Dynamics and Development Issues - Case Study Example

Policing Practice – Dynamics and Development Student’s Name: Institutional Affiliation: Introduction This paper is a case study of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes on the 22nd of July, 2005. He was shot seven times in the head by London Metropolitan Police after being mistakenly identified as one of the suspects of a failed bombing attempt the day before. The aim of this paper is to analyze the events of the fateful day while determining the police practices that may have led to the decisions taken and the aftermath to them. Information about the events of the day will be collected from transcripts of the hearings that followed the incident and newspaper articles. Information on policies will be collected from books relevant to the particular policies. The overall analysis will involve going over the important facts are presenting the analysis that led to the decisions made before the shooting and after the shooting. Historical factors that led to the shooting The metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is a territorial police force whose responsibility is maintaining law and order in Greater London. In addition, it has important national responsibilities that include co-coordinating and leading matters on counter terrorism. A series of unfortunate events led to this police force gunning downed de Menezes. The last 20 years have seen an increase in terrorism activities and threats in many developing and developed countries. While before it may have been expected to occur in certain countries, the situation has changed to include many other countries bringing the threat of terrorism closer to home for more individuals. Upon declaration of the war on terror, police policies have been modified and they now wield more power in isolated situations. After the September 11 attacks, new risk configurations have been structured that require avoiding future harm and catastrophic possibilities at all costs (Aradau & Van Munster, 2007). The level of emphasis put on the risks is so high that decisions that may be true but risky are ignored. None of the surveillance officers wanted to say that de Menelez may be the wrong person lest their observation turned out to be wrong. Political factors that led to the shooting The politics that surround this killing show how the police force has been implanted with risk-based analysis in their interactions with suspects. This is especially so after the declaration of war on terror. It should not have mattered who De Menezes was, innocent people should not be killed for looking guilty. One of the most controversial issues about the killing is that the police commissioner at the time, Sir Ian Blair, knew that the man the surveillance and firearms team were pursuing was not connected to the bombings. Afterwards, a press release was offered saying that they were not sure whether he was one of the four who were connected to the bombing. The direction that risk analysis has taken is a political front of no risk. If there is no risk, there will be no harm. It is an obvious fact that the false statements and inaccurate interpretations were included in communication between the officers while at the station. The misinterpretations focused on the clothing the suspect had on and how he got out of the bus then re-boarded again; which is a popular technique used to counter surveillance (IPCC, 2007b: 35). In addition, those who may have been able to stop the shooting because information was lacking failed to do so. Also, as investigations continued to turn up evidence that the victim was not a suicide bomber, the kind of decisions made were to emphasize that he might still be a terrorist. After the shooting, they recovered his cell-phone and wallet nut did not check them immediately and later when they did, they found that the names in his phonebook were mostly of Latin origin and not Arabic. However, when they later on learned of his history with cocaine use, they said that it might explain why he behaved suspiciously and somewhat aggressively. They gave a statement to the Guardian (2007) saying that de Menezes was shot because he behaved in a manner that they had been told a terrorist might behave when he is about to detonate a bomb. It can therefore be concluded that the potential possession of drugs or having drugs in his system and the fact that de Menezes had false stamps might have been the reason why he had reacted the way he did. Governmental factors that led to the shooting In their actions, the police do not act out of their own volition but rather make judgment based on previously set rules that govern their behavior and conduct. There is a hierarchy and orders must be followed. Though they may make individual decisions, they are influenced by government policies and rules. On the morning of the shooting, following an order to question anyone who lived in the same flats as the bomber Hussain Osman, the surveillance police followed de Menezes misidentifying him to be Osman. The instruction to the police was that they should arrest those who raised suspicion and also gain more information about the flats (IPCC, 2007a: 24). The officers who were in charge of surveillance did not have appositive absolute confirmation of identity. They all had different decryptions of de Menezes. They acted without enough information. When they got to the tube station, there was suggestion from some of the surveillance team for them to withdraw without any action since de Menezes was not identical to Osman (IPCC, 2007a:47). However, this suggestion fell to deaf ears and the chief in charge ordered them to proceed. The Kratos policy is used by many police administrations under government order to attempt control of situations that may seem out of control. The government has many interventions and control policies from those that control the consumption of alcohol to those that involve how to handle suicide bombers. The question now is whether these problems can be managed effectively without offending economic and social limits of an average that is acceptable to enable the society to function to an adequate standard (Foucault, 2007, p.3). The need for an allegation to beyond all reasonable doubt becomes a result of weighing possible positives against possible negatives and the consequences of each of these possibilities. The scenario with the worst consequences for the most negative possibilities will most likely be considered risky then action will be taken. As a result of making conclusions in these ways, there are increased levels of people who have done no harm going free and those who have not being punished. The possibilities and consequences are often based on stereotyped information. De Menelez was one of those who fit the criteria of negative possibilities and harmful consequences and as a result, an innocent man was killed. During the accounts given by those who were involved in one way or another in the killing of de Menelez, the language used contains a lot of references to risk. These give clues as to the mental perception of risk that people have. There are maps of risk that exist in people’s perception and they are often stereotypical though not always wrong. People may fear Pakistani and Arabs because they connect them to terrorism in their maps. A Pakistani with a bag will instill more fear than one without. The SO19 went into the station expecting to find a suicide bomber and when they saw an Asian man running. Their maps connected him to the profile of a suicide bomber. The atmosphere following the previous decade or so of terrorism attacks has resulted in people being overly aware of anyone who may act suspicious. The police should be expecting more information from the public about suspicious people (IPCC, 2007a, p.17). Socio-cultural factors that led to the shooting The stereotyping of suicide bombers and terrorists has become a common occurrence. This often leads to false accusation. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, there was a strong belief that the police had stopped a suicide bomber. The witnesses at the station gave their accounts of the event and said they had seen a suspect fleeing from the police while they followed him with big black guns (Guardian, 2005). This account is accurate but the interpretation was not. Passengers who were in the carriage that de Menezes was getting into also described seeing a suspicious looking Asian man running into the carriage. One of the witnesses said that the Asian man ran into the train and was pursued by the police then he tripped and was shot five times by one of the officers. He said the suspect looked Pakistani and had on a baseball cap and a thick coat (Guardian, 2005). In the witness accounts, the person though to be the suicide bomber was actually one of the surveillance team (SO12) officers. He had been in pursuit of de Menezes then he got into the carriage then pushed one of the passengers down and covered them with his body bracing for an explosion. In addition, the officers the witnesses thought were in pursuit of the suspect were actually the firearms teams (SO19) arriving at the station. In the confusion, when they saw e Menezes being gunned down, they assumed that it was the suspicious looking Asian man who had been shot. However, the SO12 surveillance officer was himself dragged to the floor by the offices a gun pointed at his chest. There is a possibility that he could have been shot too (Sturckle and Attewill, 2007). In addition, an officer reported to the MPS Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) that an Asian Pakistani had been approached and shot. DCI Evans then gave an account that he was being pursued by armed police officers for surveillance purposes. He ran to the tube station and fell then the officers immobilized him and some shots were fired (IPCC, 2007a:75). This corresponds to the witness account about seeing an Asian/ Pakistani man being pursued and shot by the police. The witnesses never pegged de Menezes as the suspect at any point. They all thought that the Asian, who was in fact a police officer, was the suspect. None of the witness descriptions fit de Menezes who was wearing. Other than the witnesses stereotyping the physical look of the suspect, the officers also stereotyped the victim’s looks and said that he had distinct Mongolian eyes. The culture associated with terrorism in western countries is that they will be people who are not from the country they are bombing. Technological factors that led to the shooting The men who were responsible for the bombing were later arrested and they were found to be of Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali origin. CCTV images were available but it was assumed that these men were either Asian or Pakistani. However, de Menezes was identified as being white but with Mongolian eyes. Despite amounting doubts among the surveillance officers, the specialist firearms department believed that they had the right man. The analysis of an observation made earlier was that he was acting nervous and twitchy and they decided to proceed with action despite no further confirmation from the surveillance team. The firearms team (SO19) was sent into the station and they expected to find a suicide bomber. It is possible that the surveillance team (SO12) that had pointed out de Menezes could not have known what was going to happen. They also had no knowledge of how the instructions from the senior officers would be interpreted. Do19 confirmed their arrival at Stockwell tube station when so12 and de Menezes were already in the station. The commander’s instructions were that the suspects should not be allowed to enter the tube and should be arrested by so19 before he got in. though these instructions seem to point in the direction of arresting the suspect, those who were in pursuit understood something different. They took it to mean that the suicide bomber should be stopped (IPCC, 2007a:61). When they began shooting, they acted as though they were sure of the suicide bomber being there. Legal factors that led to the shooting The facts presented by the press coverage of the killing of de Menezes showed him as an innocent man. The inquiries that followed thereafter during the prosecution of the MPS echoed the same innocence fact. Explanations of the shooting, during the inquiry, however focused more on describing how the man looked guilty and put emphasis on the point that terrorism had to be avoided at all costs. These arguments veer away from the traditional justice concepts common in the UK system of criminal justice of an individual being innocent until proven guilty, being tried by peers and being guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. De Menezes was never given an opportunity to show that he was not a suicide bomber. Also he was not asked the about who he was, what he was doing at the station and why he was doing it. However, the explanation given for the mistake is seen as property of the victim and not of those who made the mistake. It is that the actions of the victim led the police officers to make a mistake and not that the mistakes of the police led them to make a mistake. This begins by the fact that while de Menezes did not look much like Osman, he also did not look different enough from him. When he was stopped for questioning, he did not confirm his innocence as had others who were leaving the same flats and being questioned. He was also targeted for surveillance because he had failed to authenticate and confirm his identity and the nature of his origin. It was this factors that led the police to pursue him as a potential guilty party. Accidents and mistakes always happen in the justice and law system where sometimes the guilty go free and the innocent may be punished. After an innocent person has fallen victim to the punishment of the police of the justice system, there is increased worry among the authorities that information about the fact might leak. This may cause people to lose faith in their police force because they have fears of becoming the next innocent victims (Ten, 1978, p. 17-18). To lessen the chances of this happening, the criminal justice system often starts with a view of the person accused being innocent then proceeds to where they are proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. The modern justice system is aiming more towards stopping crimes from happening and not just punishing those who perpetrate them. This leads them to coming up with a different technique of handling criminal matters which is through risk based analysis that will help them determine how and on whom power is exerted, (Foucault 2007, p.2-3). These powers are in three forms, the sovereign power which is responsible for acting at an isolated moment to punish crime that may have been committed in the past. Another power is the disciplinary power that consists of institutions and rules that help to shape future behavior. The last one is the bio-power that includes accessing and weighing the risks benefits and costs where the objects of the power are populations and not particular individuals (Dillon & Lobo-Guerrero, 2008, p.267). The death of Jean Charles de Menezes is seen to be at the limit of the three powers. Those who were sovereign temporarily made a decision that was forceful and certain to punish ultimately by taking his life. When the suspect was stopped, they acted as judge and jury. They acted as a jury and passed a guilty verdict. As a result of the verdict they passed, they then proceeded to choose the appropriate punishment which was death. He was not arrested but immediately tried and punished. This has been a recurring feature of police tactics that are used in the war in terror. In order for the police to stop immediate danger, they are given temporary power to make judgment on the situation based on what they have witnessed and the intelligence available. However there was no need to kill the suspect if there was insufficient evidence that he was going to kill himself and others. The disciplinary tool that was used in this case was killing. This incident occurred because the police employed the use of the policy of shooting in the head to prevent suicide bombers from detonating their bombs. This is called the use of Kratos. Another policy that could have been employed is the ‘shoot to kill to protect’ (MPA, 2005). The operation was decided on by weighing the risk to the suspect against the risk to other people if the suspect turned out to be a bomber. The police had to decide whether they could take the risk and arrest him instead of killing or just to kill him. Conclusion In conclusion, although this may have been an accident, it was one of those that could have been prevented. The events that led to the death of de Menelez were not standing alone but results of years of policies and mindsets that lessen the importance of saving one life and increase that of reducing the risk to more lives. The mindset of the people involved led to stereotyping of behavior. The fear that people have about terrorists led rash actions and also prevented the surveillance teams from raising the point of not being sure about the identity of the suspect. People needed someone to blame for the incident while at the same time, the police defended their decisions giving the impression that they would do the same thing over again. The taking of a human life should be done with detrimental force only when it is extremely necessary; this is to say that a suicide bomber should be shot only when they are reaching to press the button (Human Rights Act, 1998, article 2). However, the justification for the incident emphasized on the behavior of the victim, Policing practices have been put under a magnifying glass by the community and the institution itself. Improvements are bound to be made about operational procedures and confrontational interaction with suspects of criminal activities. The law and justice system makes mistakes; it is most unfortunate when the mistakes turn out to be fatal. References Aradau, C., Lobo-Guerrero, L., & Van Munster, R. (2008). Security, Technologies of Risk, and the Political: Guest Editors' Introduction. Security Dialogue, 39(3), 147-154.. BBC News (2007). Will verdict make police over-cautious?. BBC News, 2 November. Retrieved 14 May 2008 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7074425.stm. Dillon, M. & Lobo-Guerrero, L. (2008). Biopolitics of security in the 21st century: an Introduction. Review of International Studies, 34, 265-292. Foucault, M. (2003). Society Must Be Defended, London: Penguin. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Guardian (2005). The chase, the shooting and the fear at Stockwell station, Guardian, 23 July. Retrieved 10 May 2008 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/23/july7.uksecurity4 Guardian, (2007). De Menezes looked aggressive, defence lawyer tells jury, Guardian, 26 October. Retrieved May 10, 2008, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/26/menezes. IPCC (2007a). Stockwell One: Investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell underground station on 22 July 2005, London: Independent Police Complaints Commission. IPCC (2007b). Stockwell Two: An investigation into complaints about the Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of public statements following the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005, London: Independent Police Complaints Commission. Milmo, C. (2007). De Menezes shooting: Police guilty of catastrophic errors, Independent. In- Spire: Journal of Law, Politics and Societies, 3(1), 22-30 M PA. (2005). Minutes of the meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority held on 28 July 2005. Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://www.mpa.gov.uk/committees/mpa/2005/050728/minutes.htm Steele, J. (2007). De Menezes 'behaved like a suicide bomber, Telegraph, 29 October. Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567395/De-Menezes 'behaved-like-a-suicide-bomber'.html Sturcke, J. & Attewill, F. (2007). Bad Met planning led to De Menezes shooting, court hears, Guardian, 1 October. Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/01/terrorism.menezes Read More