London – Rejecting suggestions that London police had erased key evidence, a police watchdog group said it has all the evidence it needs to investigate the police shooting of a Brazilian man mistaken for a terrorist, the group said Wednesday.
The chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, Nick Hardwick, said his investigators had closed circuit footage from the subway station where Jean Charles de Menezes was shot seven times in the head. He called the footage “very helpful.”
“I’m not aware of any information that we are missing,” Hardwick told reporters after meeting with a senior Brazilian delegation that came to London to find answers to the Menezes shooting. “I believe that I have all the information that I need … but I’m not going to believe anything until our own investigation has established it.”
Menezes was killed July 22, the day after failed bomb attacks hit the London transit system. Those attacks came exactly two weeks after similar bombings killed 52 commuters and four suspected bombers.
A member of the Brazilian delegation said someone should be held accountable.
“A Brazilian citizen was killed, and we believe that someone should be considered guilty,” said Manoel Gomes Pereira of Brazil’s Foreign Ministry. “This case creates a situation in which the government and the family in Brazil must deserve some answers.”
New revelations have suggested that police failed to properly identify Menezes, some of the officers tailing him did not believe he posed an immediate threat, and armed police fired at him even after he had been restrained. Leaked documents also contradicted initial witness statements that Menezes had been dressed in a bulky coat despite the warm weather and had run from police.
And this week, a dispute emerged over footage from the closed-circuit television cameras in the station where Menezes was killed.
British media reported that police complained to subway employees that the tapes were useless, something the staff reportedly disputed. The media reports, citing subway sources, suggested police might have tampered with the tapes to erase the video, but they provided no evidence for those allegations.
Hardwick appealed to Britons for patience to let his team investigate why Menezes was mistaken for a suicide bomber.
“I still don’t know the truth of what happened,” Hardwick said. “When I know what happened, I’ll tell the public.”
On Tuesday, Hardwick’s commission said it would have a report ready by the end of the year, but its publication might be delayed if any criminal or disciplinary proceedings against the officers involved were underway.
