As leaked documents appear to throw new light on the mistaken shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, BBC News Website looks at the passage of events which led to his death and what followed.

A few weeks back I made a post about this subject and I still stand what I said back then.
How these details were released I think is a bit suspect. I reckon that someone internal must have thought a cover up was going to take place and leaked the details. Either that or one of our friends over water helped to leak our reports again (remember the tube photos that appeared on US TV before anyone over here knew they existed).
Either way, it appears that some mistakes were made along the way. I hope that they don’t punish the people on the ground and that someone in authority takes blame for what has happened.

I still support the officers on the grounds 110% as god knows what I would do in there shoes. You can’t imagine to think what they were thinking at the time when there was the possibility of him having a bomb on him (which later turned out to be no threat at all, but I would point out again that there was no way for the officers at the scene to know that without better information being supplied from elsewhere). The only strange aspect of the leaked report was the mentioning of the suspect being held down by one officer and then shot by another. I can’t quite understand why there was a need for shooting him if he was in fact being immobilized already. But again, I wasn’t there and the only ones who know what really went on will never be allowed to explain their actions.

Personally I don’t believe there was any ‘gung ho’ hero type actions by some mad gun wielding officer, merely a very misfortunate incident for all parties, not least the family of the victim.

I do hope that there wasn’t going to be a cover up which is why someone leaked the preliminary findings.

BBC – Timeline: Tube shooting
BBC – Police shooting – the discrepancies