Police faked tube shooting log ???

[montevideo]

The officer had to have an "honestly-held belief" that they, or someone else, was in imminent danger of assault and that the use of a firearm, in the way it was used, was the minimum reasonably necessary to stop that happening.

That is NOT the same as being "sure". Beiing "sure", without the benefit of hindsight, is impossible.

do you reckon his 'honestly held belief' he was dead after the first 8 bullets tore his skull apart? How 'sure' do you reckon he needed to be?

 

[montevideo]

And if he was and had exploded a bomb you would be calling the police for allowing it to happen..

These poor sods have to make an on the spot call.
Fucking easy to sit down in comfy chair and rant on about it.
Try considering the copper who has a duty to protect and now has to live with killing a man.

While our police are not beyond the law as a rule we need to support them. These are the guys that stop the terrorists at great risk to themselves.
These are the guys that put themselves in the firing line so you can type your lefty bollocks and have a go at them.
Try showing some thanks for what thet do and try to understand their side of this.
If you don't support the police try having a go yourself if you ever come into contact with armed robbers or the next bastard with a bomb.
No, I suspect you will call 999 and want their help.
Wonder what you would post if they told you to fuck off and risk getting shot yourself.

only if we were brazilian living in stockwell.

 

[montevideo]

And if he was and had exploded a bomb you would be calling the police for allowing it to happen..

These poor sods have to make an on the spot call.
Fucking easy to sit down in comfy chair and rant on about it.
Try considering the copper who has a duty to protect and now has to live with killing a man.

While our police are not beyond the law as a rule we need to support them. These are the guys that stop the terrorists at great risk to themselves.
These are the guys that put themselves in the firing line so you can type your lefty bollocks and have a go at them.
Try showing some thanks for what thet do and try to understand their side of this.
If you don't support the police try having a go yourself if you ever come into contact with armed robbers or the next bastard with a bomb.
No, I suspect you will call 999 and want their help.
Wonder what you would post if they told you to fuck off and risk getting shot yourself.

actually rereading this you're fucking jack nicholson in a few good men. I bet you've got the uniform & everything. DO we want the truth fred...?

 

[detective-boy]

... and the CPS will say it isn’t in the public interest to charge anyone over the shooting.

I doubt VERY much that they will say no prosecution on this basis. If there is none it will be on their other yardstick: that there is no realistic chance of a conviction because there is insufficient evidence to support the case.

 

[big footed fred]

actually rereading this you're fucking jack nicholson in a few good men. I bet you've got the uniform & everything. DO we want the truth fred...?

You can't handle the truth

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I don't agree, d-b, though of course they would probably give that as their reason. Of course they might argue that there was not a reasonably chance of a conviction, a slightly different thing, and they might even be right. But "not in the public interest" is often given as a reason not to prosecute, is that not so?

 

[detective-boy]

do you reckon his 'honestly held belief' he was dead after the first 8 bullets tore his skull apart? How 'sure' do you reckon he needed to be?

If the belief was that the man was a suicide bomber then the recommended tactic (so-called Op Kratos tactic) was to use repeated shots to the head to minimise the chance of any residual ability to activate a trigger and to avoid bullets striking any explosives around the body.

 

[detective-boy]

But "not in the public interest" is often given as a reason not to prosecute, is that not so?

Yes, it is. They have two tests. The first is: "Is there sufficient evidence to give a reasonable chance of a conviction". If not, they don't need the second question. If so they then go on to ask: "Is a prosecution in the public interest?".

If they found there was sufficient evidence that a police officer stood a reasonable chance of being convicted of a criminal offence I doubt VERY much they would conclude that it was not in the public interest to proceed - it is very much in the public interest to prosecute police officers, etc. who exceed their powers and there have been lots of trials over the years.

If they did decide not to prosecute then their decision could be challenged at judicial review by any interested party.

"Not in the public interest" is usually given where the offence is minor, there are exceptional circumstances which mean that a prosecution would be excessive or where the police have pursued a charge (often drunkenness or minor public disorder) when a caution or similar would have sufficied (maybe because the defendant has abused them).

 

[montevideo]

If the belief was that the man was a suicide bomber then the recommended tactic (so-called Op Kratos tactic) was to use repeated shots to the head to minimise the chance of any residual ability to activate a trigger and to avoid bullets striking any explosives around the body.

execution then.


(Not authorised in law, but in a manual).

 

[Donna Ferentes]

If the belief was that the man was a suicide bomber then the recommended tactic (so-called Op Kratos tactic) was to use repeated shots to the head to minimise the chance of any residual ability to activate a trigger and to avoid bullets striking any explosives around the body.

For what it's worth, d-b, I think just about the only people who probably did have reason to think de Menezes was a bomber may be the officers who did the actual shooting. My reason for saying so is that they must surely have been told "this is the guy, you must shoot him". Nobody else actually had remotely sufficient cause to finger de Menezes, but in the case of these guys they can (if I understand properly what happened) the victim had already been fingered. If you follow me.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

If they found there was sufficient evidence that a police officer stood a reasonable chance of being convicted of a criminal offence I doubt VERY much they would conclude that it was not in the public interest to proceed - it is very much in the public interest to prosecute police officers, etc. who exceed their powers and there have been lots of trials over the years.

. Mmm, but there have also been occasions where nobody got anywhere near a courtroom - or not one with a dock - even though the whole world knew what had happened (30 January 1972) and there have also been a fair sprinkling of examples where prosecutions have not been carried out even after inquest juries have given verdicts of "unlawful killing". (I know that's not a definitive verdict in the sense of a jury in a case being prosecuted, but it's nevertheless a fairly unhappy circumstance.)

"Not in the public interest" is usually given where the offence is minor

Yeah I know, but have there not been rather more prominent examples of various kinds?

 

[yellowmonster]

& the result one poor sod hung out to dry (but not convicted of murder oh no, a tragic mistake) & an institution implementing an illegal operation/or a planned execution continues as its always done, each spineless fucker covering their own backs & refusing to accept their part in it.

Spineless fucker??? to go up to a suspected suicide bomber? Thats pretty fucking brave in my book and Im glad there are people who are prepared to do it and risk consequences.

 

[laptop]

The News of the World says it has the Independent Police Complaints Commission report.

It says:

• Senior officers knew Jean Charles was innocent by 9:45 but, it is implied, were too scared to tell the boss:
  

  An IPCC-linked source told us: "That's a cast-iron fact. The question is why. The belief in Whitehall is that it's because Sir Ian is notorious for taking bad news very badly—they just couldn't face telling him so they left it until Saturday morning."

• The surveillance officers tried to fake the log
• The surveillance team earlier warned that Jean Charles wasn't their man but the message didn't get through or was ignored
• Oh, and Jean Charles apparently had a cheeky line to get himself up and off to work. Guess what the Mail picks up on...

 

[detective-boy]

Still no detail on exactly what they mean by "tried to fake" the log. The original leak suggested a "scientific technique" was used. I am guessing that was ESDA (Electrostatic document analysis) which would only demonstrate that words were not written one after another, or that sheets were in a different order when some words were written than from others, which, depending on the circumstances of the writing, may or may not be damning.

If they were scared of telling Blair there had been a fuck-up .... thank Christ the well-known calm man John Stevens wasn't still the boss ..... they wouldn't have told him yet!

The bit about the surveillance team not believing Jean Charles de Menezes to be a currently armed bomber is consistent with things I have posted almost from the outset and does not surprise me. Nor does the fact that armed support was not running with the surevillance from the outset (e.g. on this thread).

I am sure we will see one or all of the following as the causes of the mistake:

• Too much work, too few resources (lots of simultaneous operations on 22.7.05; no armed support actually available to run with this particular surveillance; focus on more "promising" operations)
• No time for full research (acting on info. gathered during 21.7.05)
• Minimal intelligence available (operations launched immediately as info. came in from 21.7.05; new names / addresses / etc. with no previous knowledge)
• Communication difficulties / errors (both technical (e.g. underground) and personal (misunderstanding of actual situation / phrases used))
• Bad luck / timing (e.g. soldier taking a pee just as man appears; armed support arrives a few seconds too late to receive any on-scene, personal briefing (assuming it does turn out to be them vaulting barriers and running down escalators) and a few seconds too early for the train to have already left)
• Organisational panic (though they won't call it this) with second wave of bombings two weeks after the first

And, in case any one is wondering, doing a drugs and alcohol analysis of the blood of the subject of a special post-mortem (which this would be, as a potential homicide, is absolutelly standard practice as it may be relevant in explaining some of the things observed by witnesses.

I am surprised this leak got out despite an IPCC attempt to injunct it. Things coming out in bits and pieces is NOT good for anyone.

 

[agricola]

I am surprised this leak got out despite an IPCC attempt to injunct it. Things coming out in bits and pieces is NOT good for anyone.

I agree, and am amazed that the Court didnt issue an injunction given the circumstances. In addition, its one more incident that the (considerable) anti-IPCC lobby will no doubt use in the future.

 

[laptop]

I agree, and am amazed that the Court didn't issue an injunction given the circumstances. In addition, its one more incident that the (considerable) anti-IPCC lobby will no doubt use in the future.

It would of course be entirely wrong to wonder whether Mr Justice Gray might be less than chuffed with the IPCC. So I shan't.

 

[Barking_Mad]

In my experience, it is quite often the case that a correction is as dramatic as changing a "did" to a "did not" or a "was" to a "was not", especially in fast moving situations. It is also not unusual for some of the officers involved in the surveillance to miss the de-brief or fail to initial / sign the notes, again especially when there are a lot of things happening post-surveillance (e.g. following an arrest or in circumstances as here).

So if police can amend entries in the book and it happens on a fairly regular basis then how would someone investigating a case of possible police malpractice know whether they had been amended in genuine error or in an attempt to cover a situation up?

 

[detective-boy]

It would of course be entirely wrong to wonder whether Mr Justice Gray might be less than chuffed with the IPCC. So I shan't.

He should be able to rise above feelings like that. The issue is not whether it impacts on the IPCC as an organisation. It is whether it affects the chances of justice being served in this particular case.

And I cannot see any way that it does not.

The Court seem to have approved the publication of effectively stolen material, in at least technical breach of the sub judice rules.

Mr Justice Gray would, I am sure, be apoplectic if someone did something similar during one of his trials (perhaps the equivalent would be publishing juicy extracts from his draft summing-up before he had got round to delivering it).

 

[detective-boy]

So if police can amend entries in the book and it happens on a fairly regular basis then how would someone investigating a case of possible police malpractice know whether they had been amended in genuine error or in an attempt to cover a situation up?

That is a VERY important question whenever you are considering physical trace evidence. The first issue is to establish what (if anything) you've found (fingerprint, DNA, indented writing ...). The second is to establish what it means. This is sometimes known as it's [/i]evidential value[/i]. Sadly many people (and I include many senior investigators, CPS lawyers, counsel, judges and every other type of participant in the criminal justice process here) dn't move beyond stage 1 or, if they do, they take a less than thorough approach to stage 2.

If (and I don't know for sure, but I can think of no obvious other scientific test) if was ESDA then what will be found will be indented writing (i.e. the hollows made in a piece of paper when another piece of paper above it is written on). If you write a letter in one go, on a pad where the top page is held steady (e.g. by a gummed strip) then the exact replica of the words you write should be visible on the sheet below (and, usually several below that at normal writing pressure) when it is ESDA'd.

If you leave turn the page (but don't detach it) and then flip it back and add another word, it should be in pretty much the same place in the indented version as in the top version - certainly not massively different.

If, however, the pages are loose leaf, and you pick one out and add a word later, you may, or may not, have the same pieces of paper underneath. And even if you do, you are unlikely to align them in exactly the same position. So the additional word is either missing or in the wrong place on the indented impression.

Sometimes (especially if a roller-ball type pen is used, which leaves a layer of ink on the paper surface) you can microscopically see if an indentation came before or after the layer of ink, so you will be able to tell if an indentation came before or after writing on the lower page.

Because there are so many possibilities, some of the innocent, some of them procedural errors and some of them out and out criminal, you need to establish what the circumstances of the writing of the log were.

The first question I would ask would be "How (exactly) was the log compiled?" By who? Where? Contemporaneously? On what (I would expect it to be a bound surveillance log with serially numbered pages in this case)?

I would then ask about whether anything could have been added or changed later? Was there a debrief? Did all the individual members check the entries made by any logkeeper about things they had seen? If they found an error, how did they change it?

And if this did not give me my answer, I would specifically put whatever it is I had found scientifically. (e.g. "ESDA analysis shows the word "Not" was not written at the same time as the rest of the entry timed at 9.30am. You have said it was all written contemporaneously, filling one page before you turned over, and that no-one has since made any corrections. Can you explain how this may have happened?"

Despite the implication in the original leak, there is NO scientific technique which tells you that an alteration has been made dishonestly. There are just some which MAY tell you that an alteration has been made.

 

[laptop]

So if police can amend entries in the book and it happens on a fairly regular basis then how would someone investigating a case of possible police malpractice know whether they had been amended in genuine error or in an attempt to cover a situation up?

As DB sets out, forensics can only demonstrate that something was done.

Then it would, usually, to come down to credibility of witnesses and whether separate witness accounts corroborate each other.

As I recall it, the first leaked allegations in the press about the log were written in a way that implied that there was a witness who said it had been altered in order to cover up the misidentification. Whether there is such a witness should come out at triel.

 

[TAE]

Surely the correct thing would be to cross out a word or make it clear that a word had been inserted. Simply rubbing it out seems the wrong way to go about things.

 

[laptop]

Surely the correct thing would be to cross out a word or make it clear that a word had been inserted. Simply rubbing it out seems the wrong way to go about things.

You'd have thought there'd be a protocol for correcting genuine misthinks in the writeup.

Hmm... thinking about how difficult it is to get journalists to use British Standard correction marks... can I put in a bid for a training scheme at £100 per officer?

 

[detective-boy]

Surely the correct thing would be to cross out a word or make it clear that a word had been inserted. Simply rubbing it out seems the wrong way to go about things.

Rubbing it out would not be an option - writing in ink is the required standard. And crossing out a wrong bit and inserting a new word or an "A" and then writing "A" - on Tuesday 1 May as a footnote to the page, or at the end of the entry, would be the required way of going about a correction, though it is not unheard of for a single word to be added with a ^ if there is space. Any such corrections, crossings out or omissions should be initialled.

Failure to comply with the rules, whilst not in itself proving that something is false and criminal, may be the motivation behind witnesses lying, not wishing to leave themselves open to disciplinary proceedings for some minor procedural issue such as failing to comply with a lawful written order (namely, how to make notes). I think this is unlikely in these circumstances but it is a very common (and hugely unhelpful) symptom of the extreme blame culture which surrounds anything to do with policing. You cannot admit any sort of mistake without someone calling for your job. It hardly leads to effective organisational learning.

 

[TAE]

Rubbing it out would not be an option - writing in ink is the required standard. And crossing out a wrong bit and inserting a new word or an "A" and then writing "A" - on Tuesday 1 May as a footnote to the page, or at the end of the entry, would be the required way of going about a correction, though it is not unheard of for a single word to be added with a ^ if there is space. Any such corrections, crossings out or omissions should be initialled.

Ok, that's what I thought, so what exactly do the tests (you are refering to above) try to establish?

 

[detective-boy]

Ok, that's what I thought, so what exactly do the tests (you are refering to above) try to establish?

There is probably some suggestion or suspicion that a short word (such as "not") has been squeezed into the space between two other words, or a small space left at the end of a line. Whilst the note making rules require and spare space to be lined out, this is often not done, particularly where it is only a small amount, and some people's handwriting (especially when writing on the move and rushed) tends to leave space for bits to be put in between words anyway.

 

[Crispy]

Handheld computers with fingerprint readers built in to every key with 256 bit encryption applied after every word and copies sent to triply redundant servers is The Only Way <-winky face smiley to show I'm not being serious. Ish.

 

[laptop]

There is probably some suggestion or suspicion that a short word (such as "not") has been squeezed in...

That was exactly the allegation I recall.

Attempts to find the story come back to urban75

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-127094-p-2.html
->
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1551401,00.html

But those are references to what the soldier's logbook was understood (on 18/08/05) to have said, not to the faking.

 

[TAE]

There is probably some suggestion or suspicion that a short word (such as "not") has been squeezed into the space between two other words, or a small space left at the end of a line. Whilst the note making rules require and spare space to be lined out, this is often not done, particularly where it is only a small amount, and some people's handwriting (especially when writing on the move and rushed) tends to leave space for bits to be put in between words anyway.

Ahhh I see, thanks.