Leaks tarnish police

last updated 8 January 2015

London

The family of a Brazilian electrician mistakenly shot to death by police in a London subway station last month now say he was “murdered,” after leaked documents contradicted the police’s initial account of the shooting. Police officials had maintained that officers shot Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head because they thought he was a terrorist about to explode a bomb. They said he was wearing a bulky coat in hot weather, as some bombers do, and that he jumped a turnstile. But the leaked documents said Menezes was wearing a T-shirt, not a coat, and that he paid his fare before running to catch a train. One officer reportedly said Menezes looked suspicious because he had “Mongolian eyes.” Menezes’ family demanded the resignation of London’s chief of police, and said that Menezes was going to work on July 22 like any Londoner, “except that as he went to work he was murdered.”