Leaked witness statement says police fired 11 times at Brazilian

The Times
Aug. 27, 2005

A witness to the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes has described how armed officers fired 11 regular shots, one every three seconds, at the Brazilian electrician.

In a statement leaked to The Guardian from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) inquiry, Sue Thomason, a freelance journalist, describes how she ran for her life fearing that terrorists had opened fire on commuters.

Ms Thomason from South London, said: "The shots were evenly spaced with about three seconds between the shots, for the first few shots, then a gap of a little longer, then the shots were evenly spaced again."

Mr de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician who moved to London from Brazil, was killed on July 22 after being followed from his flat to Stockwell station by undercover officers and soldiers hunting terrorists behind the previous day's failed bombing attacks on London.

Ms Thomason describes how she was on her way to work, reading a book as the train stopped at the platform.

According to The Guardian, her statement to the IPCC says: "When the Tube was stationary at the platform at Stockwell I recall [hearing] shouting, it was a male's voice, it may have come from more than one male. People then started to get out of their seats and look in the direction where the shouting was coming from.

"I recall hearing gunshots... The shooting was coming from the carriage to the left of me. When I heard the gunshots I thought it was terrorists firing into the crowd. I thought about getting behind a seat... After the initial first shots I left the carriage."

She described fleeing the train with other commuters and running along the platform to leave the station.

Her statement continues: "While I was making my way to the escalator I remember hearing more shots coming from behind me. I thought that I would be shot in the back... Half way up the escalator I remember looking behind me and hearing two more shots... Once I got outside the station my legs went.

"I would say there was 10 or 11 shots fired. The shots were ... evenly spaced out." Mr de Menezes died after being shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Meanwhile, the IPCC has overturned an official objection lodged by one of the police officers, thought to be a firearms officer representing the Police Federation.

The complaint related to comments made by the commission’s deputy chairman, John Wadham, in which he said that Scotland Yard had "resisted" the investigation.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, wrote to Sir John Gieve, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, on the morning of the shooting, asking him to stall the IPCC inquiry because of sensitive intelligence issues, a move denounced by relatives of the dead man as an attempted cover-up.

Simon Thurston, in today's Police Review magazine, described how he was "sickened" by Mr Wadham's statements in which he said that by overcoming Sir Ian's objections the IPCC had scored an important victory for its independence.