Tube shooting revisited

last updated 8 January 2015

London

The police officers who mistook Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes for a terrorist and killed him on the London Underground face possible criminal charges, Scotland Yard said this week. The tragedy took place in July, just two weeks after the London bombings, when the city was tensed for further attacks. The two officers who pumped seven bullets into Menezes’ head as he sat on a subway train have already been told they are under investigation, while the four surveillance officers who trailed him to the station could be investigated later. Initial reports that Menezes, 27, was wearing a bulky jacket in summer and had vaulted the turnstile to enter the subway turned out to be false. Since the accident, the shoot-to-kill policy on suspected terrorists has come under criticism and has been renamed shoot-to-kill-to-protect.