I understand why the Metropolitan Police feels it’s appropriate to give the officer who shot Jean Charles de Menezes a break from duty. I also understand that the chap is probably feeling pretty dreadful and could do with a holiday. Even so, I’m not convinced that giving him a free all-expenses-paid foreign trip is the most sensitive move his bosses could have made…
Seems entirely sensible to me. On the one hand, the poor guy must be shattered. On the other, for cynics of the Met, it’s a good idea to get him separated from the rest of that squad by a few thousand miles until the inquiry is ready to ask them all what happened.
Hadn’t thought of the second point. That makes some sense…
One thought that strikes me about the argument that if Menezes had turned out to be a bomb-wearing terrorist, that we would all be glad the office shot him, or sorry if he hadn’t. I think if either of those scenarios had come about, especially the second one, the police involved would have been villified.
After all, they had someone they thought was a bomb-wearing terrorist under surveillance, essentially they had the advantage on him, but they waited to confront him, and when they did, they quickly lost control of the situation. He was able to run down into a tube station and actually get onto a train, a split second away from setting off his bomb and killing civilians.
The fact that the only way the police could prevent him from setting off his bomb on a tube train was to pump him full of bullets shows how badly they screwed the pooch on this one.
D’you think he’s gone to Brazil?
Is there any evidence at all that it’s a foreign holiday? I’ve just read the article 3 times and I can’t find the reference.
No, I just assumed that from the fact that he lives in Britain and therefore would be extremely unlikely to take a non-foreign holiday…
Nonsense!
Scarborough’s lovely this time of year.
I’d give him a medal as well as the holiday. He pressed on to do his duty despite *believing* that the man was a mobile bomb with the means and the motive to disintergrate both of them. Brave man!