Nothing to fear but fear itself
NS November 2nd, 2007
Proving that law enforcement officials are not emotionless robocops (though some would argue that it means they are), we finally have a verdict in the case against the London Metropolitan Police for the violent and erroneous death of Jean Charles de Menezes, the man who was mistaken for a terrorist suspect and shot in the head seven times as he boarded a Tube train for work in July 2005.
As Jean Charles, a Brazilian electrician, started running to make it inside the carriage before the doors slid shut, he had no way of knowing that that sprint was his last. As he sat down in his seat, a gun was pointed at point-blank range and a policeman, undoubtedly jumped up on adrenaline and fear like no other, dragged him out of his seat and then pulled the trigger seven times before Jean Charles could even open his mouth to speak. Other passengers, sitting mere inches away, screamed and cowered as the plainclothes officers stood over the dead body of their victim. In the commuters’ minds, they may have been next. And if a bullet had gone astray or de Menezes had gotten a hand on the gun before his lights went out, they very well may have been.
And so it is that the Met has been found guilty of endangering the public, which is a health and safety violation and carries a fine of £175,000 plus £385,000 in costs. Let me repeat that — a health and safety violation. For shooting an innocent man seven times. Dead. In public. When he had not been confirmed as a terrorist suspect nor been acting suspiciously, as was previously reported. The sad part in all of this is not that they aren’t being punished more severely (though I think maybe they should be), it’s that an innocent guy is dead because of the fear that ensued after the July 7 bombings in London (which I wrote about here), followed by the attempted bombings on the 21st of the same month.
Basically, the cops got scared. They shot Jean Charles de Menezes out of fear. Perhaps fear for their jobs, their lives, their safety, their promotions…who knows. But it was fear that pulled the trigger and I’m afraid that no amount of retrospective punishment could diminish that fear or the actions that resulted from it. Still, one wonders how the gunmen sleep at night, or how Sir Iain Blair looks in the mirror. Not because I blame them but because I pity them.
And in this crazy post 9/11 world, I pity all of us, for surely fear will be our unraveling. What once was a sweater is looking like a bedraggled sleeve, the yarns of our achievements pooled at our feet like an unwound spool. We need to pick ourselves up, smooth out the fabric and start casting on again. Maybe we could knit ourselves some miracles by Christmas.
