It is a shameful thing to be responsible in citizenship for the actions of those who act in our names. A shameful thing to be in a country that was led by a war criminal. A thousand shameful things that officials who we pay to work on our behalf us actually hold us in contempt. And it's a most terrible and shameful thing when people who are supposed to look after us will pass the blame anywhere rather than take responsibility for their own actions.
Jean Charles de Menezes was shot seven times in the head by people who did nothing wrong and made no culpable errors of judgement, we're asked to believe. Absolutely scandalous, atrocious lies! The shooting was led by one extravagantly entitled Dick ("Deputy Assistant Commissioner" Dick, if you will), although if memory serves me, she'd nipped out for a pee at the time of the shooting itself.
Giving "evidence" (the word sticks in the throat) at the Menezes Inquest, she is reported to have said:
- Menezes' behaviour had contributed to her assessment of him as a bomber. (This innocent guy knew nothing about any police operation until officers boarded the train he was on and shot him in the head; but we're told it was his fault, not the police's fault at all.)
- It was the nation's fault for not stopping the London Bombings
- It was Menezes' fault for living in the same block as a suspect (we've been told that the police believed the building to be under single occupation, even though a man with half a brain-cell would have noted a whole block of letterboxes on the outside of the large building's lobby)
- It was Menezes' fault for looking like a suspect (which - in fact - he didn't)
- It was Menezes' fault the way he behaved getting on and off [sic] the bus (the apparent problem was him getting off and on the bus, so anyway it was also his fault that the tube station was closed, and not the police's fault for not knowing in advance or bothering to notice or find out. Menezes and probably a dozen other people had time to see that the station was closed and get back on the bus, but the police were without fault for not seeing that.)
Beware everybody in the United Kingdom... this wasn't the police's fault, and they have learned nothing because there was nothing to learn: they are the first to tell you that it could happen again. No fault. No change in policy. Nothing.
- I have not forgotten the police claims that he was behaving suspiciously because he was wearing a heavy coat in summer (he was wearing a light denim jacket).
- I haven't forgotten the police claims that he vaulted over the ticket barrier, when actually he used his travel pass to open the gates
- I certainly haven't forgotten the press conference given by the "Chief Constable" Blair, when he said the guy had been shot several times in the head, that an ambulance had been called and that he'd been "found" to be dead. [Vomit]
- And it hasn't slipped my mind that even as I was watching the Blair press conference (delayed for several hours supposedly while he got the facts but certainly before he fed us absolute fiction) that I found his words completely incredible.
In my own small way, I have had exactly the same experience with the police. When I perfectly lawfully went swimming in the sea early one light August evening wearing a pair of jogging pants and a hoody, and was not only visited by the police but eventually threatened with being sectioned under the mental health act; I remember very clearly how my complaint was dealt with. I remember that the officer himself denied the facts. I remember that the senior officer who had come to my house to interview me about the complaint who had told me himself the faults of the officer in private and denied them in the hearing; and how the officer who came with him had kept strangely silent. I remember that in the hearing, everything had been said to be my fault. I was uncooperative by not allowing a doctor to give a mental assessment. They said I might have wanted to commit suicide; but it wasn't their job to re-assess when I pointed out that I'd put a plastic cover on the car seat to stop it getting wet on the way home; it wasn't their job to re-assess when I showed them I'd left dry clothes just inside the back door to change into when I got back. It wasn't their job to take responsibility... that was somebody else's job, just as in the UK responsibility always rests with somebody else.
Well, until in the UK we have accountability, justice is going to be the loser. Whether it be officials in councils, in embassies, in police, in government... if there is to be justice, it clearly is not going to be by accountability; and it clearly is very very seldom going to be dispensed by the establishment.
