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Thursday, July 28, 2005

British Home secretary Charles Clarke off on holiday after postponing his vacation only 24 hrs

Brit fuzz backtrack on Menezes story

From track back to backtrack ... but first, my choice of photo for this post.

I was going to illustrate this sad story with a shot of the late Jean Charles de Menezes, but when I read that my Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, had merely postponed his vacation by 24 hours, and when I saw that offensively cheery photo of the sebaceous pol, I knew I had my image for this distressing update.

As if it wasn't enough to have an innocent man blithely gunned down in public like some rabid dog, we now have to put up with a whole new revised story from the police.

Frankly, if I was the fuzz and I'd put out one unlikely story, I'd make damn'd sure another version didn't leak out. Hence, I'm curious how the Times Online found out that Menenez

  • JC was NOT wearing a bulky coat that could have hidden an explosive belt, but a lightweight denim jacket.
  • JC did NOT refuse to heed shouted warnings by armed fuzz, nor did he vault the ticket barriers. He used his travel card to gain access to the station.
  • And what a sad irony that it took shooting the poor bloke point-blank seven times in the head and once in the shoulder for police to wake up and modify their shoot-to-kill orders. In Birmingham, they settled for a Taser stun gun.
  • Speaking of vacations, UK law enforcement certainly seems to be in holiday mood, what with Clarke and now one of the shootist officers sloping off for some paid free time.

    Actually, I can remember the precise month and year this sort of rot set in: May 17 1995, and I'd just checked into my Bellevue motel and was watching agog the TV news and marveling at the disproportionate coverage being afforded the hounding of some black athlete who seemed to stand accused of little more than mere uxorcide.

    The next item was no less riveting: one of New York's finest had inadvertently gunned down an innocent man on the flimsiest of pretexts but, instead of giving a Big Apple shrug and asking what's new, he had taken to his shrink's couch where he was inconsolable until prescribed a relaxing family holiday under sunny skies.

    My first thought was, "What a brilliant wheeze. If a tough Noo Yawk cop can pull it off, I wonder how long it'll take to catch on with the denizens of EC1 and down the mean streets of Holborn.

    And nous voilà! The circle is unbroken.

    // posted by Corfucius @ 11:29 am
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