The death of Jean-Charles de Menezes poses some questions on the procedures and the intervention of the British police.
In fact, most of the photos of British plainclothes policemen show armed men, with guns and nothing (armband or such elements) identifying them as members of the police. I am not very much informed of the procedures of arrest of British police, but it seems strange that the British armed police is not obliged to carry a sign of identification when acting in intervention. That was the case on photographs of police near to Stockwell station, and that was again the case when special units of the police gave assault on the house of the 21 July attacks suspects. Those policemen did not wear any identification...
To give the reader an example of what the importance of identification might mean, in France, French case law has judged rebellion of a citizen to be legitimate against policemen who did not identify themselves as such when proceeding to an arrest. In fact, if the police has no identification, and whatever might be the circumstances, a citizen is entitled to believe that he is being attacked, and hence to use legitimate defence, despite his legal obligation not to oppose resistance to the police.
Whatever the circumstances, police may, of course, follow an individual, track him down and put pressure upon him; but they may never go on to arrest an individual without first identifying themselves as members of the police, and without making that apparent. The problem is how to identify the police: generally, when an arrest is engaged, “one hand holds the gun, the other the id” to put it apocryphally. An id should always be presented by the police, or the risk is present that the suspect may interpret the police intervention as a pure aggression. In France, generally, police use orange armbands on which it is marked “police”. The use of the armband has many advantages: it is easy to put on and to take out, it is visible, and it provides also a means of avoiding “friendly fire” in the heat of the action.
It may safely be assumed that no such band was worn by the policemen who sought to arrest de Menezes. The inquest – but here again, most of the information will be furnished by the policemen themselves – should establish whether the policemen identified themselves as such before jumping on de Menezes. At any rate, shooting eight bullets on a man is rather an indication of panic if anything, than a cold application of the “shoot to kill” policy. Any marksman knows that a “double-top” (two bullets shot in rapid succession in the head) is sufficient to kill an individual and to ensure his neutralisation.
To give the reader an example of what the importance of identification might mean, in France, French case law has judged rebellion of a citizen to be legitimate against policemen who did not identify themselves as such when proceeding to an arrest. In fact, if the police has no identification, and whatever might be the circumstances, a citizen is entitled to believe that he is being attacked, and hence to use legitimate defence, despite his legal obligation not to oppose resistance to the police.
Whatever the circumstances, police may, of course, follow an individual, track him down and put pressure upon him; but they may never go on to arrest an individual without first identifying themselves as members of the police, and without making that apparent. The problem is how to identify the police: generally, when an arrest is engaged, “one hand holds the gun, the other the id” to put it apocryphally. An id should always be presented by the police, or the risk is present that the suspect may interpret the police intervention as a pure aggression. In France, generally, police use orange armbands on which it is marked “police”. The use of the armband has many advantages: it is easy to put on and to take out, it is visible, and it provides also a means of avoiding “friendly fire” in the heat of the action.
It may safely be assumed that no such band was worn by the policemen who sought to arrest de Menezes. The inquest – but here again, most of the information will be furnished by the policemen themselves – should establish whether the policemen identified themselves as such before jumping on de Menezes. At any rate, shooting eight bullets on a man is rather an indication of panic if anything, than a cold application of the “shoot to kill” policy. Any marksman knows that a “double-top” (two bullets shot in rapid succession in the head) is sufficient to kill an individual and to ensure his neutralisation.
posted by dawnofeurope | 6:36 pm
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