London – The mother of an innocent Brazilian man killed by London police who mistook him for a terrorist retraced his last steps Wednesday and said her son had been treated “like a mad dog.”
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes also called for the arrest of the officers responsible for his death.
Menezes, 27, was shot and killed by undercover police aboard a subway train on July 22, a day after four failed attempts to bomb the subway system and a bus. Two weeks earlier, four suspected suicide bombers had killed 52 commuters in similar attacks.
The dead man’s parents, Matuzinhos Otone Da Silva and Maria Otone de Menezes, and his brother, Giovani Da Silva, and other relatives are in London to meet investigators and lawyers.
“I don’t want any mother to feel how I am feeling,” his mother said at a news conference, speaking through a translator. “I want justice to be done so that no mother feels the pain that I am going through. In this case, Jean was treated like a mad dog, and no human being should be treated that way.”
Police shot de Menezes seven times in the head and once in the shoulder after following him onto a subway train.
The family called for the arrest of the officers responsible.
“They expect those who committed crimes or may have committed crimes to be properly investigated and prosecuted and tried if appropriate,” said the family’s lawyer, Gareth Peirce.
The relatives also said they thought police might be withholding information. They said they were particularly skeptical of the police contention that some of the closed-circuit cameras in the station where de Menezes was shot had not been working, so that not all of the police chase was caught on tape.
Police have repeatedly apologized for the killing but deny covering up what happened.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair says his officers must have the right to shoot to kill in some cases.
The family meets today with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating the shooting.
