de Menezes

I hate to say it, but in cases like the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes (the Brazilian shot by London police) you usually don't do too badly by assuming the worst of the Police.

It now looks like he wasn't wearing bulky clothing, he wasn't running away, he hadn't been properly identified before he entered the subway, he paid his fare and didn't jump the turnstile, and he was already subdued before he was shot.

And this is from Scotland Yard, not his family or other friends.

I was a bit worried when I first wrote about the Menezes shooting, because while I was pretty sure it was simply an extrajudicial killing, it was possible I was simply being unfair, especially after reading some of the better defenses of the police - Amazing Wonderdog wrote a good one.

But the increasingly clear facts are that de Menezes was shot because of his skin color, and because London police weren't thinking clearly. While the investigation continues, I'd be surprised to see the officers charged with anything. The natural instinct of any city is to protect the police - not unlike the reaction of the US regarding Abu Ghraib.

Still, if we're serious about actually enforcing the law, and not just killing brown people riding the subway, these officers need to be charged (assuming, of course, existing law was broken.)