The London Police and the Myth of the Brazilian Terrorist

Like many Brazilians, 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes moved to London for a change of environment, work opportunities and to benefit from the ever overvalued British Pound Sterling. The fate of this young man was not one of a typical South American migrant, being chased down by the London police and shot point blank during the London bombings of 2005. Unlike others accused of terrorist acts in London who are tried at the Old Bailey for their crimes, the trial for De Menezes was done posthumously as he was killed by the police themselves who thought he was contributing to the crimes that day by running away from officials and perhaps not having the language skills in English to understand what precisely was occurring at the time.

In a surprising verdict last week, the years of contemplation and stress between the UK and the Brazilian Government and community in London resulted in a guilty verdict against the London Police as a whole, charged with more than 800,000 Pounds Sterling in damages and legal fees. The individual officers were not found guilty, despite much pressure from the family and friends of the victim in Brazil seeing the officer's actions and criminally negligent beyond their police powers in the incident. The nature of the incident was initially hidden from the public, but when more investigations were completed it was found that de Menezes most likely did not understand what was occurring when the Police tried to detain him and took off for unknown reasons. He was pursued into the Tube Station and pinned down by officers, apparently then not being arrested but having a firearm placed against his body and discharged according to the BBC World Service broadcast of the event months after the Bombings.

Despite the victim being typically Latin American in appearance, the profile of the Bombers in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world could not be distinguished from other minorities during the time of chaos. The event also loomed with suspicion as a clear effort to cover up the true events from the public took place for months after the death of de Menezes due to the Terrorist label being applied to the victim and the Bombings taking place the same day of the incident. With the guilty verdict, the "accident" which took place seems more like negligent behaviour than simply a mere misunderstanding. The verdict is well justified after the lack of cooperation in finding the true source of the error which led to the young man's death.