2006, a $10 million wrongful death suit between FN Herstal and the Snelgrove family was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Boston police never used their FN 303s again, and destroyed them in 2007, stating that they were more powerful and lethal than had been anticipated.
Memorials
Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan dedicated their book, Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle The Historic 2004 Season, to Snelgrove; the dedication reads simply: "For Victoria Snelgrove, Red Sox fan." Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon stated that he would have traded Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS to have her back.
Snelgrove's parents established the Victoria Snelgrove Memorial Fund, "a non-profit organization to carry forward her spirit and concern for others," which awards scholarships to students at East Bridgewater High School and Emerson College. In April 2018, a skatepark in East Bridgewater was opened and named after Snelgrove.
Notes
References
Further reading
"Boston police accept 'full responsibility' in death of Red Sox fan", CNN. October 22, 2004.
"Violence Denounced in Eulogy for College Student" The New York Times. AP. October 27, 2004
"Video clip records fatal Fenway shooting", The Boston Globe. November 13, 2004.
"Stern Commission Report criticizes Boston Police in Snelgrove death" The Berkeley Beacon. Michael Corcoran. June 3, 2005
"In Snelgrove files, officers recount night of chaos" The Boston Globe, September 21, 2005
External links
Victoria Snelgrove Memorial Fund
Boston Police Department
Boston Red Sox
October 2004 events in the United States
Law enforcement in Massachusetts
Accidental deaths in Massachusetts
Deaths by firearm in Massachusetts
Deaths by person in the United States |
1127564 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Harry%20Stanley | Shooting of Harry Stanley | Henry Bruce Stanley (2 May 195322 September 1999) was a Scottish painter and decorator who was shot dead by the Metropolitan Police in London in contentious circumstances. Initially his death was recorded with an open verdict, before being ruled as unlawful killing by a jury on appeal and finally returned to an open verdict by the High Court.
Background
Stanley was born in Bellshill, near Glasgow, Scotland, where he lived for the first 19 years of his life. He moved to London in the early 1970s in search of work, and married his childhood sweetheart, Irene. They had three children, and grandchildren, and lived in Hackney, east London. He had a previous criminal record, being convicted of armed robbery in 1974, and had served 4 years in prison for grievous bodily harm. This was unknown to the police officers who responded to the call about "an Irishman with a gun wrapped in a bag". The 46-year-old painter and decorator had recently been released from hospital after an operation for colon cancer at the time of his death.
Shooting
On 22 September 1999, Stanley was returning home from the Alexandra Pub in South Hackney carrying, in a plastic bag, a table leg that had been repaired by his brother earlier that day. Someone had phoned the police to report "an Irishman with a gun wrapped in a bag".
At the junction of Fremont Street and Victoria Park Road in South Hackney, close to his home, Inspector Neil Sharman and PC Kevin Fagan, the crew of a Metropolitan Police Armed Response Vehicle challenged Stanley from behind. As he turned to face them, they shot him dead at a distance of 15 feet (5 m).
Hearings
First inquest
The first inquest jury in 2002 returned an open verdict. Stanley's family were unhappy with this outcome, particularly as the coroner, Dr. Stephen Chan, had only allowed the jury to return either a verdict of lawful killing or an open verdict.
Judicial review
Stanley's widow, Irene, petitioned the High Court and succeeded in obtaining a judicial review of the first inquest. On 7 April 2003 Mr. Justice Sieber ordered a fresh inquest after ruling that there had been an "insufficient inquiry".
During the new hearing, coroner Dr. Andrew Reid heard that the two officers fired the shots after being given wrong information in a tipoff; they had been told that Stanley was carrying a weapon and had an Irish accent. The new jury returned a verdict, in November 2004, of unlawful killing, which resulted in the suspension of the officers involved.
In protest at the suspensions, over 120 out of the 400 Metropolitan Police officers authorised to use firearms handed in their firearms authorisation cards, with Glen Smyth, a Police Federation spokesman saying, "The officers are very concerned that the tactics they are trained in, as a consequence of the verdict, are now in doubt." The officers' suspensions were lifted shortly afterwards.
High Court
In May 2005 the High Court decided that there was "insufficient evidence" for the verdict of unlawful killing, overturning it and reinstating the open verdict of the first inquest. Mr. Justice Leveson also decided a third inquest should not be held, but added his weight to calls for reform of the inquest system. Glen Smyth described the ruling as "common sense", but the campaign group Inquest was disappointed, saying the verdict sent "a message that families cannot have any confidence in the system. They feel they cannot get justice when a death in custody occurs."
Police action
On 2 June 2005 the two officers involved in the shooting were arrested and interviewed, following an investigation by Surrey Police involving new forensic evidence. The Crown Prosecution Service decided in October 2005 not to press charges, saying that they "concluded that the prosecution evidence is insufficient to rebut the officers' assertion that they were acting in self defence".
On 9 February 2006 the Independent Police Complaints Commission published their report into the incident, recommending that no further disciplinary action be taken against the officers. Representatives of the Stanley family expressed their "bitter disappointment" and stated the case was a failure of the criminal justice system. The Metropolitan Police Federation stated, "We are, of course, delighted by the vindication of the officers. But we remain deeply disturbed at the way the whole matter has been handled." The report did make notable recommendations to the police in the post-incident procedure to be followed after a shooting.
See also
Police use of firearms in the United Kingdom
References
1999 deaths
1999 in London
Deaths by firearm in London
Deaths by person in London
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom
September 1999 events in the United Kingdom
Metropolitan Police operations |
1183023 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Nicholas%20Green | Shooting of Nicholas Green | Nicholas Green (September 9, 1987 – October 1, 1994) was an Anglo-American boy who was shot and killed in an attempted car robbery while vacationing with his family in Southern Italy. Robbers mistook their family car for a jeweller's. When Nicholas died, his parents chose to donate his organs. Five people received his major organs, and two received a cornea transplant.
Death
Nicholas Green, his sister, Eleanor Green, and their parents, Margaret and Reginald Green, were having a holiday in Calabria, Southern Italy. On the night of September 29, 1994 his parents were driving on the A3 motorway between Salerno and Reggio Calabria. They stopped at an Autogrill, where two men started following their car, believing they were jewellers. The men pulled up alongside the Greens' vehicle and shouted something in Italian, which the Greens did not understand. Reginald Green accelerated, at which point the men fired shots into the rear of the car. He accelerated a second time, and once again the men shot into the back of the car. After the pursuers gave up, Reginald stopped the car, and at this point he and Margaret realized that Nicholas had been shot in the head. They drove directly to the nearest town, but the hospital was not equipped to deal with Nicholas' injuries. The police took the family to Villa San Giovanni, where they transferred to a ferry which brought them across the Strait of Messina to the port of Messina. From there, the police took them to a specialist head injuries unit at a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead the next day.
Aftermath
Family
In May 1996 the Greens had twins, a girl (Laura) and a boy (Martin). Since their loss, the Greens have been strong supporters of organ donation and they have been traveling throughout the world to spread the message of donation and tell their story.
Aftermath in Italy
Following their decision of donating Nicholas' organs, Nicholas' parents were received by Italy's President (Oscar Luigi Scalfaro). They were awarded Italy's highest honour for civilians "Medaglia d'Oro al Merito Civile". After Nicholas' death, donation rates increased dramatically in Italy, a country where organ donations had been among the lowest in Europe. According to 2017 data, organ donations in Italy have more than tripled since. Many elementary schools as well as city locations/addresses all over the country were named after Nicholas.
Trial
Following the shooting, Italian police arrested two Mafia men on November 2, 1994, Francesco Mesiano and Michele Iannello. They were tried in Catanzaro by a court consisting of three judges, and on January 17, 1997 they were found not guilty. Reginald Green had been unable to identify them, as the shooters had both been wearing masks, and it was dark. However, a year later, with no new evidence, an appellate court with a jury convicted the pair. Iannello was sentenced to life imprisonment and Mesiano was sentenced to 20 years. This decision was upheld by Italy's supreme court in 1999.
Organ donation
After Nicholas' death, donation rates increased dramatically in Italy, a country where organ donations had been among the lowest in Europe. According to 2017 data, organ donations in Italy have more than tripled since. Nicholas' name continues to be associated with organ donation, and is acknowledged as the most famous organ donor in the world. The result of his parents' decision has been called "The Nicholas Effect" (l'Effetto Nicholas) and refers not only to organ donation but also to everything good that emerged from the tragedy.
Memorials
A memorial bell tower (The Children's Bell Tower) has been built in Bodega Bay, California in memory of Nicholas Green and all the children, using more than 140 bells sent to the Greens from individuals, families, schools, and churches all over Italy. The monument, set in Bodega Bay, where Nicholas and his family lived, has become a place of pilgrimage as well as a tourist attraction. The central bell, donated by the Marinelli Foundry, that has been making bells for the Papacy for more than 1000 years, was blessed by Pope John Paul II. It has the names of the seven recipients of Nicholas' organs inscribed on it. The monument is the work of San Francisco sculptor Bruce Hasson.
Another sculpture, called "The Birds", has been donated by the Greens to the Calabria Region and is located at the Regional Council Palace. It depicts seven birds (like Nicholas' organs that were donated and the number of the recipients) made of steel, floating in a sort of tower. This monument is also the work of Bruce Hasson. He used the steel of guns confiscated by the San Francisco Police Department.
An educational video has been made out of their story, called 'The Nicholas Effect'. It is currently shown in hospitals all around the United States and is used by procurement organizations, hospitals, churches, to spread a message of solidarity and the importance of donation. It tells the story of Nicholas, how his organs saved the lives of seven very sick Italians, and how this thing changed the attitude of a whole country towards organ donation.
Since Nicholas died, organ donation rates in Italy have more than tripled, bringing Italy from being at the bottom among European Countries in donation to one of the top of the list (currently Italy is second, after Spain, as far as organ donation rates).
Reginald Green wrote two books: the first called "The Nicholas Effect" ("Il Dono di Nicholas", in Italian) and the second called "The Gift that Heals" ("Il Dono che Guarisce", in Italian), published jointly with UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) - the non-profit organization that manages the United States's organ transplant system under contract with the federal government.
Both books have been highly acclaimed by media and specialists of organ donation all around the world . They are used in nursing schools, hospitals, churches, since the books are considered a complete and useful work on organ donation.
The Greens also established an annual scholarship for primary and middle school children in the United States that is awarded to a distinguished student in each state. The award is managed by the NAGC (the National Association for Gifted Children).
The World Transplant Game Federation dedicated to Nicholas Green the ski race for transplanted children: it is the "Nicholas Cup". It has been held in Nendaz, Switzerland in 2001, Bormio in Northern Italy in 2004, Poland in 2005, Rovaniemi, Finland in 2008, Anzere, Switzerland in March 2012 and La Chapelle D'Abondance France in January 2014.
In 1998, a TV movie, Nicholas' Gift, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Alan Bates, was based on the event.
Several schools, streets, gardens and squares in Italian cities have been named or renamed in honor of Nicholas Green. For the full list of places named for Nicholas Green in Italy and a map, visit Map of places named for Nicholas in Italy.
Location
The Children's Bell Tower is located in Bodega Bay, off Route 1. GPS (N 38° 20.448 W 123° 03.126)
References
External links
The Nicholas Green Foundation
The Nicholas Effect; Reginald Green's Blog on his son Nicholas and organ donation topics: The Nicholas Effect
National Association for Gifted Children-Nicholas Green Distinguished Student National Award
Deaths by firearm in Italy
Deaths by person in Italy
Health in Italy
Transplantation medicine
People from Sonoma County, California
1987 births
1994 deaths
People murdered in Italy
American people murdered abroad
Murdered American children
Organ transplant donors
Incidents of violence against boys |
1789460 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Kendra%20James | Shooting of Kendra James | Kendra James was a 21-year-old African-American Oregonian mother of two, who was fatally shot by police on May 5, 2003. The incident sparked a controversy over the use of deadly force by the Portland Police Bureau in Portland, Oregon.
James was a passenger - who also had an outstanding warrant for her arrest - stopped by Portland police officers Rick Bean, Kenneth Reynolds, and Scott McCollister. The driver, Terry Jackson, was arrested and placed in a squad car after he was discovered to have an outstanding warrant. After he and another passenger in the car were removed peaceably by the officers, James jumped from the back seat into the driver's seat. McCollister then made several unsuccessful attempts to remove James while partially within the vehicle through an open door. He claimed to have tried to pull James out by her hair, and also attempted to use a Taser. He said that he had also attempted to use pepper spray to subdue James, but was unable to operate the canister; an investigation by the Portland Police Bureau found McCollister's pepper spray canister was operational, but no traces of spray were found. McCollister drew his firearm and held it to James' head, demanding she exit the vehicle. McCollister said he then felt the car move and, concerned that he could have fallen out and been run over, fired a single shot.
The James family's lawyers questioned whether evidence existed regarding James attempting to move the car, and whether the tactics McCollister used, especially his attempt to enter the car (McCollister said that he was 80% in the car), were consistent with police training. Several witnesses alleged that McCollister did not fire while within the car; powder residue testing indicated that McCollister's handgun was at least 30 to 48 inches away from James when discharged, a fact which lawyers for James' family alleged was inconsistent with McCollister's version of events. Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schrunk declined to hold a public inquest into James' death.
References
Year of birth missing
2003 deaths
People from Portland, Oregon
Deaths by firearm in Oregon
Law enforcement in Oregon
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
African-American history in Portland, Oregon
African-American history of Oregon
Victims of police brutality in the United States
Portland Police Bureau |
2197521 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Daniel%20Rocha | Shooting of Daniel Rocha | Daniel Rocha (died June 9, 2005) was an 18-year-old who was shot and killed in southeast Austin, Texas by police officer Julie Schroder, a seven-year veteran of the Austin Police Department, on June 9, 2005. The officer was responding to a report of drug trafficking when she pulled over a dark Chevrolet Suburban carrying Rocha and two others.
Events
According to officers reports, soon after being pulled over near the intersection of South Pleasant Valley Road and Quicksilver Boulevard, a scuffle between Rocha and Officer Julie Schroeder took place.
It was during this time when Schroeder shot Rocha in the back at point blank range. Schroder's testimony was that she used lethal force to protect both officer Sgt. Don Doyle and herself from a taser gun, which, she argued, Rocha could have used. Witnesses at the scene say that he was on the ground face down, unarmed, with Officer Schroeder's knee in his back when he was shot at point blank range.
Austin Police Department Policy provides that cameras in patrol cars be on during traffic stops. Three police cars participated in the stop, yet two of the three available cameras were not on during the incident and the third arrived after Rocha was shot.
Multiple tests were conducted on Rocha to determine whether narcotics were in his blood the night he was killed. Rocha was initially reported drug-free by Travis County Medical Examiner Robert Bayardo. On July 18, 2005, Bayardo reversed this position, stating investigators found traces of marijuana in a "subsequent toxicology screen". This reversal resulted in criticism against the findings from some members of the community.
Aftermath
Julie Schroeder was fired from the Austin Police Department for violating multiple department policies during the incident, including her failure to use in-car recording equipment and improper use and handling of taser weapons. Schroeder's use of deadly force was found to be inappropriate. Stan Knee—chief of the Austin Police Department—stated "this was a deadly force encounter that, in my opinion, was avoidable".
In June 2005, the city of Austin agreed to a $1million settlement in a lawsuit related to the death of Daniel Rocha.
References
2005 deaths
People from Austin, Texas
Deaths by firearm in Texas
Latino people shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
1980s births
Law enforcement in Texas
History of Austin, Texas |
2308525 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20James%20Ashley | Shooting of James Ashley | James Ashley was a British man shot dead by police at his flat in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on 15 January 1998, while unarmed and naked. Armed officers had been sent to raid the flat based on reports that Ashley kept a firearm and a quantity of cocaine there, and to arrest Ashley and another man in connection with a stabbing. No firearm or significant quantity of drugs was found, the other man was not present, and it later emerged that Ashley was not implicated in the stabbing. Ashley, likely woken by the noise of the raid, was out of bed when an officer entered his bedroom. On seeing the officer, Ashley raised one arm and the officer reacted by firing a single shot. Later that morning Sussex Police's chief constable, Paul Whitehouse, held a press conference in which he praised the conduct of the operation.
Two inquiries were held by outside forces under the auspices of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), both of which strongly criticised the raid. The first found that the use of armed officers breached national guidelines, that the raid team had been inadequately trained, and that the officers in charge of it had received no training for their roles and had misrepresented intelligence in order to gain authorisation for the operation. The second inquiry accused Whitehouse, Deputy Chief Constable Mark Jordan, and Sussex's two assistant chief constables of colluding to obstruct the first. It suggested that Whitehouse knowingly gave false statements in his press conference, and recommended criminal charges against three of the four. The officer who shot Ashley was charged with murder in 2001 but acquitted on the grounds of self-defence. The officers who led the operation were charged with misconduct in public office and were also acquitted. No criminal charges were brought against the chief officers, but Jordan and Whitehouse both faced disciplinary proceedings. Jordan was suspended and allowed to retire in 2001. Whitehouse resigned in the same year under pressure from the Home Secretary, David Blunkett. His successor publicly apologised to Ashley's family in 2003.
Ashley's father and son sued the police for negligence and battery, in Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex Police. The police offered to settle all damages under the action for negligence and the other claims were struck out at the High Court, which the family appealed. The case reached the House of Lords (then the United Kingdom's highest court), where the appeal was successful. The lords confirmed that the threshold for a plea of self-defence in a civil case was higher than in a criminal one and that it was for the litigants, not the judge, to decide which causes of action to pursue, even where no further damages were available.
Ashley's death has been compared to other mistaken police shootings, including those of Stephen Waldorf, John Shorthouse, Harry Stanley, and Jean Charles de Menezes. It was one of the cases considered in a 2003 report by the PCA which recommended stronger control of armed operations and equipping armed officers with non-lethal alternatives such as tasers.
Prelude
James "Jimmy" Ashley was a 39-year-old man from Liverpool living in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. He was suspected by Sussex Police of being involved in the distribution of heroin, and the police had heard unsubstantiated rumours that he owned a gun. Ashley and a group of friends occupied three of the six flats in a converted house in Western Road. The police placed the building under surveillance in October 1997, though the operation was wound up without producing any substantive evidence.
On 7 January 1998, Ashley was present when Thomas "Tosh" McCrudden, a friend he had been drinking with, stabbed and seriously wounded another man in an argument outside a pub in Hastings town centre. Ashley's only involvement was to pull McCrudden away from the victim. In the following week, armed officers were deployed to pursue several leads but failed to apprehend McCrudden. Officers believed McCrudden was staying in the Western Road house and formulated a plan to raid it. Detectives obtained a search warrant based on a tip-off from an officer in the regional crime squad that a large quantity of cocaine had been delivered to the house, and the plan to use armed officers was authorised by the deputy chief constable, Mark Jordan, based on the rumour that Ashley had a firearm. The officers conducting the raid were briefed that McCrudden was dangerous and known to be in the flats and about the potential firearm. They were also told, incorrectly, that Ashley was wanted for shooting a man in Eastbourne and had a previous conviction for attempted murder. At the time, it was the largest firearms operation in the force's history, using 25 armed officers.
Shooting
On 15 January, at approximately 04:30, officers from Sussex Police executed a search warrant on the Western Road house. The operation had three stated objectives—the apprehension of McCrudden, the retrieval of the cocaine, and the seizure of the firearm. It used a technique known as "Bermuda", which was originally designed for hostage-rescue operations but had become standard in Sussex Police for rapid entry operations to secure evidence. The technique was known to be high-risk as it involved lone officers rapidly entering an assigned room before calling in backup if a threat was found, and had previously been criticised in the media, while other police forces had discontinued its use. Only four of the six occupants of the flats were the target of the raid, but the police did not have details of which occupants lived in which of the flats. The police also lacked plans for the building, which hampered the raid when they encountered a locked internal door. Once opened, the door blocked the entrance to Ashley's flat, further delaying the officers.
Ashley had been naked in bed when his girlfriend woke him to investigate a noise, likely caused by police forcing doors in the building. As he moved towards the door of his darkened bedroom, he suddenly encountered one of the officers. Ashley raised his arm, to which the officer reacted by firing a single shot at a range of about . Ashley was hit in the armpit and the bullet travelled to his heart, killing him almost immediately. At the conclusion of the raid, no firearms or significant quantity of drugs (only a small quantity of cannabis) was found. Three men in two other flats were arrested but McCrudden was not among them and none were wanted by the police; all three were later released without charge. On the day of the raid, Sussex Police's chief constable, Paul Whitehouse, held a press conference at which he announced that Ashley had been wanted for attempted murder. He praised the conduct of the operation, and claimed that the deployment of armed officers had been justified and necessary.
Inquiries
An inquiry was launched by neighbouring Kent Police under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), and led by Barbara Wilding, an assistant chief constable. Two police constables (including PC Christopher Sherwood, the officer who shot Ashley) were suspended, along with three more senior officers—a superintendent and two inspectors. Two superintendents from other police forces, experts on police firearms policy, gave evidence to the Kent Police inquiry that the operation did not follow national guidelines for police use of firearms, and that the use of armed officers was not necessary to apprehend McCrudden as there was no evidence that he had access to firearms; further, if a firearm was believed to be in the flat, the preferable tactic would have been to arrest the suspects on the street rather than send police officers into the building. The investigation further found that the use of armed officers in earlier attempts to arrest McCrudden also breached national guidelines, in that senior officers improperly granted authority for the use of firearms, and that on several occasions armed officers deployed without authorisation at all.
The inquiry revealed that neither the police officer in charge of the manhunt for McCrudden (the incident commander) nor the intelligence commander on the operation were adequately trained for their roles and that they had been warned against the use of the "Bermuda" tactic by national experts because it presented too high a risk for the stated objectives, and that the police had failed to prepare for the operation by obtaining plans for the building and details of other occupants. It also emerged that the officers deployed on the raid had never trained as a group in the use of the tactic, and that Sherwood had never been trained in it individually. The Kent inquiry concluded that the basis for the raid was "not merely exaggerated, it was determinably false" and that the officers involved in its planning had "concocted" the evidence or planned to misrepresent it in order to justify the operation.
The PCA commissioned a second inquiry, convened in August 1998 and chaired by Sir John Hoddinott, chief constable of Hampshire Constabulary, to investigate the conduct of Sussex's chief officers, after Wilding's report accused them of obstructing her investigation. Hoddinott interviewed Whitehouse, Jordan, and Sussex's two assistant chief constables, Nigel Yeo and Maria Wallis, over allegations that they had misled the original inquiry by claiming that they could not recall key details and that they had misrepresented the intelligence that led to the raid. The Hoddinott inquiry suggested that the incident commander and intelligence commander both knew that neither McCrudden nor the cocaine were in the building, or that they at least exaggerated the strength of the intelligence, in order to bolster their case for authorisation to the deputy chief constable. In particular, the tip off from the regional crime squad was in fact in relation to a potential drugs shipment to an unrelated address, the belief that McCrudden was inside was exaggerated from a report of an unidentified man entering the building, and the report of a firearm was based on nothing more than rumour.
Hoddinott sharply criticised Whitehouse and the press conference he held on the day of the raid, in which, according to the report, Whitehouse "wilfully failed to tell the truth as he knew it; he did so without reasonable excuse or justification and what he published and said was misleading and therefore likely to injure the public interest". His report suggested there was "evidence of collusion between some or all of the chief officers" of Sussex Police to conceal what they already knew at the time of the press conference (that Ashley was unarmed, that no significant quantity of drugs had been found, and that McCrudden was not present), and that "an arguable case of attempting to pervert the course of justice might be made out", though he concluded that a charge of misconduct in public office was more credible. Hoddinott also accused Jordan of malfeasance, discreditable conduct, and supporting Whitehouse's false statements, and Yeo, one of the assistant chief constables, of malfeasance.
Prosecutions and disciplinary proceedings
Sherwood was charged with murder and tried at the Old Bailey in London in 2001, but was acquitted after the trial judge, Mrs Justice Anne Rafferty, directed the jury to find him not guilty. Sherwood claimed self-defence, telling the court that he feared for his life, believing—based on the briefing for the operation—that Ashley's outstretched arm was holding a firearm and was about to shoot. In directing the jury, the judge stated that no evidence had been presented that Sherwood fired other than in self-defence, and in her summing up suggested that "those who should be held accountable were not present" in her court. The superintendent and two inspectors suspended after the first inquiry were then prosecuted for misconduct in public office in relation to their planning and execution of the raid. The prosecution alleged that the three had deliberately failed to give an accurate representation of the intelligence but all three were found not guilty at Wolverhampton Crown Court when the Crown Prosecution Service declined to offer any evidence. Nigel Sweeney, prosecuting, told the court that the depth of "corporate failing" within Sussex Police made it impossible to place criminal liability with individual officers. Following the verdict Ashley's family announced their intention to sue Sussex Police for negligence.
Hoddinott's report was forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for consideration of charges against the chief officers of Sussex Police for misconduct in public office, but the CPS dropped the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Whitehouse was suspended for three weeks while the Sussex police authority considered Hoddinott's report but was reinstated with written advice, in which the authority told him it was "not satisfied that you have not committed a disciplinary offence", and instructed him that "your role as a strong and supportive commander of your force should never be confused with your duty never to mislead or misinform". He resigned in 2001 after the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, wrote to the police authority, instructing them to consider dismissing Whitehouse. Jordan was also suspended after the report and faced internal disciplinary proceedings following the CPS's decision not to pursue criminal charges, but was allowed to retire on medical grounds in 2001. The three middle-ranking officers acquitted of misconduct in public office remained suspended pending internal disciplinary proceedings, which were dropped in 2003. The officers, along with two others involved in Ashley's death, sued the force the following year, claiming it had been negligent in failing to train them properly and that they had suffered psychiatric injury as a result of the shooting and subsequent criminal and disciplinary proceedings. Their case was thrown out at the High Court and an appeal in 2006 was dismissed on the grounds that the damages suffered were too remote from the alleged negligence to be reasonably foreseeable.
The local coroner opened an inquest in the immediate aftermath of Ashley's death but it was adjourned pending the outcome of the police investigations and criminal proceedings. In 2001, the coroner informed the interested parties that the inquest would not be resumed. As a result, the family began campaigning for a public inquiry into the circumstances of Ashley's death and the subsequent investigations. The government considered the request but no such inquiry was held.
Whitehouse's successor as chief constable, Ken Jones, almost immediately introduced changes to the force's policies on conducting armed operations. He also issued an apology on behalf of the force in 2003, travelling to Liverpool to make the apology to Ashley's mother in person. He said "James should not have died but, and this will be of small comfort to his loved ones and friends, his death has resulted in safer firearms procedures for us all". Ashley's family welcomed the apology but, with the backing of their local MP, Louise Ellman, continued to campaign for a public inquiry.
Civil case
Ashley's son and father sued Sussex Police for the torts of negligence (in respect of the planning of the operation and the shooting itself), battery, false imprisonment, and misfeasance in public office. The case was first heard by Mrs Justice Linda Dobbs in the High Court in 2004 as Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex Police. The police admitted false imprisonment and to negligence in relation to the planning of the raid but denied liability for all other counts (including negligence regarding the shooting itself). They offered to pay the full amount of damages sought by the Ashleys under those causes of action. Mrs Justice Dobbs ruled, on summary judgment, that the police's offer meant that continuing with the other claims would be an abuse of process, and that the action for battery had no realistic prospect of success as the burden of proof was on the claimants, who could not negate Sherwood's self-defence claim from the criminal trial.
The Ashleys appealed the striking out of their claim for battery to the Court of Appeal, where the case was heard in 2006. The Court of Appeal held that the judge had erred in her decision that the battery claim had no realistic prospect of success and in her decision that the burden of proof rested with the claimant to disprove a defence of self-defence in a civil case. The court allowed the family's appeal, holding that—in a civil action for battery—the burden was on the respondent (the police) to prove their claim of self-defence, and that the claim had to be based on both an "honest" and a "reasonable" belief of being in imminent danger, a higher standard than in criminal law. The court (by a majority) also held that continuing the claim for battery would not be an abuse of process, even though the police had offered to pay all the compensation sought by the family under the claims for negligence and false imprisonment (meaning that they would receive no further damages if their claim for battery succeeded).
The police appealed the decision to the House of Lords, then the United Kingdom's court of last resort. The Law Lords considered two main issues, both in relation to the battery claim. The first was the standard for a self-defence claim in a civil case and whether, in a case of a mistaken belief that the defendant was under attack, that belief must be both honest and reasonable, and the second was whether it would be an abuse of process to allow the battery claim to proceed given the police's offer to pay all the damages sought. On the first, the lords unanimously upheld the Court of Appeal's finding that both criteria must be met for a defence of self-defence to succeed in a tort action. Lord Scott noted that "it is fundamental to criminal law ... that, as a general rule, no-one should be punished for a crime he or she did not intend to commit or be punished for the consequences of an honest mistake" but that "the function of the civil law is ... to identify and protect the rights that every person is entitled to assert against, and require to be respected by, others" and that the law "must strike a balance between these conflicting rights". He concluded that "it is one thing to say that if A's mistaken belief was honestly held he should not be punished by the criminal law. It would be quite another to say that A's unreasonably held mistaken belief would be sufficient to justify the law in setting aside B's right not to be subjected to physical violence".
The lords were split on the second point, the minority (Lord Bingham and Lord Rodger of Earlsferry) believing that, although tort law could be vindicatory in nature, no further vindication would be achieved by allowing the claim for battery given that no further damages were available, and that allowing the claim would amount to an attack on the not guilty verdict in Sherwood's criminal trial. Lord Carswell, quoting Lord Justice Auld from the Court of Appeal, opined that "the civil courts exist to award compensation, not conduct public inquiries". Nonetheless, the majority (three to two) held that the battery claim was not an abuse of process and that it was for the litigants, not the judiciary, to decide which actions to pursue, noting that the success of the claim would not expose Sherwood to double jeopardy, and noting again the different purposes of tort and criminal law.
The police and the Ashley family agreed damages in 2009. In a statement, Ashley's son said "The police killed my dad illegally. They have now admitted it and apologised, and at last I know everything that happened". While maintaining that the shooting itself was not unlawful, the police issued a statement describing Ashley's death as "a tragedy which should never have occurred" and conceded that it "was caused by a series of failures at levels of Sussex Police in relation to events prior to the raid and its planning and execution ... Sussex Police also acknowledges that there were serious shortcomings in the way in which the aftermath of Mr Ashley's death was handled".
Impact
Although the case merely confirmed existing law, rather than changing it or creating new law, it was still deemed significant for its confirmation that the standard for a claim of self-defence was higher in a civil case than a criminal one, and for Lord Scott's analysis of the differing purposes of criminal and civil law and the confirmation that a "not guilty" verdict in a criminal court did not preclude civil liability.
According to Nick Davies, in an investigation for The Guardian newspaper in 2001, Ashley's death was one of 41 incidents in the preceding decade in which police in England and Wales shot a person who turned out not to have a firearm. Of those shootings, at least 15 proved fatal. In 28 of the 41 cases, the person shot had a replica firearm or some other kind of weapon, and another six were accidental discharges, leaving seven (including Ashley) which Davies described as "disturbing". Davies concluded that "this might look like a ... a licence for police officers to kill. In reality, it indicates something very different but equally disturbing...: police use of firearms is inherently dangerous. The more police are armed, the more they will shoot the wrong people. And the law which surrounds this is inadequate and incapable of fixing the blame when things go wrong". A 2005 article in The Independent, following the dropping of charges against the officers who shot Stanley, also drew comparisons with Ashley's case and listed it among 30 fatal police shootings in the preceding 12 years, none of which resulted in a successful prosecution of a police officer.
Davies described Ashley's shooting as "merely the final shot in a volley of error unleashed by just about every rank in Sussex police". Ashley's death has been compared by the media and academics to several other mistaken shootings by police officers in Britain, in particular the 1983 shooting of Stephen Waldorf, the 1985 death of John Shorthouse, the 1999 death of Harry Stanley, and the 2005 death of Jean Charles de Menezes. Waldorf was a film editor shot and seriously injured by police officers in London after he was mistaken for an escaped criminal; he later sued the police and was awarded substantial damages. John Shorthouse was a five-year-old boy who was shot dead during an armed police raid on his parents' home in Birmingham. Stanley was shot dead by a police armed response team who mistook a table leg he was carrying for a firearm; after two inquests, a criminal investigation, and an independent inquiry it was eventually decided that the officers involved would not face criminal or disciplinary proceedings. Menezes was a Brazilian electrician who was wrongly identified as a fugitive terrorist involved in a failed suicide bombing the day before and was shot by counter-terrorism officers when he boarded a London Underground train. Maurice Punch, an academic specialising in policing issues, described the ramifications of the case as "profound" in that an individual police officer was charged with murder for actions taken "in the course of his duty and under the command of superiors" and for Mrs Justice Rafferty's comments regarding upward accountability, a theme Punch compared to the shooting of three Provisional IRA members by the Special Air Service in 1988.
Among Jones's first actions as the new chief constable was to strengthen Sussex Police's procedures for the deployment of armed officers. In January 2003, a PCA report considered 24 police shootings from 1998 to 2001, including Ashley's. Among its recommendations were that armed police officers also be equipped with non-lethal options, such as tasers, to reduce the chances of further shootings, a recommendation that was endorsed by Ashley's mother. The report also recommended stronger command and control of firearms operations.
See also
Police use of firearms in the United Kingdom
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom
Notes
References
Bibliography
Citations
1998 deaths
1998 in England
2008 in British law
2008 in case law
1990s in East Sussex
Deaths by firearm in England
Deaths by person in England
English people convicted of manslaughter
Hastings
House of Lords cases
January 1998 events in the United Kingdom
Negligence case law
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom
Police misconduct in England
United Kingdom tort case law |
2378365 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Stephen%20Waldorf | Shooting of Stephen Waldorf | Stephen Waldorf was a 26-year-old film editor who was shot and severely injured by Metropolitan Police officers in London, England, on 14 January 1983, when he was misidentified as escaped prisoner David Martin.
Background
On 5 August 1982, David Martin was caught while breaking into a private cinema in Portman Close, in London's West End; he was disguised as a security guard but he escaped by shooting his way out, severely wounding a police officer. A month later he was arrested at his last known home address in Crawford Place off Edgware Road while disguised as a woman, but during a struggle drew two handguns before being shot in the neck by an armed police officer. On 24 December 1982 he escaped from a cell at Marlborough Street Magistrates' Court and went into hiding. The police were convinced that a Susan Stephens, whom Martin had met before his arrest, and who had visited him in prison, was his girlfriend, so she was kept under surveillance. Police suspicions were reinforced when Martin telephoned Stephens several times and they met to go to the cinema, then later for a meal, in the following weeks.
The shooting
On the evening of 14 January 1983, police officers in unmarked cars were following a hired Mini in which Stephens was sitting on the back seat, occasionally looking out of the rear window. The driver was Lester Purdey and the front-seat passenger was freelance film editor Stephen Waldorf, whom the police thought was Martin. When the Mini came to a stop because of rush hour traffic congestion in Pembroke Road, Earls Court, a detective was sent forward to confirm the identity of the front-seat passenger. The only one who knew Martin was Detective Constable Peter Finch, who had been one of the arresting officers when he was detained the previous September, so he approached the car along the pavement on foot with his revolver already drawn. Finch later said that at this point the driver glanced at him through the window, then said something to the passenger, who turned and reached toward the rear seat.
Finch opened fire, shooting twice at the passenger-side rear wheel of the Mini, then four times at Waldorf himself. Detective Constable John Jardine then ran up to the back of the Mini, and fired five shots at Waldorf through the rear window. During the shooting, Purdey jumped out of the car to escape, and Waldorf attempted to follow him, even though he had already been hit several times, and ended up slumped across the driver's seat. Detective Constable John Jardine then fired twice at Waldorf through the open driver's door. Finch, meanwhile, had made his way round to the driver's side, where he leant into the car, aimed his revolver between Waldorf's eyes and said, "OK, cocksucker," before pulling the trigger, but the gun did not fire. Finding that he had already used all his ammunition, Finch then pistol whipped Waldorf until he lost consciousness.
Hit five times and severely wounded in his head, abdomen and liver, the handcuffed and unconscious Waldorf was then hauled by his arms onto the pavement. Stephens, screaming and protesting, was also dragged from the vehicle, before being taken to hospital and treated for her injuries.
Aftermath
David Martin was rearrested shortly after the shooting. Sue Stephens had continued to be kept under police surveillance and attended a restaurant in Heath Street, Hampstead, north-West London, where she met up with Martin, who had dyed his distinctive blond hair dark. He was challenged by police and ran into Hampstead tube station, ran down the stairs of London's deepest tube station, south along the northbound track where eventually he was arrested at Belsize Park station without incident. He had a shotgun hidden inside his coat, and told the driver of a northbound Northern line train that he was a signal engineer. He was found guilty at Old Bailey of the attempted murder of PC Nicholas Carr and was sentenced to life in prison. He hanged himself in prison in 1984.
Detectives Jardine and Finch stood trial for attempted murder and attempted wounding of Waldorf, but were acquitted of all charges in October 1983 after the judge, Mr Justice Croom-Johnson, directed the jury. Waldorf eventually made a full recovery and was paid £150,000 compensation by the Metropolitan Police. Susan Stephens was also awarded £10,000 for malicious wounding.
Open Fire, a TV drama about David Martin and the shooting of Stephen Waldorf, was made by London Weekend Television and shown on the ITV network on 12 November 1994.
References
External links
BBC "On this Day"
1983 in London
Metropolitan Police operations
Non-fatal shootings |
3352086 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Rigoberto%20Alpizar | Shooting of Rigoberto Alpizar | Rigoberto Alpizar (April 17, 1961 – December 7, 2005) was a Costa Rican-born United States citizen who was fatally shot at Miami International Airport by two United States Federal Air Marshals.
Alpizar lived in the central Florida town of Maitland and worked in the Paint Department of a Home Depot. He was supposed to fly with his wife, Anne Buechner, to Orlando, Florida, returning from a missionary trip to Quito, Ecuador.
The shooting took place on a jetway. Alpizar ran away from the aircraft and, Homeland Security officials maintain, claimed to have a bomb in his bag and then made a sudden movement toward it.
Shooting
On December 7, 2005, upon landing at Miami International Airport, from Medellín, Colombia, the airplane on which Alpizar was traveling taxied to the gate and passengers began disembarking to be processed by Customs Agents. At about 14:00 (2:00 PM) EST, passengers continuing on to Orlando were re-boarding the plane.
As the plane finished boarding and all 114 passengers were seated, Alpizar was heard having an argument with his wife. He stood up from his seat saying, "I have to get off the plane", and ran for the door, which was still open. Buechner chased after him, yelling, "He's sick". He was followed by an undercover air marshal. According to James E. Bauer, two Air Marshals confronted Alpizar near the cockpit when Alpizar "uttered threatening words that included a sentence to the effect that he had a bomb". Homeland Security spokesperson Brian Doyle later claimed that Alpizar "threatened that he had a bomb in his backpack" and "made a move toward the backpack". Ignoring requests to stop, Alpizar continued to exit the plane and was soon confronted just outside the aircraft in the jetway. After being ordered to the ground, Alpizar allegedly did not comply, instead reaching for the bag. The two Air Marshals pulled out their .357 SIG Sauer pistols and opened fire, killing Alpizar. Conflicting reports put the number of shots between three and nine.
Reaction
Just hours later, in a nationally broadcast interview with All Things Considereds Michele Norris, Eric Weiner of NPR reported the assertion of Homeland Security Special Agent in Charge James Bauer that Alpizar claimed to have a bomb in his carry-on bag. Recapping the events that led to Alpizar's shooting, Weiner reported, "They were reboarding the flight, it was continuing to Orlando. That's when Federal Air Marshals confronted this man. He was acting suspiciously, he claimed to have a bomb, Federal Air Marshals told him to get on the ground. He did not comply." Several passengers on the flight denied the government's claim, saying they never heard Alpizar say anything about a bomb. One of the passengers, John McAlhany, said in an interview, "I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane", ... "I never heard the word 'bomb' until the FBI asked me did you hear the word 'bomb'." and another passenger, Mary Gardner, added, "I did not hear him say that he had a bomb". A spokesman for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants has been quoted as saying that a flight attendant who confronted Alpizar as he tried to leave the plane claimed Alpizar said "I have a bomb", though this assertion has not been repeated, and this flight attendant has not come forward. According to the Miami Dade State Attorney's Office Final Report of May 23, 2006, the pilot claimed to have heard Alpizar say he had a bomb.
No explosives found
After the shooting, police dogs sniffed all luggage for explosives and passengers were held on the plane until all luggage was cleared. No bombs or explosives were found. McAlhany said he remembers having a shotgun pressed into his head by one officer and hearing cries and screams from many passengers aboard the aircraft after the shooting in the jetway. "This was wrong", McAlhany said, "This man should be with his family for Christmas. Now he’s dead".
The D Concourse of Miami International Airport was temporarily evacuated following the shooting and was re-opened around 15:00 (3:00 PM) EST.
Significance
From Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Homeland Security reports, this incident was the first time a U.S. Federal Air Marshal has fired a weapon in the line of duty. Six days after Alpizar was shot, the U.S. government gave the organization expanded powers to "identify suspicious passengers". The Air Marshals were "eager to conduct surveillance activities beyond the aircraft, and tighten security at public transit stations over the holiday".
Final resting place
Alpizar was buried in his birthplace Cariari de Guápiles in Costa Rica on December 13, 2005.
Miami-Dade state attorney's office report
A final report was released by the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office on May 23, 2006. The report found that "the shooting officers were legally justified in their use of force and no criminal charges will be filed. The report notes as a key fact that Alpizar's wife said that her husband "threatened" that he had a bomb in his backpack, although this is not elaborated on further; i.e., precisely when Alpizar said this, to whom, how she heard this, and in what language the alleged statement was made.
Both federal air marshals (ages 30 and 31) claimed that Alpizar repeatedly stated that he had a bomb and would detonate it (one marshal said these threats were made in Spanish, the other marshal did not indicate a language), while advancing towards them and refusing commands to stop. The report indicates that the first air marshal was fluent in Spanish. Both said they issued commands in both English and Spanish. The second air marshal said that Alpizar said, "I'm going to blow up this bomb. I'm going to blow up this bomb. I'm going to show you."
The first officer (age 49) of the plane stood directly behind the air marshals, and said that English was spoken. The pilot said that Alpizar indicated he had a bomb, and continued advancing despite a warning that "If you don't take your hands out of the bag, we're going to have to shoot you." The pilot said Alpizar responded with, "Shoot me! Shoot me!" while repeating several times that he had a bomb, despite a further warning of "We're going to have to shoot you if you don't stop."
The captain (age 50) of the plane was in a position to see both Alpizar's wife coming down the aisle and Alpizar in the jetway. The captain said that Alpizar was at the far end of the jetway, and turned around and advanced toward the plane, ignoring commands to stop. The captain said Alpizar defiantly yelled, "Shoot me! Shoot me!", and observed that Alpizar appeared serious and considered him a threat. The captain said that the air marshals repeatedly said they would shoot, but Alpizar advanced anyway.
The report also notes three other witnesses who said they heard either "I have a bomb" or "There's a bomb on board", but they could not determine which. The report notes one witness seated in the front of the plane say that Alpizar said "I have a bomb" as he ran by. Another witness seated in the first row said he heard Alpizar yell from the back of the plane, "I got to get off this plane. I have a bomb."
Three flight attendants said that Alpizar said there was a bomb on board. The report does not indicate whether or not these flight attendants heard Alpizar say he had a bomb.
The report also noted many of the other witness comments made to news media, as well as Alpizar's not having taken his full dose of medication, and his unusual behavior in airports prior to the incident. The claim that Alpizar said he''' had a bomb (rather than that there was a bomb on board) arises from the statements of the two shooting federal air marshals, the pilot, the brief statement from Alpizar's wife (although it's not specified where and how she heard this), and two witnesses seated at the front of the plane (one of whom was in the first row and said he heard the claim from the back of the plane, the other saying Alpizar made this claim as he was running by). The air marshals were the only individuals to claim that Alpizar directly threatened to detonate a bomb.
From the air marshals' statements, it appears that the second air marshal fired one shot at first, but as Alpizar continued to approach, both air marshals began firing. The first air marshal fired three shots; the second, six shots. The autopsy showed that all non-grazing wounds were from front-to-back, with four projectiles found lodged in Alpizar's body. The autopsy also supports the finding that the backpack was being worn or held across Alpizar's chest.
Pop culture references
Canadian folk singer Jeremy Fisher has a song on his 2007 album, Goodbye Blue Monday, entitled "Lay Down (Ballad of Rigoberto Alpizar)" which alludes to the event.
See also
Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes
References
External links
Text of Miami-Dade police department release via Orlando Sentinel'', December 9, 2005.
Man killed at Miami airport
Witness: I never heard the word "bomb"
PBS NewsHour Update
Times Online, December 9: Witnesses dispute official line on plane shooting
"AU Courier-Mail: "Airline Bomb Claim Unravels"
Reuters: "Costa Rica village buries man shot dead in Miami"
Miami Herald:Airport shooting is ruled justified
Report from the Office of the State Attorney, May 23, 2006
Lay Down (Ballad of Rigoberto Alpizar) Written by Jeremy Fisher - Wind up Records
1961 births
2005 deaths
Costa Rican emigrants to the United States
Deaths by firearm in Florida
People from Limón Province
People from Maitland, Florida
Latino people shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
2005 in Florida
Transportation Security Administration
Miami International Airport |
3722910 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Christopher%20Penley | Shooting of Christopher Penley | The shooting of Christopher Penley, a 15-year-old boy, occurred on January 13, 2006, at Milwee Middle School in Longwood, Florida. During class, Penley took out an Airsoft gun that was designed to look realistic. Penley ran from the room and eventually entered a restroom area. SWAT officers arrived on the scene and tried to negotiate with him. Penley pointed the Airsoft gun at an officer, who responded by shooting Penley.
Shooting
Penley had briefly taken classmate Maurice Cotey hostage in a classroom and then later barricaded himself in an outdoor bathroom at Milwee Middle School in Longwood, Florida, with an Airsoft gun painted entirely black to disguise it as a Beretta 92. After the weapon was discovered by Cotey, Penley forced him into the closet and shut off the lights in the classroom. The student immediately fled and informed security and later phoned police. SWAT arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, while a negotiator attempted to initiate contact with Penley. After a twenty-minute stand-off he aimed the pistol at Lieutenant Michael Weippert who responded by shooting him.
He was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center where he remained on life support for two days before dying of his wounds. Several of his organs were removed and used as transplants. Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger said the boy was suicidal and would not respond to negotiators who tried to talk him down in the bathroom.
Some students at the school told the media after the incident that they knew he had "something planned". Police have been criticized for initiating action instead of waiting for Penley's father to arrive so that his father might convince him to surrender. The Orlando Sentinel reported that Ralph Penley was not told of events until after his son was shot. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the shooting and found it entirely justified, as Penley aimed a weapon at the deputy.
Aftermath
Penley's organs were donated by his family. His death gave nine people vital organs. Christopher Penley has also had a game room at the Landmark Church dedicated to him and a Youth center. The youth center the Adolescent Life Coaching Center opened in honor of Christopher Penley's memory and to give a place for the voice of youth to be heard.
Penley's family filed a lawsuit against police; however, a judge dismissed the suit after determining that the shooting was justified.
See also
Suicide by cop
References
External links
"Florida Eighth-Grader Shot by Deputies Dies" (Reuters) accessed January 14, 2006
"Milwee Middle School Web Site"
Orlando Sentinel
Candide’s Notebooks
WESH 2 News
CNN Transcript
Center Dedicated to Christopher Penley
1990s births
2006 deaths
American children
Longwood, Florida
Deaths by firearm in Florida
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Organ transplant donors
Education in Seminole County, Florida
Law enforcement in Florida |
5343055 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Eleanor%20Bumpurs | Shooting of Eleanor Bumpurs | The shooting of Eleanor Bumpurs by the New York Police Department occurred on October 29, 1984. The police were present to enforce a city-ordered eviction of Bumpurs, an elderly, disabled African American woman, from her public housing apartment in the Bronx. In requesting NYPD assistance, housing authority workers told police that Bumpurs was emotionally disturbed, had threatened to throw boiling lye, and was using a knife to resist eviction. When Bumpurs refused to open the door, police broke in. In the struggle to subdue her, one officer fatally shot Bumpurs twice with a 12-gauge shotgun.
Bumpurs' shooting, one of several black deaths that inflamed racial tensions in 1980s New York, led to changes within the police department regarding responses to disabled and emotionally volatile persons. Officer Stephen Sullivan, who shot Bumpurs, was indicted on second-degree manslaughter, but was ultimately acquitted. Bumpurs' family sued the city for $10 million in damages, and settled for $200,000.
Incident
Prior to the eviction attempt, Bumpurs, who had arthritis and other health problems, had told her daughter Mary that someone in the building was harassing her. Mary advised her to keep the door locked. Bumpurs told a housing authority official she would not pay the rent because she was having maintenance problems, but refused to admit maintenance workers to her apartment when they were sent. In one phone conversation, she told a housing-authority manager she would not pay the rent because "people had come through the windows, the walls and the floors and had ripped her off". When maintenance workers were admitted to the apartment on October 12, they checked a hallway light and stove as requested, finding no problems with them, but found several cans of human feces in the bathtub. Bumpurs blamed these on "Reagan and his people".
Four days before the eviction attempt, the city sent a psychiatrist to visit Bumpurs. He concluded that Bumpurs was "psychotic" and "unable to manage her affairs properly" and should be hospitalized. A Social Services supervisor decided that the best way to help Bumpurs was to evict her first, then hospitalize her.
On the morning of October 29, Bumpurs told housing authority workers who had come to evict her that she would throw boiling lye at the next face to appear. The NYPD Emergency Service Unit, specially trained in subduing emotionally disturbed people was summoned, but was unable to get Bumpurs to come to the door. They drilled out the lock, and through the hole they could see the naked 66-year-old in her living room, holding a 10-inch kitchen knife. The officers then knocked down the door and entered. They attempted to restrain Bumpurs with plastic shields and a special Y-shaped bar, but she fought free, waving the knife and trying to slash an officer. His partner, Officer Stephen Sullivan, fired two shots from his 12-gauge pump action shotgun. One pellet from the first shot struck Bumpurs' hand; all nine pellets from the second shot struck her in the chest, killing her.
Reactions
The case brought much notice: the victim was black, a senior citizen, and mentally ill. Some observers claimed that the fact that two shots had been fired also raised questions. To meet the criticism of the public, the PBA aired radio and print advertisements asserting that Bumpurs was a severe threat to the officers in the apartment: "This 300-pound woman suddenly charged one of the officers with a 12-inch butcher knife, striking his shield with such force that it bent the tip of the steel blade."
There followed the development of a new, special program to train police officers in New York State to work safely and effectively with "Emotionally Disturbed People (EDPs)". Employees of the NY State Department of Mental Health, along with those of the NYPD and NY State Police were trained as trainers. The new, mandatory course was delivered at the NYPD and State Police Training Academies, and to officers already in service. The program was delivered by training teams composed of police and mental health employees. It was an attempt to address the problem of safely controlling potentially dangerous situations.
Legal proceedings
A grand jury was convened to investigate Sullivan's actions. On January 30, 1985, the grand jury indicted Sullivan on charges of second-degree manslaughter, to which Sullivan pleaded not guilty. However, on April 12, Judge Vincent A. Vitale of State Supreme Court dismissed the indictment, ruling that under the New York State Penal Code "the evidence before the grand jury was legally insufficient to support the offense charged or any lesser included offense", and that Sullivan's "acts were in conformity with the guidelines and procedures outlined" in the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit manual.
The case took another turn on appeal when, on November 25, 1986, the New York Court of Appeals reinstated Sullivan's second-degree manslaughter indictment by a 6-1 vote. Chief Justice Sol Wachtler was the lone dissenter, saying that the evidence warranted more serious charges.
Trial of Officer Sullivan
Sullivan waived his right to a jury trial, choosing a bench trial before a judge only. The trial opened on January 12, 1987, over two years after Bumpurs' death. The trial hinged on whether Sullivan had used excessive force, especially in firing twice at Bumpurs. His fellow officers testified that Bumpurs was still not immobilized after the first blast hit her hand, and therefore still posed a threat to the police. In addition, two plastic surgeons testifying as expert witnesses for the prosecution said that Bumpurs could have continued to slash at the officers trying to subdue her even after her hand had been injured by the first shotgun blast. By contrast, the emergency room physician who treated Bumpurs immediately after the shooting stood by his grand jury testimony that her hand was left "a bloody stump" by the first shot.
On February 26, 1987 Judge Fred W. Eggert acquitted Sullivan on the charges of manslaughter. On August 4, 1987 federal prosecutors declined to investigate the Bumpurs case. Rudy Giuliani, who was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan at the time, stated that he had found "nothing indicating that the case was not tried fully, fairly and competently", and that there was no "proof of a specific intent to inflict excessive and unjustified force."
Civil suit and settlement
The Bumpurs family filed a civil suit against the city for $10 million in damages. In March 1990, the city agreed to pay $200,000 to the Bumpurs estate, marking a close to the legal proceedings stemming from the shooting.
Social Services demotions
Two supervisors in the city's Social Services administration were later demoted for failing to seek an emergency rent grant for Bumpurs and for not getting her proper psychiatric aid.
Legacy
The Bumpurs case was one of several racially charged cases in New York during the 1980s that exacerbated racial tensions. Others were the fatal assault on Willie Turks in 1982, the 1983 arrest and death of Michael Stewart while in police custody, the subway shooting of four men by Bernhard Goetz in 1984, the fatal assault on Michael Griffith in 1986, the shooting of six NYPD officers by Larry Davis also in 1986, and the murder of Yusef Hawkins in 1989.
Since shortly after Bumpurs' death, members of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit have carried Tasers, weapons that can deliver thousands of volts of incapacitating electrical current, as an alternative to the use of firearms when dealing with the mentally ill.
Spike Lee dedicated the film Do the Right Thing to the families of Eleanor Bumpurs among other victims.
See also
Gidone Busch
External links
Eleanor Bumpurs on Find A Grave
References
20th century in the Bronx
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Crimes in the Bronx
Deaths by firearm in the Bronx
Deaths by person in New York City
History of the Bronx
October 1984 crimes
October 1984 events in the United States
1984 deaths |
6140200 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Ousmane%20Zongo | Shooting of Ousmane Zongo | Ousmane Zongo ( – May 22, 2003) was a Burkinabé arts trader living in the United States who was shot and killed by Brian Conroy, a New York City Police Department officer during a warehouse raid on May 22, 2003. Zongo was not armed. Conroy did not receive any jail time but was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, received probation, and lost his job as a police officer.
Incident
Police had targeted the Manhattan storage facility while investigating a CD/DVD infringement operation. Zongo repaired art and musical instruments at the same location but was never implicated in any way in the scheme. The shooter, NYPD officer Bryan Conroy, was disguised as a postal worker. He was guarding a bin of CDs when Zongo appeared to turn on a light. A chase ensued that ended when Zongo ran into a dead end. Conroy shot Zongo four times, once in the back. The NYPD later admitted Zongo had nothing to do with the counterfeiting and prosecutors contended Zongo ran from Conroy because he was frightened and confused when Conroy, who was not in police uniform, drew his weapon. The case drew parallels to that of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed immigrant from Guinea who was shot and killed by New York City Police Department officers in the Bronx in 1999. Al Sharpton led protests against alleged police brutality and racial profiling and was involved in getting Zongo's family from Burkina Faso to attend court proceedings.
Justice Robert H. Straus convicted Conroy of criminally negligent homicide, while clearing the officer of the more serious charge of second-degree manslaughter, which has a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The judge convicted him after a jury deadlocked, 10–2 in favor of conviction, on the manslaughter charge in his first trial in March. Conroy did not receive any jail time but was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and was given five years' probation, automatically losing his job with the NYPD.
Family
Zongo's widow, Salimata Sanfo, and his two children live in Burkina Faso.
See also
Lists of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
References
External links
New York Post article
2003 deaths
New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct
Deaths by firearm in Manhattan
Deaths by person in New York City
Burkinabé expatriates in the United States
African people shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
1960s births
Year of birth uncertain
Crimes in New York City
May 2003 events in the United States
2003 in New York City |
6678777 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Phillip%20Pannell | Shooting of Phillip Pannell | On April 10, 1990, Phillip Pannell, an African-American teenager, was shot and killed by police officer Gary Spath in Teaneck, New Jersey. Pannell was fleeing police when he was shot; Spath was later charged and acquitted on charges of manslaughter. The case created controversy over allegations of racial profiling and police brutality.
Background & shooting
The African-American population in the Northeast corner of Teaneck grew substantially in the 1960s, accompanied by white flight triggered by the blockbusting efforts of local real estate agencies. As this de facto racial segregation increased, so did tensions between residents of the Northeast and the predominantly white Teaneck Police Department.
On the evening of April 10, 1990, the Teaneck Police Department responded to a call from a resident complaining about a group of teenagers, one of whom was reported to have a gun. After an initial confrontation near the Bryant School and a subsequent chase, Pannell was shot and killed by Spath, a white Teaneck police officer. Spath said he thought Pannell had a gun and was turning to shoot him. Many witnesses said Pannell was unarmed and had been shot in the back. A fully loaded .22 caliber pistol was recovered from the jacket pocket of Pannell. The weapon had once been a starter's pistol that had been modified into a fully operable gun.
The original autopsy conducted by the Bergen Medical Examiner indicated that Phillip Pannell was shot in the back with his hands down, possibly reaching for the gun and corroborating the story of the two officers on the scene.<ref>George James, "No Indictment in Teaneck Killing, But New State Inquiry Is Ordered", 'The New York Times, August 1, 1990.</ref> The New Jersey Attorney General, in a harsh rebuke of the autopsy called it "tainted" and indicated that it was so flawed that another autopsy had to be done which would introduce a correct understanding of where his hands were when he was shot in the back. The Attorney General also indicated that Bergen Medical Examiner admitted the mistakes he had made in the autopsy process. The second autopsy conducted by the State Medical Examiner proved conclusively that Phillip Pannells hands were raised at the moment that he was shot in the back. This evidence corroborated the stories of witnesses at the scene. No evidence was ever introduced that race played a role in the shooting.
Aftermath
Protest marches, some violent, ensued, with most African Americans believing that Pannell had been killed in cold blood, and some white residents insisting that Spath had been justified in his actions. Spath was ultimately acquitted on charges of reckless manslaughter in the shooting. Some months after Spath had been cleared, he decided to retire from law enforcement. The incident was an international news event that brought Reverend Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to the community, calls for Federal Civil Rights prosecution, and inspired the 1995 book Color Lines: The Troubled Dreams of Racial Harmony in an American Town'', by Teaneck resident Mike Kelly.
References
Deaths by firearm in New Jersey
Teaneck, New Jersey
African-American riots in the United States
Riots and civil disorder in New Jersey
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
April 1990 events in the United States
1990 in New Jersey
Law enforcement in New Jersey |
6758588 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Gidone%20Busch | Shooting of Gidone Busch | Gidone Busch or Gary Busch (1968 – August 30, 1999) was a mentally ill Breslover Hasid who was shot and killed outside his apartment in Borough Park, Brooklyn by four officers of the New York City Police Department, who fired on him at least 12 times. The killing was highly controversial, because although Busch was armed at the time, the weapon he brandished was a claw hammer, and accounts of the incident varied widely.
Background
Early life
Gidone Busch was born to Norman Busch, a dentist, and his wife Doris, a divorce mediator. He had a brother named Glenn. At one point, Norman and Doris divorced, whereupon Doris married Howard Boskey, a psychiatrist. Busch grew up in a comfortable suburban home in Dix Hills, New York.
College years and mental illness
In 1991, while Busch was a third-year medical student at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City, a routine urine test revealed that he had IgA nephropathy, an immune system disease that could lead to kidney failure. The revelation shook Busch deeply, causing him to drop out of medical school. He read books on philosophy and immersed himself in music in a quest for meaning in life. Busch decided to explore a path to spiritual enlightenment in his own religion of Judaism, and he promptly moved to Israel. During his seven years there, he vacillated between various Jewish sects, starting with a conventional Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem, continuing on to Chabad, and then to a Na Nach yeshiva in Safed. Eventually, Busch went back to the more mainstream Breslov Hasidic group.
The diagnosis also triggered immobilizing depressions in Busch, which later developed into serious mental illness. Busch's mental health history included three involuntary commitments at a hospital on Long Island, where he had made threats to his parents, and evinced signs of paranoid schizophrenia. He once became very agitated, and kicked a hole in the wall of his room at his mother's house, saying afterward, "I can't believe I did that. I love this house. I grew up in this house."
Borough Park
Busch's spiritual quest led him into taking up residence on 46th Street in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, New York, a neighborhood with a prominent Orthodox Jewish population. At times, Busch would enjoy music, or the quiet grace of celebrating the Shabbat with friends. During other times, when he neglected to take his medication, he wouldn't look up from his prayer book or his food.
In 1997, Busch entered a residential program for the mentally ill in Borough Park, but soon checked himself out, against the advice of doctors, who said they did not believe he was capable of living on his own. He took computer training courses with plans to go into business designing web pages. Busch would often be seen walking around talking to himself, and wearing heavy clothes in mid-summer. He procured a claw hammer, which he called his "staff", carved on it the tetragrammaton, and danced around with it in prayer. He meditated while playing loud music, or prayed so loudly that the neighbors complained.
In the beginning of August 1999, three weeks before his death, Busch met a female acquaintance from Israel, Netanya Ullman, on the New York City Subway, and they decided to get married.
On August 29, 1999, Busch struck a neighbor's passing car with his hammer. When the driver stopped and rolled down his window, Busch swung at him and broke his nose. The neighbor filed a complaint with the police.
Police shooting and death
During the late afternoon of August 30, 1999, neighbors called police complaining that Busch had been playing music too loud, and dancing almost naked in the street. By the time police arrived, he was back inside his basement apartment with a friend, a homeless man named Percy Freeman, with whom Busch had been smoking marijuana. He waved the hammer at them, which may have appeared at first to be a flute.
At 6:40 p.m., police received an anonymous 9-1-1 call about a man living at 1619 46th Street, Busch's address, who was menacing neighborhood children with a hammer. When police arrived, they asked Freeman to leave the apartment. Freeman came up the stairs, and told police "Don't worry about the hammer, it's a religious object," as officers wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him. The officers called for the Emergency Service Unit, standard procedure in the New York City Police Department in situations involving a mentally disturbed person. They ordered Busch to come out, which he refused to do. Officers then entered the apartment, and tried to contain him. Busch by this time had ceased wearing his prescription glasses, and may not have recognized his intruders as cops. Busch threatened them with the hammer, and took a swing or two at them. Failing to pacify him, Officer Daniel Gravitch shot a half-ounce of pepper spray in Busch's eyes.
At 6:48:20 p.m., Sergeant Joseph Memoly, just arriving on the scene, put in a second call for the Emergency Service Unit. Busch was either forced outside, or broke free from the officers. According to police, he then ran up a narrow stairway from the apartment, struck Sergeant Terrence O'Brien with the hammer several times on his left arm, then rushed past other officers. He stood on the sidewalk, wearing a tallit and tefillin, with the hammer raised over his head. Six officers who responded to the radio calls stood on their feet, guns drawn, in a rough semicircle around him. They shouted at him, one officer "almost pleading" to drop the hammer. There was a distinct single shot, followed closely by a volley of 12 shots, which were fired by Seargent Memoly and Officers Martin Sanabria and William Loshiavo, whereupon Busch fell dead. Alternatively, Busch took a step forward, was screaming while swinging the hammer, and kept coming at the officers. He was striking a fallen police sergeant with the hammer when he was shot.
At 6:48:27 p.m., Sergeant O'Brien radioed: "Perp down."
Officers later found strange scribblings on the wall of the apartment. One spelled out the word "POLICE" as "Pointedly Off-wing Litigating Intensely Careful Errand-deliverers."
Reactions
In the aftermath of the killing, many neighborhood residents gathered in the street, chanting "Justice" while occasionally throwing objects at police. Many demanded to know why Mayor Rudy Giuliani did not go to Brooklyn to address their concerns about police brutality.
One witness at the scene said of the police, "If I had been in their shoes I would have done the same thing."
City Councilman Noach Dear called for an investigation. He said that the police needed to re-examine their methods for dealing with the mentally ill, but there were no easy answers.
At a news conference the following morning at City Hall attended by Mayor Giuliani and Jewish community leaders, Police Commissioner Howard Safir stated that seven independent witnesses confirmed that Busch hit Sergeant O'Brien with the hammer.
Legal proceedings
On November 1, 1999, a Brooklyn grand jury declined to indict the four officers involved in the shooting, citing the fact that Busch presented a threat to the officers, and had refused orders to drop the hammer.
Busch's mother, Doris Busch-Boskey, filed a federal suit through her attorneys, claiming Busch's civil rights had been violated by the officers. However, on June 5, 2001, the Justice Department declined to file charges, announcing instead that they agreed that excessive force had not been used.
Civil proceedings
In October 2003, Busch-Boskey's lawsuit against the NYPD reached Federal Court. However, the Busch family had another setback when on November 17, 2003, the jury supported the police officers' version of the shooting, and found the officers and the city not liable in Busch's death. However, on September 9, 2004, federal judge Sterling Johnson Jr. a former police officer, found serious issues with the police officers' version of the events leading up to Busch's shooting, as well as the truthfulness of their testimony, overturning the jury verdict, and ordering a new trial. The Busch Family declined to pursue another trial for family health reasons, announcing their decision on August 27, 2006. However, they continue to seek justice for Gidone.
See also
Shooting of Amadou Diallo – a high-profile police shooting in the Giuliani era
References
External links
1999 in New York City
1990s crimes in New York City
20th century in Brooklyn
August 1999 crimes
August 1999 events in the United States
Crimes in Brooklyn
Deaths by firearm in Brooklyn
Deaths by person in New York City
New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct
Police brutality in the United States |
6792159 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Timothy%20Stansbury | Shooting of Timothy Stansbury | The shooting of Timothy Stansbury Jr. occurred in New York City on January 24, 2004. Stansbury was an unarmed 19-year-old New York City man who was shot and killed by New York Police Department Officer Richard S. Neri Jr. on January 24, 2004. Officer Neri and a partner were patrolling the rooftop of a housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn at about 1 a.m. Officer Neri, with his gun drawn, approached a rooftop door to check the stairway inside. Neri testified to a Brooklyn grand jury that he fired his standard Glock 19 pistol unintentionally when he was startled as Stansbury pushed open the rooftop door. Stansbury, a resident of an adjoining building, died from one shot in the chest. The grand jury found the shooting to be accidental.
Initial official reaction
Unlike previous incidents, the official response of the NYPD was quick and condemnatory. Said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly "At this point, based on the facts we have gathered, there appears to be no justification for the shooting... This is a tragic incident that compels us to take an in-depth look at our tactics and training, both for new and veteran officers."
Investigation
A grand jury convened on January 30, 2004 to investigate the shooting; this was also the day of Stansbury's emotional funeral. Meanwhile, the controversy over NYPD Commissioner Kelly's initial statements on the shooting grew, with Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (the NYPD's union) stating: Commissioner Kelly gave a message to the 23,000 New York City police officers that said basically this: take all the risks of doing your job, go up on all those roofs, patrol all those subway platforms, walk the streets day and night, take the risks to yourself, take the risks to your family, but then when the worst happens, when there's a tragedy, [ . . . ] you will not have the backing of the New York police commissioner.
Grand jury decision
On February 17, 2004 after nearly a month of investigation, the grand jury declined to indict Officer Neri on charges of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter, finding instead the shooting to be accidental. Mayor Mike Bloomberg who like Kelly had not been overtly supportive of Officer Neri said: "Although the death of Timothy Stansbury was a heartbreaking tragedy, a grand jury today decided that Officer Neri's actions were not criminal. The Police Department will conduct a review of the case to determine the appropriate course of action."
Aftermath
In 2006, Officer Neri was stripped of his gun permanently, given a 30-day suspension without pay and reassigned to a property clerk's office by Police Commissioner Kelly, a punishment the Stansbury family considered inadequate. As of 2011, Neri was still employed with the New York Police Department making $76,488 annually.
In May 2007, the New York Police Department agreed to pay $2 million to the family of Timothy Stansbury.
"Fight Until the End", a song on the album Sabacolypse: A Change Gon' Come recorded with vocalist Immortal Technique, is dedicated to Stansbury. A short documentary about the shooting, Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story, won the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking.
See also
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
References
External links
Stansbury Killer Gets Cop Union Post, Village Voice, March 22, 2005
New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct
Deaths by firearm in Brooklyn
Deaths by person in New York City
2004 in New York (state)
Crimes in New York City
African-American-related controversies |
7920264 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Donald%20Scott | Shooting of Donald Scott | Donald P. Scott was a 61-year-old man who lived on a ranch in a remote part of Ventura County, California, in the Santa Monica Mountains, who was fatally shot during a police raid on October 2, 1992. The officers were attempting to serve a warrant to search his ranch for marijuana. When the officers forcibly entered his home, Scott emerged from a bedroom waving a firearm over his head and was then shot while lowering his gun as he was ordered to do by police. No marijuana plants or other evidence of drug sales were found on the property.
The raid
Early on the morning of October 2, 1992, 31 officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, Border Patrol, California National Guard and National Park Service entered the Scott's ranch. They planned to arrest Scott for allegedly running a 4,000-plant marijuana plantation. When deputies broke down the door to Scott's house, Scott's wife (Frances Plante-Scott) would later tell reporters, she screamed, "Don't shoot me. Don't kill me." That brought Scott staggering out of the bedroom, blurry-eyed from a cataract operation—holding a .38 caliber Colt snub-nosed revolver over his head. When he emerged at the top of the stairs, holding his gun over his head, the officers told him to lower the gun. As he did, they shot him to death. According to the official report, the gun was pointed at the officers when they shot him.
Later, the lead agent in the case, sheriff's deputy Gary Spencer, and his partner John Cater posed for photographs smiling arm-in-arm outside Scott's cabin.
Despite a subsequent search of Scott's ranch using helicopters, dogs, searchers on foot, and a high-tech Jet Propulsion Laboratory device for detecting trace amounts of sinsemilla, no marijuana—or any other illegal drug—was found.
Aftermath
Scott and his wife, Frances Plante-Scott, had only been married for two months at the time of the incident. His body was cremated and the ashes were given to his widow. The ashes were later destroyed when the ranch home was burned in a wildfire the following year.
Scott's widow, along with four of Scott's children from previous marriages, subsequently filed a $100 million wrongful death suit against the county and federal government. The case lasted eight years, requiring the services of 15 attorneys and some 30 volume binders of court documents. In January 2000, attorneys for Los Angeles County and the federal government agreed to settle with Scott's heirs and estate for $5 million, even though the sheriff's department still maintained its deputies had done nothing wrong.
Michael D. Bradbury, the District Attorney of Ventura County, conducted an investigation into the raid and the aftermath, issuing a report on the events leading up to and on October 2, 1992. He concluded that asset forfeiture was a motive for the raid.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department issued their own report in response, clearing everyone involved of wrongdoing, while California Attorney General Dan Lungren criticized District Attorney Bradbury. Sheriff Spencer sued D.A. Bradbury for defamation in response to the report. The court ruled in favor of Michael Bradbury and ordered Sheriff Spencer to pay $50,000 in Bradbury's legal bills.
See also
Forfeiture Endangers American Rights, a U.S. advocacy organization
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
War on drugs
References
External links
Conspiracy theory in song
F.E.A.R. collection of legal documents detailing the Don Scott case
The Village Voice - The Pot Plot
Donald Scott case - killing for land
Civil asset forfeiture: the looting of America
Gun Control and the War on Drugs
1930s births
1992 deaths
Deaths by firearm in California
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Santa Monica Mountains
History of Ventura County, California
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area
October 1992 events in the United States
Law enforcement in California |
8150117 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Sean%20Bell | Shooting of Sean Bell | Sean Bell was shot in New York City, in the borough of Queens on November 25, 2006. Three men were shot when a total of 50 rounds were fired by New York City police (NYPD) in both plainclothes and undercover. Bell was killed on the morning before his wedding, and two of his friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were severely wounded. The incident sparked fierce criticism of the New York City Police Department from members of the public and drew comparisons to the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo. Three of the five detectives involved in the shooting went to trial on charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter, first- and second-degree assault, and second-degree reckless endangerment; they were found not guilty.
Background
Born on May 18, 1983, Bell was 23 years old at the time of his death. He was a nephew of college basketball coach Frank Haith. Bell was a pitcher on the baseball team for John Adams High School in Ozone Park, and also studied acting in Flushing, Queens and worked odd jobs after the birth of his daughter, Jada, on December 16, 2002. His fiancée, Nicole Paultre, told Larry King that Bell was studying to be an electrician and was unemployed when the shooting occurred.
Shooting incident
On the night of his death, Bell was hosting a bachelor party at Club Kalua, a strip club that was being investigated by undercover police over accusations that the owners fostered prostitution. The New York Post reported that Joseph Guzman had an argument with a man outside the bar, and threatened to get a gun. One of Bell's friends reportedly said, "Yo, get my gun," as they left the club. Thinking a shooting was about to take place, a plainclothes officer named Gescard Isnora followed Bell and his companions. He alerted his backup team, who confronted Bell and his companions outside. According to Isnora, he "held out his badge, identified himself as a police officer, and ordered the driver to stop". Instead, Bell accelerated the car, striking Isnora, and then collided with an unmarked police minivan. Isnora said he saw Guzman reach for a gun. He yelled a warning to the other policemen, and they opened fire on the car to prevent the possible shooting by Guzman. Five policemen joined in, firing about 50 bullets into Bell's car.
Witness accounts of the event conflict with the account provided by police. According to Joseph Guzman, the plainclothes detectives never identified themselves as they approached with their weapons drawn. According to the New York Daily News, witnesses claimed the officers failed to warn Bell before opening fire, beginning to shoot as soon as they left their cars. A toxicology report showed that Bell was legally intoxicated at the time he was shot. An attorney for Bell's family replied, "No matter what his blood-alcohol level was, he's a victim."
Isnora, the officer who initiated the shooting, claimed later that he saw a fourth man in the car who fled the scene, possibly with the alleged weapon. It was speculated that one of Bell's friends, Jean Nelson, was the fourth man. Nelson admitted that he was present but denied being in the car or having a weapon. Critics suggest that Isnora fabricated the alleged presence of a fourth man to justify the shooting and to avoid being convicted by a jury. New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez reported that in the hours immediately after the shooting, there was no mention of a fourth man in police calls, and no search was launched for the alleged armed man. This contradicts claims that the police searched the neighborhood for a missing man. According to The New York Times, a preliminary police report said:
... there was no meaningful discussion of a fourth man, a mysterious figure who some in the Police Department have suggested may have been present along with the three men who were shot. None of the witnesses whose accounts are in the report speaks of someone who may have fled — perhaps possessing a gun — and there are no indications that the police at the time were seeking anyone who may have left the scene.
According to Michael Palladino, head of the police detectives union, a man working as a janitor in a nearby building told the detectives that he had seen a black man fleeing the scene, and that the man had fired at least once at the police. The janitor claimed he had then heard a detective shouting "police, police". However, ballistic evidence showed no evidence of any weapon having been fired except those of the officers.
In an interview on Larry King Live, Al Sharpton, accompanied by Paultre, stated that according to his conversations with eyewitnesses, none of the three men mentioned a gun while leaving the club. Sharpton also said that it would have been impossible for anyone in the car to have heard the police; he said they were likely in fear that they were being car-jacked. The NYPD Detectives union and others complained that the payments brought into question the witnesses' credibility. Sharpton replied, "How can [the Detectives Endowment Association] support the detectives and I can't support the victims?"
In criminal cases also any contract entered between an accused and a witness to give testimony in his/her favor is treated as invalid.
Five of the seven officers took part in the shooting. Detective Paul Headley fired one shot. Officer Michael Carey fired three times. Officer Marc Cooper shot four times, and Officer Gescard Isnora eleven. Veteran officer Michael Oliver emptied two full magazines, firing 31 times with a 9mm handgun, pausing to reload at least once.
An autopsy showed that Bell had been struck four times in the neck and torso. Guzman was shot 19 times, and Benefield, who was in the back seat of the vehicle, was hit three times. Guzman and Benefield were taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital. Guzman was listed in critical condition, and Benefield was in stable condition; both men survived the shooting. Benefield was released from the hospital on December 5, 2006, while Guzman was released on January 25, 2007. Surveillance cameras at the Port Authority's Jamaica AirTrain station a half block away from the shooting site recorded one of the bullets shattering the station's glass window, narrowly missing a bystander and two Port Authority patrolmen standing on the elevated platform.
Response to the shooting
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said, "it sounds to me like excessive force was used," and called the shooting "inexplicable" and "unacceptable". Ex-New York State governor George E. Pataki also stated that he thought the shooting was excessive. NYC police commissioner Raymond Kelly put the five officers involved on paid administrative leave and stripped them of their weapons, a move the New York Times called "forceful". He told the Times that the officers were stripped of their guns because "there were, and are, too many unanswered questions". Both Bloomberg and Kelly also noted that the shooting was possibly in violation of department guidelines prohibiting shooting at a moving vehicle, even if the vehicle is being used as a weapon. The Public Advocate extended condolences to Bell's former fiancée and family following the killing.
Thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the amount of force used the weekend following Bell's death, with protests continuing into the following week.
Some noted the similarity between this incident and past shootings of unarmed people, such as Amadou Diallo and Ousmane Zongo. The family designated Al Sharpton as their advisor.
On December 7, 2006, Nicole Paultre legally changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell to "honor the memory" of Bell. New York State laws require a couple to obtain a marriage license prior to a wedding, and "although the marriage license is issued immediately, the marriage ceremony may not take place within 24 hours from the exact time that the license was issued". According to Nicole Paultre's attorney, a posthumous wedding was impossible since no marriage license had yet been signed.
On March 5, 2007, it was announced that a Rikers Island inmate offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as a hitman to behead New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly and bomb police headquarters in retaliation for the incident.
On March 25, 2007, New York Daily News reported that an unnamed Queens drug dealer, after being arrested, alleged that Bell had shot him the previous year on July 13, 2006, over a drug turf dispute. Police sources called the drug dealer's account credible but could not rule out the possibility that he falsely identified Bell to garner favor with authorities. The attorney representing the Bell family, Nicole Paultre, and the two other occupants of the vehicle who were wounded during the shooting denounced this development, saying, "We expected them to throw dirt at us, and they are throwing dirt at us." NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau detectives said the dealer's tale had no direct bearing on the police shooting of Bell, though Paultre Bell's attorney noted that it could help the defense by portraying Bell as possibly armed and dangerous.
Investigation and case
Criminal indictment
At that time, some activists called for a special prosecutor in the case, but New York Governor Eliot Spitzer said he did not see the need for it. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo promised to keep a watch on the criminal proceedings. The Queens district attorney's office interviewed over 100 witnesses and presented more than 500 exhibits to a grand jury. An issue considered by the grand jury was the New York State Penal Code's description of circumstances under which a police officer can use deadly force: "The use of deadly physical force is necessary to defend the police officer or peace officer or another person from what the officer reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force."
On March 16, 2007, three of the five police officers involved in the shooting were indicted by a grand jury. Officer Gescard Isnora, who fired the first shot, and Officer Michael Oliver, who fired 31 of the 50 shots, were charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter, second-degree reckless endangerment and first- and second-degree assault. Detective Marc Cooper was charged with two counts of reckless endangerment. All three detectives pleaded not guilty at the arraignment hearing on March 19, 2007. Detectives Isnora and Oliver were released on bail, and Detective Cooper was released on his own recognizance. Oliver and Isnora initially faced up to 25 years in prison for the charges.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, Second Department, denied a motion by the detectives' attorneys to move the trial to a venue outside of Queens. Following the adverse ruling, the detectives waived a jury trial and instead submitted to a bench trial.
Then-District Attorney Richard Brown faced some criticism from activists who believe he did not question the police officers involved quickly enough.
Trial and acquittal on all charges
On April 25, 2008, all three of the police officers indicted were acquitted on all counts. The defendants opted to have Justice Arthur J. Cooperman make a ruling rather than a jury. The ruling was handed down in a State Supreme Court in Queens. (In New York State, Supreme Court is the trial-level court of unlimited original jurisdiction.)
A key defense forensic witness was Alexander Jason, a crime scene analyst and ballistics expert who disproved several of the prosecution's main points relating to the physical evidence. Among them was the timing of the incident. After performing tests with an NYPD pistol, Jason demonstrated that the 31 shots fired by one detective (Oliver) could have been done in about 12 seconds – not several minutes. Using high speed video during ballistic testing, Jason demonstrated that bullets fired through a car window would project glass both inside and outside the car and that this could be interpreted as shots coming from inside. Another of Jason's key points (mentioned in Judge Cooperman's written verdict) was that the person in the back seat of Bell's car (Benefield) was not shot while he was running away as he claimed, but while inside the car. Jason used computer generated 3D models to display some of his findings.
In his ruling, Justice Cooperman stated that testimony by Guzman and Benefield did not make sense. He also cited the fact that they had a pending $50,000,000 lawsuit against the city. After the ruling was made, the family, led by Sharpton and several others, went to Bell's graveside in Port Washington, Long Island for a memorial service.
Although the officers were acquitted, they and their commanding officer were either fired or forced to resign on March 24, 2012.
After acquittal
"Slowdown" protest
On May 7, 2008, Al Sharpton led a series of protests in New York City. Hundreds took to the streets in Manhattan and Brooklyn as part of the citywide "slowdown" effort led by Sharpton and his National Action Network. The crowd made its way to the streets, stopping the flow of traffic in many vital areas of the city. This led to police action and the arrest of over 200 people, including Sharpton himself. Sharpton was arrested without incident at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. Bell's parents, his former fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, and the two shooting victims who survived, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were also arrested.
Civil case
On May 18, 2010, U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York lifted a stay on the civil lawsuit brought by Nicole Paultre Bell against the City of New York. On July 27, 2010 a settlement was reached. New York City agreed to pay Sean Bell's family $3.25 million. Joseph Guzman, 34, who uses a cane and a leg brace and has four bullets lodged in his body was to receive $3 million, and Trent Benefield, 26, was to receive $900,000. The total amount of the settlement was $7.15 million. Paultre Bell said, "I believe the settlement is fair, but the most important thing is that our fight, my fight, doesn't end here. No amount of money can provide closure." New York City Corporation Counsel stated, "The city regrets the loss of life in this tragic case, and we share our deepest condolences with the Bell family." The head of the New York City Detectives Endowment Association said he thought the settlement was "a joke". "The detectives were exonerated ... and now the taxpayer is on the hook for $7 million, and the attorneys are in line to get $2 million, without suffering a scratch." Guzman said the settlement did not change the underlying reality that the lives of Black and Hispanic men were not worth much in New York and that the incident was bound to be repeated.
NYPD edits to Wikipedia article
On March 13, 2015, Capital New York and other news organizations reported that 50 of the 15,000 IP addresses belonging to the NYPD were associated with edits, dating back to 2006, to English Wikipedia articles, including the article on the killing of Sean Bell. These IP addresses geolocate to NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza. Detective Cheryl Crispin, a NYPD spokeswoman, said that "the matter is under internal review."
Tributes
The Nicole Paultre Bell "When It's Real, It's Forever" non-profit organization was started in memory of Bell. Rappers David Banner, Nicki Minaj, Prodigy, Immortal Technique and the Jamaica, Queens-based rap group G-Unit, The Game and Chamillionaire have each referenced the case in their songs. G-Unit dedicated the opening track of their album T.O.S: Terminate on Sight to Bell and also paid tribute to him in the thank-you section of the liner notes. Nicki Minaj dedicated part of her verse New York Minute to Bell, with the line "There's gotta be a heaven 'cause Sean Bell will never get to make it to his wedding." Bell is one of the names mentioned in Hell You Talmbout, a 2015 protest song by Janelle Monáe and the Wondaland artist collective. Chamillionaire referenced the case on the Mixtape Messiah 2 disc at the end of the song "Ridin' Overseas" (featuring Akon) where he says, "Rest in peace to Sean Bell, Chamillitary man". The Game dedicated the controversial song "911 is a Joke" to Bell. The Game dedicated the song "My Life" to Bell as well. Pharoahe Monch's cover of the Public Enemy song "Welcome to the Terrordome" includes a reference to Bell as well as to Amadou Diallo and Timothy Stansbury in the introduction.
Swizz Beatz, Cassidy, Maino, Styles P, Talib Kweli, Red Cafe & Drag-On recorded a song entitled "Stand Up (The Sean Bell Tribute Song)" in which they refer to the shooting.
Rapper JAY Z set up a trust fund for Bell's children.
Sean Bell Way
The New York City Council voted to designate Liverpool Street from 94th to 101st Avenues in Queens as "Sean Bell Way" in his memory. The naming ceremony took place on May 18, 2010.
See also
Contagious shooting
Jean-Charles de Menezes
Johnny Gammage
Ousmane Zongo
Amadou Diallo
Nightlife legislation of the United States
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
References
2006 deaths
2006 in New York City
21st century in Queens
African-American-related controversies
Deaths by firearm in Queens, New York
Jamaica, Queens
New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct
November 2006 events in the United States
Police brutality in the United States
Post–civil rights era in African-American history
1983 births
Deaths by person in New York City
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States |
9542285 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Edmund%20Perry | Shooting of Edmund Perry | Edmund Perry, a Harlem resident, was shot to death by Lee Van Houten, a 24-year-old plainclothes policeman, on June 12, 1985 when he was 17 years old. The case briefly generated a firestorm of protest in New York City when it was revealed that Perry was an honor student and was enrolled to attend Stanford on a scholarship; however, Van Houten said that Perry and his brother had attempted to mug him, and the shooting was ruled justifiable.
The incident
Lee Van Houten, a 24-year-old plainclothes policeman, was on assignment in the Morningside Park section of Manhattan on the night of June 12, 1985, when he said he was assaulted by two men who attempted to mug him. According to Van Houten, he was approached from behind and yanked to the ground by his neck, where two black men beat him and demanded that he give them money. He drew his gun from his ankle holster and fired three times, hitting Edmund Perry in the abdomen. The other attacker fled, and was later identified as Jonah Perry, Edmund's brother.
Reaction
At the time of his death, Perry was a recent graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, one of the most prestigious preparatory schools in the United States. The revelation of this fact led to significant press coverage, much of it unfavorable to the police. The front-page headline of the New York Post the next day was "COP KILLS HARLEM HONOR STUDENT". The Village Voice suggested that Perry was shot because he was "too black for his own good", and The New York Times wrote that "...the death of Edmund Perry raises painfully troubling questions".
However, 2 witnesses backed up Van Houten's version of events, and the media firestorm was short-lived. Van Houten was cleared of any culpability in the shooting. Jonah Perry, an alumnus of the Westminster School in Simsbury, Connecticut, was later put on trial for assaulting Van Houten. He was found not guilty. The NYPD settled a wrongful death claim for $75,000 in 1989. Veronica Perry, the mother of both boys and their sister Nicol, died in the city six years later on October 22, 1991, of a heart attack aged 44.
In popular culture
Perry's experiences at Exeter and the circumstances surrounding his death formed the basis of the best-selling 1987 book Best Intentions: The Education and Killing of Edmund Perry, written by Robert Sam Anson.
On January 6, 1992, NBC aired the TV movie Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story, directed by Kevin Hooks. Perry was portrayed by Curtis McClarin.
Spike Lee's movie Do the Right Thing is dedicated to Edmund Perry, among other victims.
The first-season episode of Law & Order, "Poison Ivy" was inspired by Perry.
Various Michael Jackson biographers have concluded his 1987 song "Bad" and its music video were inspired by Edmund Perry. In the music video Michael's character is peer-pressured by his friends when he returns home from his honors high school and rebuffs his bullies by singing the song. This reflects the main lyrical theme of anti-bullying and standing up for oneself.
References
Further reading
Anson, Robert Sam. Best Intentions: The Education and Killing of Edmund Perry ()
Castro, Janice. Shattering a Fragile Dream." Time Magazine. July 15, 1985
Butler, Leonard. Police Say Others Saw Student Attack Officer. New York Times. June 15, 1985
Kunen, James A. In a Troubling Tale of Two Cities, a Policeman's Bullet Kills a Promising Prep School Honor Student People Magazine. July 22, 1985
Farber, M.A. Jonah Perry Acquitted of Mugging Officer Who Fatally Shot Brother New York Times. January 23, 1986
Farber, M.A. For Many Jurors, Little was Proved in Perry Case New York Times. January 26, 1986
McFadden, Robert D. Settlement Reached in Perry Wrongful-Death Suit New York Times. May 13, 1989
Garrity, Patrick. Lessons to learn from the life and death of Eddie Perry '85. Philips Exeter Academy. June 11, 2020.
External links
1967 births
1985 deaths
People from Harlem
Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
1985 in New York (state)
Race-related controversies in the United States
New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct
Incidents of violence against boys |
10753351 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Deandre%20Brunston | Shooting of Deandre Brunston | The shooting of Deandre "Trey" Brunston, a 24-year-old African-American, occurred in Compton, Los Angeles County, California, on August 24, 2003. He was shot 22 times by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies, who fired 81 rounds. In 2006, Brunston's family settled with the county
for $340,000 after filing a lawsuit, accusing the sheriff's deputies of causing wrongful death.
Incident
At the time he was being sought for questioning from an alleged domestic abuse incident after his girlfriend called 9-1-1. After initially evading the police, Brunston was cornered in a nearby doorway where he and the officers tried to negotiate. He repeatedly told the officers he was wanted for murder (which was false), would rather die right there than go back to prison, and that he was armed and would shoot a police dog and the deputies if the dog was released or they fired first. However he had no gun but had a flip-flop sandal in his right hand hidden under his T-shirt. Brunston repeatedly stated that he would throw the "gun" down and surrender if he were allowed to speak to his girlfriend, Fonda Brown, who he said was pregnant with his child, but his request was never granted.
At this point, many officers had their guns drawn and trained on Brunston. Lt. Patrick Maxwell had been contacted via cell phone while he was at a party in a drunken state. He ordered the dog to be released to attack Brunston. The senior K9 officer on the scene, Sgt. Earnest Burwell, refused to release the dog, claiming that releasing under those circumstances would violate the existing use-of-force policy. Burwell was replaced with a rookie K9 unit who made no such claims. The dog was released and Brunston refused to put the "gun" down when ordered to do so, instead yelling back to officers. He later threw it down when the dog was within a few feet of him, however the police had already decided to fire at that point and he was shot at less than a second afterwards. Before the dog reached Brunston, deputies opened fire. The dog was hit by police bullets and fell a split second before it reached Brunston, who had taken one step in retreat from the dog. Within the next five seconds, deputies had discharged 81 shots, seriously wounding both Brunston and the dog, who both later died of their injuries.
Adding to the controversy of this shooting is the disparity in medical treatment—the wounded police dog received an emergency helicopter airlift from the scene to a veterinary center in Norwalk (where it died later) -- while Brunston was left bleeding to death on the concrete steps, leading to allegations of Brunston receiving sub-par treatment as compared to the dog.
No gun was found on or near Brunston. The incident was captured on police video and posted on numerous websites. The videotape was used in the lawsuit to support that the police had acted in haste.
Aftermath
Deandre Brunston's aunt, Keisha Brunston, brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in response to the killing. They alleged the deputies could have easily prevented the death, were poorly trained in these situations and were 'trigger-happy'. Charges against the deputies were dropped and the suit focused on the supervisors and training. The judge ruled that suit could still charge against the animal's handler and supervisors including civil rights violations, false arrest and "negligent hiring, training and supervision." An order to release the police dog was allegedly given over a phone from an off-duty supervisor, who had been drinking. The family's attorney noted that the officers present seemed to act in haste as a crisis team with a trained negotiator was en route to the scene and would have determined whether the young man was bluffing. The family later settled with the county for $340,000 in March 2006. Brunston's mother, Brenda Gaines, was awarded $122,500 with his three children also receiving sums. The county also was ordered to pay $105,000 in legal fees. Several deputies were also given two- to five-day suspensions for shooting when not designated as on-site shooters.
Deandre Brunston has become a symbol against police brutality. Keisha Brunston spoke at a War and Racism Forum in 2005 in Los Angeles. His picture was held in a march in Atlanta, GA in 2007 for the U.S. Social Forum. Brunston's family also spoke at a 2008 vigil for Muhammad Usman Chaudhry, an autistic Pakistani American, who was wrongfully killed by an LAPD officer.
References
People from Los Angeles
Police brutality in the United States
2003 deaths
Filmed killings by law enforcement
Deaths by firearm in California
Year of birth missing
Crimes in California
Law enforcement in California
Victims of police brutality in the United States
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
Compton, California |
11227464 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Kayla%20Rolland | Shooting of Kayla Rolland | Kayla Renee Rolland (May 12, 1993 – February 29, 2000) was an American six-year-old girl from Mount Morris Township, Michigan, who was fatally shot on February 29, 2000 by a six-year-old male classmate at Buell Elementary School in the Beecher Community School District. The boy had found the gun while living at his uncle's drug house where guns were frequently traded for drugs. The killing drew worldwide attention due to the particularly young ages of the victim and the perpetrator: Rolland was the youngest school shooting victim in the United States until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, and her assailant remains the youngest fatal school shooting perpetrator to date, and the second-youngest school shooting perpetrator in general. The boy was not charged with murder because of his age. Buell Elementary School closed in 2002.
Background
Kayla Rolland was killed by a six-year-old male first grader at Buell Elementary School in the Beecher Community School District, located in Mount Morris Township, Michigan, near Flint. His father, Dedric Owens, was in jail for violating his parole, having previously been convicted for possession of cocaine with intent to deliver and burglary. The boy had been living with his mother, Tamarla, and his eight-year-old brother. She was evicted from her home, having been unable to pay rent with the $175 weekly wage she received from the two jobs she worked under Michigan's welfare-to-work program, and both boys then shared a single sofa as a bed at their uncle's house. The home, where his uncle lived with a 19-year-old man, was a crack house where guns were frequently traded for drugs. At some point, the child found a loaded Davis Industries P-32 .32-caliber handgun under some blankets.
The boy was known to have behavioral problems, and was made to stay after school nearly every day for swearing, giving people the finger, pinching, and hitting. Some weeks before the shooting he stabbed a girl with a pencil. Chris Boaz, a seven-year-old classmate, claimed the boy once punched him because he would not give him a pickle. The boy previously attacked Kayla Rolland before and, on the day prior to the killing, tried to kiss her and was rebuffed. Early on the day of the shooting, the boy and his brother got into a fight with Boaz, whom the boy threatened to shoot.
Shooting
On February 29, 2000, the boy had brought the firearm, along with a knife, with him to school. Further in the day, during a change of classes, he fatally shot six-year-old Kayla Rolland in the presence of a teacher and 22 students while they were moving up a floor on the stairs, saying to her: "I don't like you", before pulling the trigger. The bullet entered her right arm and travelled through a vital artery. At 10:29 a.m. EST, Rolland was pronounced dead at Hurley Medical Center while in cardiac arrest. He then threw the handgun into a trash basket and fled to a nearby restroom. He was found there, in the corner, by a teacher and was taken into police custody soon after. He was held in custody until the Genesee County Family Independence Agency could determine his placement. He and his two younger siblings have since been placed with an aunt.
Aftermath
At the time, Kayla Rolland was believed to have been the youngest school shooting victim in United States history, which was not surpassed until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012. Her assailant became the youngest school shooter in the United States, and based on the legal claim that at that age he would lack the ability to form intent, he was not charged with the murder. In most U.S. states, six-year-olds are not liable for crimes they commit, and the Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur Busch called on the citizens to collectively hug the boy, presumably out of pity and sympathy. In an 1893 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "children under the age of seven years could not be guilty of felony, or punished for any capital offense, for within that age the child is conclusively presumed incapable of committing a crime." This is followed in many U.S. states.
Jamelle James, the uncle who owned the .32-caliber pistol used in the shooting, was sentenced for leaving the gun in a shoe box in his bedroom. He eventually pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter and spent two years and five months in prison before he was released on probation. The other adults involved would be in and out of court systems in the years to follow. A search of James' house produced a loaded pump-action shotgun and a rock of crack cocaine.
Buell Elementary closed in 2002 due to dwindling enrollment and stressed finances. The campus was heavily damaged by arson in 2005, and was demolished in 2009. On the twentieth anniversary of the shooting on February 29, 2020, news media reported that the boy who shot Kayla Rolland was living in Bay City, Michigan. According to court records, he had been convicted at age 18 of a felony in connection with charges of second-degree home invasion and larceny at a Bay City house on April 23, 2012.
Rolland's killing was documented in the 2002 Michael Moore film Bowling for Columbine.
See also
List of youngest killers
List of school shootings in the United States
References
External links
2000 murders in the United States
Genesee County, Michigan
Murder committed by minors
Deaths by person in the United States
Elementary school shootings in the United States
Deaths by firearm in Michigan
2000 crimes in the United States
February 2000 events in the United States
1993 births
2000 deaths |
15959812 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Michael%20Cho | Shooting of Michael Cho | The shooting of Michael Sungman Cho occurred on December 31, 2007, in the Orange County city of La Habra, California. Cho, a 25-year-old Korean-American artist, was brandishing a tire iron outside a store and was shot by two police officers. The shooting was ruled justified by the Orange County district attorney. Cho's family received a $100,000 settlement from a lawsuit.
Background
Michael Cho was a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and was an artist.
Death
At 1 p.m. on New Year's Eve, police received a telephone report that an Asian man was vandalizing car windows on North Walnut Avenue; the officers who arrived on the scene were unable to find the man reported. The same person called in an hour later to report that the man in question was at Walnut Avenue and Whittier Boulevard and had a tire iron. Police arrived at the address of the alleged vandalism, the 7Gold Liquor Store at 545 Whittier Boulevard, after 2 p.m.; they contacted their dispatcher at 2:04 to state that they were outside of the liquor store with Cho. Their next communication with the dispatcher was 41 seconds later, during which they stated that they had shot Cho, and requested assistance from paramedics. The paramedics pronounced Cho dead at the scene.
The liquor store's closed-circuit television camera recorded 25 seconds of the incident. The relevant clip shows the two officers, Pete DiPasqua and John Jaime, with two guns drawn; Cho walked towards them and brought his right hand to his mouth. He appeared to be holding an object in his left hand. He then turned to his right and walked out of the camera's view; police continued to point their guns at him. The officers claimed that the object Cho was holding was the previously-reported tire iron, and that he threatened them with it and refused orders to put it down. Newspaper reports stated that police fired ten shots at Cho; La Habra police chief Dennis Kies was unable to confirm this number in an interview ten days after the shooting.
Reactions
Friends and community members were angered and saddened by the shootings. UCLA art professor James Welling expressed his disbelief that Cho could be perceived as "menacing"; he described Cho as a "good-natured" person who was always "hanging around with high-achieving art students". On January 5, 2008, more than 100 of Cho's friends and relatives held a candlelight vigil at the site of his death; they set up photographs of Cho and left notes of condolence. His funeral was held on the morning of January 12, 2008 at the Good Stewards Church; he was buried at Oakdale Memorial Park that afternoon. On February 19, 2008, 200 people gathered outside La Habra City Hall to demand police provide answers. In contrast to the previous memorial, at which the atmosphere was one of mourning, the attendees at the February memorial expressed their anger at police. A Facebook group created to celebrate his life and protest his death had grown to 3,000 members by late February 2008.
Investigation and lawsuit
The officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave, and the department planned to convene an internal review panel to look into the death. By the following month, the officers had returned to work. Cho's death was the second Orange County officer-involved shooting in two days; on the morning of January 30, police responding to a domestic violence call shot a man in the abdomen after he allegedly lunged at them with a knife. Of the 49 officer-involved shootings in Orange County since July 2004, the La Habra Police Department was responsible for four, making them one of the most deadly out of over twenty municipal police departments in the county. The La Habra Police Department declined to release the names of the officers in question. In June 2008, the Orange County district attorney's office announced that their investigation concluded that the killing was a justifiable homicide, and that no charges would be filed.
Cho's family hired Shelley Kaufman and Pat Harris, attorneys with the firm of high-profile criminal defense lawyer Mark Geragos, to represent them and were reportedly considering a lawsuit against the La Habra Police Department. Few community leaders expected that the officers in question would be punished for the shooting death. In July 2008, they filed a civil suit against the city of La Habra and the officers in question. Their suit alleged wrongful death and negligence. Southern California District Court judge Alicemarie H. Stotler announced in November 2009 that the trial would begin on February 2, 2010. However, the trial resulted in a hung jury, and Stotler declared a mistrial. In April 2010, a new trial date of September 21 was announced, with a settlement conference to be held in June. On September 15, less than a week before the trial date, Cho's family accepted a $100,000 settlement, stating that they hoped to avoid the "emotional ordeal" of a second trial.
References
Deaths by firearm in California
Law enforcement in California
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Protests in the United States
La Habra, California
2007 in California
Cho, Michael Sungman
Cho, Michael Sungman
Cho, Michael Sungman
Cho, Michael Sungman
Asian-American-related controversies
Filmed killings by law enforcement |
19666814 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Jean%20Charles%20de%20Menezes | Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes | Jean Charles da Silva e de Menezes (; 7 January 1978 – 22 July 2005) was a Brazilian man killed by officers of the London Metropolitan Police Service at Stockwell station on the London Underground, after he was wrongly deemed to be one of the fugitives involved in the previous day's failed bombing attempts. These events took place two weeks after the London bombings of 7 July 2005, in which 52 people were killed.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) launched two investigations. Stockwell 1, the findings of which were initially kept secret, concluded that none of the officers would face disciplinary charges. Stockwell 2 strongly criticised the police command structure and communications to the public. In July 2006, the Crown Prosecution Service said that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any named individual police officers in a personal capacity, although a criminal prosecution of the Commissioner in his official capacity on behalf of his police force was brought under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, on the failure of the duty of care due to Menezes. The Commissioner was found guilty and his office was fined. On 12 December 2008 an inquest returned an open verdict.
Menezes' death led to protests in Brazil, and prompted apologies from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The Landless Workers' Movement demonstrated outside British diplomatic missions in Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. The shooting also led to debate over shoot-to-kill policies adopted by the Metropolitan Police Service after the September 11 attacks.
Biography
The son of a bricklayer, Menezes grew up on a farm in Gonzaga, Minas Gerais, Brazil. After discovering an early aptitude for electronics, he left the farm aged 14 to live with his uncle in São Paulo and further his education. At 19 he received a professional diploma from Escola Estadual (State School) São Sebastião.
According to the Home Office, he arrived in Britain on 13 March 2002, on a six-month visitor's visa. After its expiry, he applied to stay on as a student, and was granted permission to remain until 30 June 2003. The Home Office said it had no record of any further correspondence, but added: "We have seen a copy of Mr Menezes' passport, containing a stamp apparently giving him indefinite leave to remain in the UK. On investigation, this stamp was not one that was in use by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate on the date given." This was denied by the family of Menezes, and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw stated that he believed Menezes was living in the UK legally, but had no precise information to confirm this. Immigration records show that Menezes entered the Republic of Ireland from France on 23 April 2005. There are no records to show the exact date that he returned to the UK; under the Immigration (Control of Entry through Republic of Ireland) Order 1972, a foreign citizen entering the UK through the Republic of Ireland can have an automatic right to remain for three months, as long as not working, according to paragraph 4 (4)(a). However, this clause does not apply to "visa nationals" who have "no valid visa to enter the UK" (paragraph 4 (2)) or those who have previously left the United Kingdom "whilst having a limited leave to enter or remain there which has since expired", according to paragraph 4 (3). Accordingly, Menezes was unlawfully residing in the UK on the day he was killed.
Shooting
Almost all of the facts regarding the Menezes shooting were initially disputed by various parties. Contradictory witness accounts, "off the record" statements from police, and media speculation added to the confusion. An ITV report on 16 August 2005 claimed to contain leaked documents from an IPCC investigation.
Hunt for suspects
On 22 July 2005, the Metropolitan Police were searching for four suspects in four attempted bombings carried out the previous day; three at Underground stations and one on a bus in Hackney. As the perpetrators had not died in the failed suicide bombing, a large police investigation and manhunt began immediately. An address in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill, was written on a gym membership card that was found inside one of the unexploded bags used by the bombers.
Menezes, an electrician, lived in one of the flats with two of his cousins, and had just received a call to fix a broken fire alarm in Kilburn. At around 9:30a.m., officers carrying out surveillance saw Menezes emerge from the communal entrance of the block.
An officer on duty at Scotia Road, referred to as "Frank" in the Stockwell 1 report, compared Menezes to the CCTV photographs of the bombing suspects from the previous day, and felt he warranted further attention. As the officer was allegedly urinating, he was unable to immediately film the suspect to transmit images to Gold Command, the Metropolitan Police operational headquarters for major incidents. The inquest transcript confirms that "Frank" was a soldier on secondment to the undercover surveillance unit.
Misidentification
On the basis of Frank's suspicion, the Met's then Gold Commander Cressida Dick authorised officers to continue pursuit and surveillance, and ordered that the suspect be prevented from entering the Tube system.
Documents from the independent agency investigation of the shooting later concluded that mistakes in police surveillance procedure led to a failure to properly identify Menezes early on, leading to rushed assumptions and actions later at Stockwell tube station.
Pursuit
The officers followed Menezes to a bus-stop for the number 2 bus on Tulse Hill where several plainclothes police officers boarded. Menezes briefly got off the bus at Brixton station. Seeing a notice that the station was closed due to a security alert because of the previous day's attempted bombings, he made a telephone call and reboarded the bus towards Stockwell.
Unaware the station was closed, the surveillance officers said they believed that Menezes's behaviour suggested that he might have been one of the previous day's failed bomb suspects. Officers claimed that Menezes' behaviour appeared "suspicious". They later stated that they were satisfied that they had the correct man, noting that he "had Mongolian eyes". At some point during this journey towards Stockwell station, away, the pursuing officers contacted Gold Command, and reported that Menezes potentially matched the description of two of the previous day's suspects, including Osman Hussain. Based on this information, Gold Command authorised "code red" tactics, and ordered the surveillance officers to prevent Menezes from boarding a train. According to a "senior police source at Scotland Yard", Police Commander Cressida Dick told the surveillance team that the man was to be "detained as soon as possible", before entering the station. Gold Command then transferred control of the operation to Specialist Firearms Command (known as "CO19" or "SO19"), which dispatched firearms officers to Stockwell tube station.
Menezes entered the tube station at about 10:00a.m., stopping to pick up a free newspaper. He used his Oyster card to pay the fare, walked through the barriers, and descended the escalator. He then ran across the platform to board the newly arrived train. Menezes boarded the train and found one of the first available seats.
Three surveillance officers, codenamed Hotel 1, Hotel 3 and Hotel 9, followed Menezes onto the train. According to Hotel 3, Menezes sat down with a glass panel to his right about two seats in. Hotel 3 then took a seat on the left with about two or three passengers between Menezes and himself. When the firearms officers arrived on the platform, Hotel 3 moved to the door, blocked it from closing with his left foot, and shouted "He's here!" to identify the suspect's location.
Shooting
The firearms officers boarded the train and it was initially claimed they challenged the suspect, though later reports indicate he was not challenged. According to Hotel 3, Menezes then stood up and moved towards the officers and Hotel 3, at which point Hotel 3 grabbed him, pinned his arms against his torso, and pushed him back into the seat. Although Menezes was being restrained, his body was straight and not in a natural sitting position. Hotel 3 heard a shot close to his ear, and was dragged away onto the floor of the carriage. He shouted "Police!" and with hands raised was dragged out of the carriage by one of the armed officers who had boarded the train. Hotel 3 then heard several gunshots while being dragged out.
Two officers fired a total of eleven shots according to the number of empty cartridge casings found on the floor of the train afterwards. Menezes was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder at close range and died at the scene. An eyewitness later said that the eleven shots were fired over a thirty-second period, at three-second intervals. A separate witness reported hearing five shots, followed at an interval by several more shots.
Immediately after the shooting, the Metropolitan Police stated that the shooting was "directly linked" to the investigation of the attempted bombings the previous day. It was revealed that police policy towards suspected suicide bombers had been revised and that officers had been ordered to fire directly towards suspects' heads, the theory according to British authorities being that shooting at the chest could conceivably detonate a concealed bomb.
The SO19 firearms officers involved in the shooting were debriefed and drugs and alcohol tests were taken as per standard procedure. The officers were taken off duty pending an investigation into the shooting. One security agency source said later that members of SO19 received training from the SAS. He said the operation was not typical of the police and bore the hallmarks of a special forces operation.
It emerged that hollow-point bullets had been employed and a senior police source said that Menezes's body had been "unrecognisable". These bullets are widely used in law enforcement, where it may often be necessary to quickly stop an armed assailant while minimising the risk of collateral damage posed by the use of full metal jacket ammunition. A full metal jacket bullet is more likely to exit the target while still retaining lethal force. A Home Office spokesman said, "Chief officers can use whatever ammunition they consider appropriate for the operational circumstances."
Immediate aftermath
The day after the shooting, the Metropolitan Police identified the victim as Jean Charles de Menezes and said that he had not been carrying explosives, nor was he connected in any way to the attempted bombings. They issued an apology describing the incident as "a tragedy, and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets".
The Menezes family condemned the shooting and rejected the apology. His grandmother said there was "no reason to think he was a terrorist". Although it was initially reported that they were offered almost £585,000 compensation, the Menezes family eventually received £100,000 in compensation from the Metropolitan Police.
His cousin, Alex Alves Pereira, said: "I believe my cousin's death was result of police incompetence." Pereira said that police claims regarding the incident had been conflicting, and took issue with their pursuit of Menezes for an extended period and their allowing the "suspected suicide bomber" to board a bus. "Why did they let him get on a bus if they are afraid of suicide bombers?... He could have been running, but not from the police... When the Underground stops, everybody runs to get on the train. That he jumped over the barriers is a lie."
The Brazilian government released a statement expressing its shock at the killing, saying that it looked forward "to receiving the necessary explanation from the British authorities on the circumstances which led to this tragedy." Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, who had already arranged to visit London, said he would seek a meeting with the UK's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. He later met ministers and had a telephone conversation with Straw.
The Muslim Council of Britain expressed immediate concern about the apparent existence of a "shoot-to-kill" policy and called on police to make clear their reasons for shooting the man dead.
On 27 July 2005, Menezes's body was flown to Brazil for burial. His funeral took place in Gonzaga on 29 July 2005. A public requiem mass for Menezes, attended by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, was held at Westminster Cathedral around the same time.
Public reaction
In Britain
A vigil at Stockwell Station was held with some of the relatives on the Sunday immediately following the shooting and police apology. Another, called by the Stop the War Coalition, was held on 25 July. They state that a thousand people attended and then several hundred people, led by a group of Brazilians (some of whom had been friends with Jean Charles), began an impromptu demonstration.
On 23 August 2005, Dania Gorodi, a Romanian immigrant, the sister of victim Michelle Otto who was killed in the 7 July 2005 London bombings, asked for an end to the criticism of Sir Ian Blair over the Menezes shooting, which she felt had moved the media focus away from the bombings. "People have lost sight of the bigger picture", she said. "We need to support the police right now, not crucify one man. This is unprecedented in British history. He [Sir Ian] is doing the best he can."
When, on 12 September 2006, the Metropolitan Police Authority promoted Commander Cressida Dick to the role of Deputy Assistant Commissioner, the family said they were 'absolutely disgusted'. The family also criticised the awarding of the Queen's Police Medal to Commander Dick in the 2010 New Year's Day honours.
On 29 September 2008, performance artist Mark McGowan "re-enacted" the killing at Stockwell station, to protest against the then-current lack of response. He was quoted as saying that "People are distracted by things like The X Factor and Christmas, so I'm doing this as a reaction."
Police comments
Senior Scotland Yard officer Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Given, who had operational responsibilities in relation to the officers who had actually killed Menezes, said "... when it came to the Stockwell shooting, there was a sense that it was no different from an incident such as police shooting a bank robber".
On the day of Menezes's death, at his mid-afternoon press conference, Sir Ian Blair, stated: "I need to make clear that any death is deeply regrettable".
In Brazil
The reaction of the Brazilian public was overwhelmingly negative. Protests and demonstrations were held in Brazil. His cousin called Menezes's death a "third-world error". Brazilian newspaper O Globo criticised Home Secretary Charles Clarke for his praise for the Metropolitan Police Service after the shooting, while Jornal do Brasil wrote that "Instead of apologising, the English authorities came out in defence of those responsible for this disastrous [police] action."
Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry
Several days after the shooting, it was announced that the incident would be subject to an internal investigation by officers from Scotland Yard's Directorate of Professional Standards and would be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), as is the case with all fatal police shootings.
Immediately after the shooting, Commissioner Sir Ian Blair telephoned the Chairman of the IPCC and wrote a letter to the Home Office, describing his instruction that "the shooting that has just occurred at Stockwell is not to be referred to the IPCC and that they will be given no access to the scene at the present time." The letter, later released by the Met under the Freedom of Information Act, expressed the Commissioner's intent to protect the tactics and sources of information used in a counter-terrorism operation from the public jeopardizing future operations.
Controversy between the Met and the IPCC
On 18 August, lawyers representing the Menezes family met the IPCC and urged them to conduct a "fast" investigation. The lawyers, Harriet Wistrich and Gareth Peirce, held a press conference where they lamented the "chaotic mess". They stated their desire to ask the IPCC "to find out ... how much is incompetence, negligence or gross negligence and how much of it is something sinister".
On 18 August, the IPCC issued a statement in which it said that the Metropolitan Police was initially opposed to them taking on the investigation. It also announced that the inquiry was expected to last between three and six months. The IPCC announced it took over the inquiry on 25 July; however, the inquiry was not handed over until 27 July.
The police lobbied MPs to try to influence the inquiry into the shooting. Unsolicited e-mails were sent by Nick Williams, the acting inspector at the Metropolitan Police's Diamond Support Group, to Labour MPs denying that there was a "shoot-to-kill" policy and that the tactics employed were necessary. The Met declined repeated requests by the IPCC to disclose hundreds of pages of internal papers that gave the Met's private assessment of the operation, including discussions about how much compensation the Met thought it should pay to the Menezes family; the risk that individual officers might face murder or manslaughter charges; the vulnerability of Blair and the Met to an action for civil damages; and whether Special Branch officers altered surveillance logs.
In May 2006, the Metropolitan Police Federation, a staff association that represents the interests of police officers, released a 12-page statement which was highly critical of the IPCC in general, and specifically criticised the handling of the "Stockwell inquiry".
Leak of inquiry
On 16 August 2005, British television network ITV released a report said to be based on leaked documents from the IPCC investigation which conflicted with previous statements by police chief Sir Ian Blair. The Met and the IPCC refused to comment on the allegations while the IPCC investigation was ongoing, though an anonymous "senior police source" claimed that the leak was accurate.
Lana Vandenberghe, the IPCC secretary thought to be responsible for the leak, was suspended and subsequently sacked. The IPCC launched an investigation into the leaking of the documents. On 21 September, Leicester Constabulary Serious Crime Unit initiated dawn raids on behalf of the IPCC on one Scottish and two London residential premises, at which time Vandenberghe was arrested. Two more dawn raids took place on 5 October, during which ITN journalist Neil Garrett and his girlfriend were arrested. On 4 May 2006, Leicestershire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service announced that no charges would be filed against Vandenberghe, Garrett or his partner.
Stockwell 1
According to a press release made on 9 December by the IPCC's chairman Nick Hardwick and John Tate, its Director of Legal Services, the inquiry's report would list some of the criminal offences that the commission thought may have been committed by police. Though without having reached any conclusions, they also admitted the commission's judgement would be a "lower threshold" than the standard prosecutors would apply in making any final decision to prosecute.
On 14 March 2006, the IPCC announced that the first part of the inquiry, known as "Stockwell 1" had been completed and recommendations were passed on to the Metropolitan Police Authority and Crown Prosecution Service, but the report "[could not] be made public until all legal processes have concluded".
The report was published on 8 November 2007.
Stockwell 2
"Stockwell 2", the second part of the inquiry, focuses on the conduct of Sir Ian Blair and Andrew Hayman following the discovery of Menezes's identity, and was released on 2 August 2007. The allegations were that MPS officers "made or concurred with inaccurate public statements concerning the circumstances of the death. The alleged inaccurate information included statements that Mr de Menezes had been wearing clothing and behaving in a manner which aroused suspicions."
Brian Paddick
On 17 March 2006, the Met was threatened with legal action by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick. In evidence to the IPCC, Paddick had stated that a member of Sir Ian's private office team believed the wrong man had been targeted just six hours after the shooting, contrary to the official line taken at the time. When this information became public, Scotland Yard issued a statement that the officer making the claim (Paddick) "has categorically denied this in his interview with, and statement to, the IPCC investigators". The statement continued that they "were satisfied that whatever the reasons for this suggestion being made, it is simply not true". Paddick's interpretation of this statement was that it accused him of lying.
After a statement was released on 28 March by the Met that it "did not intend to imply" a senior officer had misled the probe into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, Paddick accepted the 'clarification' and considered the matter closed.
In a substantial campaigning Daily Telegraph interview (17 November 2007 – "I know how to make Londoners feel safe") which Paddick gave to support his suitability to become Mayor, he said "Policing is a dangerous job, we should trust the professional judgement of officers on the front line. We shouldn't prosecute them or their bosses if they decide to put their lives on the line for the public".
Investigation into suppression of evidence
On 13 October 2008, at an inquest into the death, a police surveillance officer admitted that he had deleted a computer record of Cressida Dick's instruction that they could allow Menezes to "run on to Tube as [he was] not carrying anything". At the inquest he told the court that "On reflection, I looked at that and thought I cannot actually say that." The IPCC announced that it would investigate the matter "[at its] highest level of investigation".
DPP and CPS involvement
In July 2006, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which like the IPCC operates independently of the Met, announced that it would not carry forward any charges against any individual involved in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner in his official capacity faced criminal charges under sections 3(1) and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for "failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare of Jean Charles de Menezes".
The decision not to prosecute individuals was made on the grounds of insufficient evidence. The family of Menezes appealed against the decisions of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service in the High Court.
The legal representatives of the Metropolitan Police Service, on behalf of the office of the Commissioner, pleaded not guilty to the charges, "after the most careful consideration". The trial started on 1 October 2007.
On 14 December 2006, Lord Justice Richards (Richards LJ) of the High Court, sitting with Mr Justice Forbes (Forbes J) and Mr Justice Mackay (Mackay J), unanimously rejected an application for a judicial review into the decision of the office of the DPP on behalf of the CPS to rule out criminal prosecutions of the individual police officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes, ruling that "[I]t was a reasonable decision... on the basis that they were likely to fail".
On 1 November 2007, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in his official capacity was found guilty of the above offences, and his office was fined £175,000, together with £385,000 of legal costs. The Met published a terse release about this decision and Len Duvall, Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, asked that the full report on the investigation be published.
Controversy over police procedure
Much discussion following the shooting centred on the rules of engagement followed by armed police when dealing with suspected suicide bombers. Roy Ramm, a former commander of specialist operations for the Metropolitan Police, said that the rules had been changed to permit officers to "shoot to kill" potential suicide bombers, claiming headshots are the safest way to kill the suspect without risk of detonating devices.
The possibility of a police confrontation with a suicide bomber in the United Kingdom had reportedly been discussed following the September 11 attacks in the United States. Based on this possibility, new guidelines were developed for identifying, confronting, and dealing forcefully with terrorist suspects. These guidelines were given the code name "Operation Kratos".
Based in part on advice from the security forces of Israel and Sri Lanka—two countries with experience of suicide bombings—Operation Kratos guidelines allegedly state that the head or lower limbs should be aimed at when a suspected suicide bomber appears to have no intention of surrendering. This is contrary to the usual practice of aiming at the torso, which presents the biggest target, since a hit to the torso may detonate an explosive belt.
Sir Ian Blair appeared on television on 24 July 2005 to accept responsibility for the error on the part of the Metropolitan Police, and to acknowledge and defend the "shoot to kill" policy, saying:
The Met's commissioner Sir Ian Blair, and his predecessor Lord Stevens, had expressed concern about the legal position of police officers who might kill suspected suicide bombers. There is no explicit legal requirement for armed officers to warn a suspect before firing, although guidelines published by the Association of Chief Police Officers say that this "should be considered". A potential suicide bomber is thought to represent a circumstance where warning the suspect may put the public at greater risk because the bomber may detonate his explosives after being warned.
Lord Stevens defended the policy he introduced, despite the error that had been made. Azzam Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain was critical, saying: "I just cannot imagine how someone pinned to the ground can be a source of danger." Other leaders of the UK's Muslim community took a similar view. Ken Livingstone, the then Mayor of London, defended the police as having acted in the way they thought appropriate at the time, and with the aim of protecting the public.
Confirmation bias on the part of the Metropolitan Police may have come into play in this case. Disconfirming evidence that Menezes was the suspect may have been present, but interpreted incorrectly. The threat of a suicide bombing on the Underground may have produced stress and time pressures in individuals within the department, which in turn could have affected their decision-making thresholds.
Owing to the controversy surrounding the death of Menezes, the codename of Operation Kratos was dropped from all police lexicon in 2007–08, although the tactics for dealing with a suicide threat remained broadly the same.
During the trial an allegation was made that the police had manipulated a photo of de Menezes so as to increase his resemblance to a "terrorist", Hussain Oman. A forensic specialist concluded de Menezes' face "appeared to have been brightened and lost definition". However, when asked if there had been any manipulation of any of the primary features of the face he replied "I don't believe there has been any... but making the image brighter has changed the image."
Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign
On 16 August 2005, the Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign, also known as "Justice4Jean", began calling for a public inquiry into the "unlawful killing" of Menezes.
Critics such as Conservative London Assemblyman Brian Coleman have suggested that the involvement of Asad Rehman, a former leader of the Stop the War Coalition and former adviser to Respect politician George Galloway in the campaign shows that the family's campaign had been "hijacked" and the death of Menezes was being used to "advance a political aim". Galloway's secretary said that Rehman had been acting in "a personal capacity, ... not in his role as political adviser", and Menezes family members Alessandro Pereira and Vivien Figueiredo denied any manipulation.
The family campaign organised three events in 2005:
On 29 July, a vigil in Parliament Square and a multi-faith memorial service at Westminster Cathedral were held at the same time as Menezes's funeral in Brazil.
On 22 August, a petition asking for a public inquiry was delivered to Downing Street by Menezes family member Alessandro Pereira and members of Justice4Jean. The protestors made their way from Downing Street to Scotland Yard, together with the relatives of Paul Coker and Azelle Rodney, individuals who also died in London police incidents in 2005.
On 10 October, the campaign was launched at the London School of Economics with Menezes's parents, the family lawyer Gareth Peirce, Bianca Jagger, Matthew Taylor MP and Irene Khan from Amnesty International.
The family and their campaign continue to be actively supported by Newham Monitoring Project; on 22 July 2007 they held a minute of silence outside Stockwell tube station to commemorate the second anniversary of Menezes's death. Two days earlier the campaign projected a 20 metre by 30 metre (65' x 100') image of Menezes's face with the slogan "Two Years, No Justice" on the walls of the Houses of Parliament. The campaign set up a blog for the duration of the inquest starting on 22 September 2008 and released a pre-inquest briefing.
On 7 January 2010, a memorial was unveiled at Stockwell tube station. It was made by local artist Mary Edwards, with the help of Menezes' cousin, Vivian Figueiredo, and Chrysoula Vardaxi, a member of a group that kept alive the memorial "shrine" to Menezes beginning within the days following his death.
European Court of Human Rights
On 10 June 2015, the Menezes family took the British government to the European Court of Human Rights over the decision not to prosecute anyone involved in the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. The legal challenge was mounted under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding state deprivation of life and use of force.
On 30 March 2016, the Grand Chamber held—by a majority of 13 to 4—that there had been no violation of Article 2:
Dissenting judges highlighted concerns about the objective reasonableness of the "honest belief, perceived for good reasons" justifying the use of force; that officers were permitted to write their notes up together; that the threshold for prosecution was more stringent than in other states; and the incongruity that no individual was subject to disciplinary action despite a finding of institutional criminal responsibility under the Health and Safety Act.
Inquest
The inquest opened on 22 September 2008 at the John Major conference room at The Oval, Kennington, London. The coroner, Sir Michael Wright, a former High Court judge and assistant deputy coroner for Inner South London, and the jury heard from almost 70 witnesses, including over 40 police officers.
On the first day the inquest heard that the police officers who shot Menezes dead were "convinced" at the time that he was a suicide bomber. In his comments, Sir Michael Wright said that the two officers thought Menezes was about to detonate a "device" on the Tube. He took the inquest jury through the events leading up to Menezes's death, listing a number of occasions where officers were unclear whether or not they thought they were pursuing a bomber. The jury was told of differences between what was being relayed on radio and logged in the Scotland Yard control room and how the officers in the field were interpreting the information.
He said that when Menezes entered the Stockwell Tube station no member of the surveillance team had positively identified him as Hussain Osman. Regarding the decision of the two firearms officers to shoot Menezes, Sir Michael said that they had fired nine rounds between them, seven of which had struck Menezes's head at point blank range. He added that the two officers concerned were convinced that Menezes was a suicide bomber about to detonate a device, and that the only option open was an instant killing.
On 13 October, the IPCC launched an investigation after a Metropolitan police surveillance officer named only as "Owen" admitted that he had altered evidence submitted to the inquest. The officer had deleted one of his own computer notes which quoted deputy assistant commissioner Cressida Dick as concluding that Menezes was not a security threat. The note said "CDcan run on to tube as not carrying anything".
On 24 October the inquest heard that Menezes was initially not considered as a suspect, and that the police wanted unarmed officers to halt and question him in case he had information about the failed terrorist attack of 21 July 2005. Detective Sergeant Piers Dingemans and a four-man squad were tasked with stopping Menezes for intelligence purposes as he travelled to Stockwell station on a bus. Dingemans told the inquest that his car was behind the bus when he was stood down at 09:55, and said he thought this was because Menezes was then considered a suspect.
On 2 December Sir Michael ordered the jury, shortly before they retired to consider their verdict, that they could not return one of "unlawful killing", leaving their options as "lawful killing", or an open verdict. He said that the verdict could not be inconsistent with the earlier criminal trial. As well as the short-form verdict of "lawful killing" or "open", Sir Michael also asked them to respond to three questions of fact, and nine possible contributory factors with simple "yes", "no", or "cannot decide" answers. The Menezes family lodged an immediate application for a judicial review of the decision.
On 4 December, during Sir Michael's summing-up, members of the Menezes family got up and undid their jackets exposing printed slogans on their T-shirts, with the wording "Your legal right to decideunlawful killing verdict", and left the courtroom after pausing for 30 seconds in front of the jury. The following day, Sir Michael asked the jury to ignore the protest. In his summing-up, Sir Michael stated that to return a verdict of lawful killing, the jury should be "satisfied of two matters on the balance of probabilities":
If the jury was not satisfied on both of these, they were to return an open verdict.
On 9 December the jury asked the coroner whether they were required to find unanimity on the short-form verdict and all of the additional questions. Sir Michael instructed them that they should strive for unanimity, but he would accept a 10–1 or 9–2 verdict. Later that day one of the jury was permanently dismissed owing to travel plans, reducing the jury to 10, and the following day Sir Michael said he would now accept a 9–1 or 8–2 verdict.
On Friday 12 December 2008, the inquest into Jean Charles' death returned an open verdict. Their answers to the specific questions and contributory facts were as follows. In the latter portion, the answers "yes", "no", and "can't decide" were determined by the jury while answering the broader question "which of these other factors, if any, contributed to the death".
The officer identified as "Ivor" was a member of a SO12 Special Branch covert surveillance team who had followed Menezes on the bus and attempted to identify him. He has also been designated as "Hotel 3". The officer identified as "C12" or "Charlie 12" was a member of a CO19 firearms unit who first opened fire and killed Menezes.
Disputed facts and events
Clothing
With regard to his dress on the day of the shooting The Observer reported that he was dressed in "baseball cap, blue fleece and baggy trousers". Mark Whitby, a witness to the shooting, told Reuters that he observed Menezes wearing a large winter coat, which "looked out of place". Vivien Figueiredo, a cousin of Menezes, was later told by police that Menezes was wearing a denim jacket on the day of the shooting. Anthony Larkin, another eyewitness, told the BBC that Menezes appeared to be wearing a "bomb belt with wires coming out".
Based on these eyewitness reports, press speculation at the time said that wearing such heavy clothing on a warm day raised suspicions that Menezes was hiding explosives underneath, and was therefore a potential suicide bomber. At the time of the shooting, the temperature in London (at a Heathrow Airport weather station) was about 17 °C (62 °F).
No device resembling a bomb belt was reported as found. Menezes was also not carrying a tool bag, since he had left it with his colleague the previous evening. According to the report on leaked IPCC documents, Menezes was wearing a pair of jeans and a light denim jacket. This was confirmed by a photo of his body on the floor of the carriage after the shooting.
Police challenge
Police initially stated that they challenged Menezes and ordered him to stop outside Stockwell station. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said in a later press conference that a warning was issued prior to the shooting. Lee Ruston, an eyewitness who was waiting on the platform, said the police did not identify themselves. The Times reported "senior police sources" as saying that police policy would not require a warning to be given to a suspected suicide bomber before lethal action was taken.
The leaked IPCC documents indicated that Menezes was seated on the train carriage when the SO19 armed unit arrived. A shout of "police" may have been made, but the suspect had no opportunity to respond before he was shot. The leaked documents indicated that he was restrained by an undercover officer before being shot.
During the 2008 inquest into Menezes's death, passengers who were travelling in the same carriage also contradicted police accounts, saying that they heard no warnings and that Menezes gave no significant reaction to arrival of the policemen. One passenger said that Menezes appeared calm even as a gun was held to his head, and was clear that the police officers did not shout any warnings before shooting him.
Ticket barrier
Witnesses stated that up to twenty police officers in plain clothes pursued Menezes into Stockwell station, that he jumped over the ticket barrier, ran down an escalator and tried to jump onto a train. The Menezes family was briefed by the police that their son did not jump over the ticket barrier and used a Travelcard to pass through; this was subsequently confirmed by CCTV recordings shown at the Metropolitan Police trial.
The pathologist's post-mortem report, which was written five days after the shooting, recorded that Menezes "vaulted over the ticket barriers" and that he "ran down the stairs of the tube station". Dr Kenneth Shorrock later told the inquest that he had been given this information by police during a "walk-through" with officers at Stockwell Tube Station but he could not remember who had given him this incorrect information, which had also featured in earliest eyewitness reports.
It had been suggested that the man reported by eyewitnesses as jumping over the barrier may have been one of the police officers in pursuit.
CCTV footage
Initial UK media reports suggested that no CCTV footage was available from the Stockwell station, as recording media had not been replaced after being removed for examination after the previous day's attempted bombings. Other reports stated that faulty cameras on the platform were the reason for the lack of video evidence. An anonymous source confirmed that CCTV footage was available for the ticket area, but that there was a problem with the platform coverage. The source suggested that there was no useful CCTV footage from the platform or the train carriage.
Extracts from a later police report stated that examination of the platform cameras had produced no footage. It said: "It has been established that there has been a technical problem with the CCTV equipment on the relevant platform and no footage exists." The platform CCTV system is maintained by the Tube Lines consortium in charge of maintaining the Northern Line. The company made a statement to The Mail on Sunday insisting that the cameras were in working order.
During the inquest, evidence confirmed that the video tapes had been changed by a station supervisor in three video recorders monitoring the station CCTV at 3:09am on the morning of the shooting. These machines emit an audible noise if they are not receiving an audio/video signal, but there was no indication the supervisor heard an alarm. Three days later the equipment was tested and it was found that a cable transmitting the CCTV images to the video recorders had been damaged or cut, possibly during refurbishment work (the cable may have been severed when a workman stepped on it); the following day a communications expert confirmed that the alarm was sounding as a result of this loss of signal.
The same police report also reported there was no footage from CCTV in the carriage where Menezes was shot, stating: "Although there was on-board CCTV in the train, due to previous incidents [the 7 July bombings], the hard drive had been removed and not replaced."
CCTV footage from the number 2 bus Menezes took to the station was also shown during the inquest; it too, was incomplete. The IPCC claimed this was due to excessive vibration, which prevented several cameras on the bus from working.
Motivations
Several reasons were initially posited by media sources and family members for why Menezes may have run from police, as indicated by initial reports. A few weeks earlier, he had been attacked by a gang and may have perceived that he was in a similar situation upon seeing plainclothes officers chasing him. Several sources have speculated that irregularities about his immigration status may have given him reason to be wary of the police; evidence that emerged during the course of the criminal trial into the Health and Safety charge showed that Menezes was lawfully in the country on 22 July 2005. This is mentioned in the Stockwell One report, at footnote 4 on page 21. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a colleague believed that Menezes ran simply because he was late for his job. It was later indicated by the leaked IPCC documents that Menezes may have run across the platform to get a seat on the train, and did not know at the time that he was being watched or pursued.
Gunshots
It was initially stated by police that Menezes was shot five times in the head. Mark Whitby, a passenger on the train Menezes had run onto, said: "one of [the police officers] was carrying a black handgun—it looked like an automatic—He half tripped… they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him." Another passenger, Dan Copeland, said: "an officer jumped on the door to my left and screamed, 'Everybody out!' People just froze in their seats cowering for a few seconds and then leapt up. As I turned out the door on to the platform, I heard four dull bangs." Menezes's cousin Alex Pereira, who lived with him, asserted that Menezes had been shot from behind: "I pushed my way into the morgue. They wouldn't let me see him. His mouth was twisted by the wounds and it looked like he had been shot from the back of the neck." Later reports confirmed that Jean Charles de Menezes was shot a total of eight times: seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.
The leaked IPCC documents also indicated that an additional three shots had missed Menezes. One witness claimed that the shots were evenly distributed over a timespan of thirty seconds. This has not been substantiated by other witness reports or the leaked IPCC documents.
Involvement of special forces
Several commentators suggested that special forces may have been involved in the shooting. Professor Michael Clarke, Professor of Defence Studies at King's College London, went as far as to say that unless there had been a major change in policy it was likely that it was not the police who had carried out the shooting, but special forces:
On 4 August 2005, The Guardian reported that the newly created Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), a special forces unit specialising in covert surveillance, was involved in the operation that led to the shooting. The anonymous Whitehall sources who provided the story stressed that the SRR was involved only in intelligence gathering, and that Menezes was shot by armed police, not by members of the SRR or other soldiers. Defence sources would not comment on speculation that SRR soldiers were among the plainclothes officers who followed Menezes onto the number 2 bus. On 21 August, the Sunday Herald reported that SRR men are believed to have been in the tube train when the shooting occurred.
Stockwell One states, of the SO12 surveillance teams: (p. 28)
"During July 2005 each surveillance team had a member of the military attached to them. Those soldiers were unarmed."
In the transcript of the 2008 inquest, some of the soldiers' testimonies are recorded, including that of "Hotel 11" and that of "Frank".
Exonerated of sexual assault allegations
In February 2006, a woman claimed to police that a man who resembled Menezes had attacked her in a hotel room on New Year's Eve 2002 in west London. Scotland Yard spent several weeks investigating the claim. After the claim was made public in March 2006, the Menezes family denied the allegation and claimed that the Metropolitan Police were trying to smear Menezes. Although the family initially denied the request, a blood sample was eventually taken with their permission from Menezes's autopsy. On 25 April 2006 Scotland Yard announced that forensic tests on the sample had cleared Menezes.
Legal settlement
The four-year legal battle by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes ended when they reached a settlement with the Metropolitan Police Service in November 2009. The MPS agreed to pay compensation to the family, who in return agreed to end their legal action. The sum of money involved in the settlement was reported to be just over £100,000; in addition the family's substantial legal costs were paid. In a joint statement with the family, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner made "a further unreserved apology to the family for the tragic death of Jean Charles de Menezes" and reiterated "that he was a totally innocent victim and in no way to blame for his untimely death".
One journalist reacted critically to the level of compensation paid by the Metropolitan Police, comparing the level of payout with awards by employment tribunals, and speculating that "perhaps [de Menezes'] life was worth less because he was poor."
Similar incidents
Comparisons have been made between the death of Menezes and other innocent or unarmed men shot by British police officers in disputed circumstances, including Stephen Waldorf, James Ashley, Harry Stanley, and the 2 June 2006 Forest Gate raid.
In media
Television
The Panorama episode "Stockwell – Countdown to Killing", shown on BBC One 8 March 2006, investigated and partially dramatised the shooting.
The shooting was the subject of an hour-long "factual drama" titled Stockwell, first broadcast on the UK terrestrial channel ITV1 on 21 January 2009 at 9 pm.
Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio has said the series was inspired by the shooting of Menezes.
Film
A film about Menezes's life, titled Jean Charles, was filmed in 2008 and directed by Henrique Goldman. Selton Mello portrays Menezes and Vanessa Giácomo portrays his cousin. The movie debuted in Brazil, on 26 June 2009.
Theatre
The documentary play Stockwell opened in July 2009 at the Landor Theatre in Clapham in London. This play featured actors reading scripts edited by playwright Kieron Barry from transcripts of the inquest.
This Much Is True, written by Paul Unwin (co-creator of the BBC television show Casualty) and Sarah Beck, is a documentary stage play following the journeys of those caught in the wake of the shooting, weaving together testimony from Menezes's family, Justice4Jean campaigners, senior police officers and lawyers. The production ran at Theatre503 in Battersea from 27 October to 21 November 2009.
Music
"Hollow Point", from the album Handmade Life, a song about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, was written by the English folk musician, songwriter and composer Chris Wood. "Hollow Point" won Song of the Year at the 2011 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, where Wood also won Folk Singer of the Year.
During The Wall Live tour, Roger Waters added an acoustic coda to "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" with additional lyrics in honour of Menezes. This song is part of the Roger Waters The Wall 2015 live release and called "The Ballad of Jean Charles de Menezes". An animation is projected on to the wall showing a silhouette of an underground train pulling into a station, The train comes to a stop and the vocal narrative at the end of "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" finishes with the line "stand still laddie", shots are heard and flashes of light seen in one carriage. The projection on the main circular screen then changes to a photo of Jean Charles de Menezes for the additional coda to the song.
See also
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom
Police use of firearms in the United Kingdom
Deaths after contact with the police
References
Further reading
Stone-Lee, Ollie (22 July 2005). Stockwell left in shock by shooting. BBC News.
Silverman, Jon (23 July 2005). Shooting watershed for UK security. BBC News.
Q&A: Stockwell shooting (23 July 2005). BBC News.
Call for review of police policy (23 July 2005). BBC News.
Majendie, Paul (24 July 2005). Police kill Brazilian in bomb probe blunder. Reuters.
Family condemns police shooting (24 July 2005). BBC News.
Thompson, Tony; Hinsliff, Gaby; Xavier, Alexandre (24 July 2005). Man shot in terror hunt was innocent young Brazilian (24 July 2005). The Observer.
Summers, Chris (24 July 2005). The police marksman's dilemma. BBC News.
Call for reassurance in Stockwell (24 July 2005). BBC News.
Ex-police chief backs guns policy (24 July 2005). BBC News.
Family mourn for Brazilian victim (24 July 2005). BBC News.
(14 August 2005). The Observer
New claims emerge over Menezes death (17 August 2005). Guardian Unlimited
Leak disputes Menezes death story (17 August 2005). BBC News
Timeline: the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes (17 August 2005). The Times
Panorama: Stockwell: Countdown to killing (8 March 2006). BBC Panorama. A 59-minute-long programme investigating the controversial "shoot-to-kill" policy.
Stockwell One report – copy hosted on the BBC website.
July 2005 London bombings
Metropolitan Police operations
Brazilian expatriates in the United Kingdom
Deaths by firearm in England
Law enforcement in England and Wales
Deaths by person in London
Stockwell
London Underground
July 2005 events in Europe
2005 in London
Police misconduct in England
Victims of police brutality |
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