Best in the world posted by Richard Seymour

The British state has to be one of the most cynical and mendacious institutions on the planet. The recent release of 12 alleged 'terror suspects' reminded us that just because the Prime Minister tells us that a "a very big plot" has been foiled, this doesn't necessarily make it so. The manipulative invocation of periodic 'terror threats' in this country, from the tanks at Heathrow to the arrested firework insurgents in Portsmouth, are only remotely effective because we have a media that is avidly receptive to anything that smacks of authoritarianism - whatever it takes to police the dangerous classes. And think of the other lies. The lies during the Iranian 'hostage' crisis. The lies about Menezes, the Koyair brothers, and now Ian Tomlinson. I realise I'm not making an incisive sociological point here. It's just that the consistency with which this happens, the absolute predictability of it, is invariably lost in the media fug (notwithstanding Nick Davies' excellent piece in The Guardian today). So I thought it was worth mentioning.

Labels: 'terrorism', british state, civil liberties, ian tomlinson, Jean Charles De Menezes, koyair brothers, media, police brutality, police shooting

Latest Menezes insult posted by Richard Seymour

Last week, you will have heard, it was reported that the judge presiding over the inquest into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes told the jury that they were prohibited from reaching a verdict of unlawful killing. This was a disgusting low point in a story that has included lies from day one, calculated smears directed against the deceased victim, seemingly endless cover-ups, and the most obscene rhetoric from the former Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair.

Now, it seems that we were not even told the whole truth about what subsequently happened. A gag order imposed by the judge meant that we were not informed of protests made by relatives of Menezes, who quite rightly disputed the judge's claim to be acting impartially or fairly. They decided to withdraw their cooperation from the inquest on that basis. At a certain point in Judge Wright's summing up before the jury, he instructed the public and media to get out of the court - offering no other explanation than that he had reached a 'sensitive' point in his summing up. The family and members of the public refused, and a stand-off ensued for one hour and forty minutes. When the public were eventually cleared out, the family made a decision to try to storm the court, to register their conviction that any impartiality in the process had disappeared. All of this drama had to be suppressed in order for the charade to proceed, undisturbed.

Today, the jury - denied the option of finding unlawful killing - has delivered an open verdict, rather than clear the police. That the police expect to draw a line under the killing after this atrocious procedure, with this non-verdict, is an insult too far.

Labels: cover-up, Jean Charles De Menezes, metropolitian police, police shooting

Menezes Inquiry: "I thought they were terrorists" posted by Richard Seymour

Well, naturally, if a group of men in casual dress get aboard a train and shoot someone in broad daylight, you would think there was something criminal going down. Let us summarise: initially, we were told that Menezes was shot after behaving suspiciously, dressing suspiciously, vaulting over ticket barriers, ignoring warnings and running at top speed, only to be wrestled to the floor and then shot; then we were told that he didn't actually dress conspicuously, run at top speed or vault the turnstiles, but at any rate, he fitted the profile (Mongolian eyes) and that officers acted under the genuine impression that this man was the terrorist known as Hussein Osman; then we heard that, actually, surveillance officers had never properly identified the man (so they couldn't really have been under a genuine impression that Menezes was Hussein Osman), but anyway the victim was a rapist (that charge was later refuted by DNA evidence); today, witnesses told the inquest that the police at no point identified themselves or gave a warning to Menezes, and nor did he make any move toward them. Not only that, but several other officers testify that they did not hear the officer who fired first issue a warning, as he claimed to have done. It also looks as if the officer may have lied about receiving confirmation that Menezes was Hussein Osman.

Every signal that is emerging is that the killing was pre-meditated. The officers who pulled the trigger may have believed it likely that Menezes was a bomber. They may even have thought that he was right at that moment preparing to kill, although frankly this idea makes excessive demands on one's credulity. However that may be, what is clear is that they didn't try to establish anything, despite having no good grounds for believing what they claim to have believed. Rather than making, as has been repeatedly claimed, a split-second decision, they followed a clearly signposted procedure. Without hesitation, they destroyed the brain - but not exactly 'instantly, utterly'. In order to destroy the brain, officer C2 had to reload his weapon manually, because it jammed. He explained to the court that he calculated that he hadn't properly destroyed the brain stem yet and therefore had to discharge more bullets. (Menezes' mother has remarked that officer C2 appeared to be a rather cold man. This strikes me as a colossal understatement). As soon as armed CO19 officers were sent in there, Menezes was dead. And the fact that he was just an average working class man living, working and travelling in London, who had not behaved suspiciously at all or given any reason for anyone to shoot him seven times in the head, suggests that it could happen to anyone.

Labels: CO19, Jean Charles De Menezes, metropolitian police, murder, SO19

Latest Menezes cover-up posted by Richard Seymour

The depressing saga of the Metropolitan Police getting away with murder takes a new twist. The Metropolitan Police Authority, after saving Sir Ian Blair's job last year, has shelved an inquiry into how he handled the crisis following the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. Ken Livingstone has, of course, sadly decided to throw his political weight behind the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, reciting the New Labour mantra. Clearly, when Livingstone relies upon votes from London's working class, and particularly those most likely to be targeted by the police, it wouldn't do to have another set of revelations or criticisms of the man that he has so forcefully and vigorously defended. Unsurprisingly, when "unaccountable delays" occur, some people are saying that it might be for 'political' reasons (ie, to stop a complete electoral fuck-up). Personally, I wouldn't impugn the purity of Livingstone's motives, but ideologically he seems to have a real affinity for the police. After all, he now wants police cadets in London schools. What's that going to look like? "Right kids, listen up. At the end of the firing range, you see a man: there is his unseasonal clothing, there's the Mongolian eyes, and behind them is the brain which you must destroy, okay?" And I certainly don't want to use any inflammatory language - opportunistic, sordid, furtive, disgusting, all that unnecessarily excitable language. But what does it tell you when even the preposterous Boris Johnson is pretending to be ever-so-slightly more sceptical of Sir Ian Blair? When the sadsacks of the Liberal Democrats are taking a more principled position than - excuse me - Ken socialism-in-one-city Livingstone? What does this mean? I suspect what it means is that these politicians know that voters don't really like it when the police get off scot-free for killing someone, and are put off when politicians prattle obsequiously on their behalf. It means that Livingstone doesn't even have the usual excuse of psepholigical rectitude. He is a party man now, and so shall remain to the bitter end. (Mind you, still give him your second preference vote, because you don't really want that fucking sociopath loser Boris Johnson to be mayor).

Labels: boris johnson, ian blair, Jean Charles De Menezes, ken livingstone, london, mayor, metropolitian police

Another Blair who must bite the dust. posted by Richard Seymour

New Labour's argument for not asking that [Sir] Ian Blair resign his position as head of the Metropolitan Police is that he has done nothing wrong and would be the victim of a media witch-hunt - which, even if true, would be an item of exemplary bad faith coming from that bunch of knife-artists. Ian Blair's own argument for not resigning at the moment is that there isn't a sufficient crisis for him to do so. That is, he will resign under protest only if it becomes impossible for him to remain in his position. He offers this cowardly argument as if it was a statement of principled defiance, with a Gloria Gaynor twist: "There are three options here. There is resign now and walk away. There is cling on, and be pushed out. Or there is the one that I am going to do, which is survive."

Ian Blair is not being witch-hunted, even if the criticisms from the Tories and Lib Dems are opportunistic. He has overseen not only the murder of an innocent man, when all signals indicated that he was innocent, but also a string of lies used to justify the murder. He has exposed the Met's cruel and ruthless doctrine of preemptive killing (destroying the brain instantly, utterly), with all the demented pride of a Territorial Army reject, and publicly admitted that the force came within a hair's breadth of murder on hundreds of separate occasions, although it is clear that on none of those occasions was an actual suicide bomber arrested. Arguably, it is possible that Ian Blair himself really was ignorant of everything that was going on around him, as he claims - no one really believes that, but no one questions it on television either. If it is the case, then he is pathetically incompetent, and should resign on that ground alone. And if it isn't the case, then he deliberately contributed to and arguably oversaw a strategy of lies and smears directed against the very recently deceased, not least by claiming that the man was "directly linked" to the 'terror-hunt'. And there is no doubt that he personally took the initiative, while the body was still warm, of writing to the Home Secretary to prevent an inquiry by the IPCC. So, he doesn't like accountability very much. And he sent the perpetrators of the killing on holiday, so believes that crime should be rewarded - not an ideal quality in a top cop. Subsequently, the Metropolitan Police took the opportunity to beat and detain two brothers, shooting one and almost causing his death. They beat up the neighbours as well, and then - having beaten, shot and arrested the wrong people, they leaked false claims that the brothers were paedophiles, not to mention certain other smears about them and their families. There has been no serious attempt to rectify this or any of the other lies put out by the Met, by Ian Blair. The commissioner has also been a bit of a toady, having engaged in politicised interventions to help New Labour increase the length of time that 'terror suspects' can be detained. He has secretly tape-recorded telephone conversations, and is given to puffing himself in the press (falsely claiming to have been in the thick of it during a battle with the IRA, for example). He has correctly accused the media of institutional racism, but has permitted an even more dangerous institutional racism to pervade his own force, not least in its hot pursuit of "black on black" crime.

The truth is that under [Sir] Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police has been deceitful, fanatical and violent, particularly in its handling of so-called 'terror suspects'. Perhaps this is to be expected, only a slightly more extreme example of what usually happens, but we shouldn't react as if it is. Given our present inability to overthrow capitalism and all that, we would all benefit from more restrained and more intelligent policing. While the sacking of one commissioner doesn't achieve that on its own, leaving such an evidently corrupt sociopath in charge of one of Britain's most potent armed body of men, especially after everything that has happened, encourages trends in the opposite direction. And even if you aren't as cynical about the police as I am, Ian Blair's confrontational policy has without question reduced the police's relations with Muslims to its lowest ebb. Those who think the trend ought to be in the other direction are undoubtedly the greatest friends of the police. Similarly, those who are more concerned with the Metropolitan Police's "credibility" than I am will have to pause and think about whether they want to continue to reward a man whose actions have done nothing but diminish it. Those who are banking on him being able to clean up his own mess, as a prominent London Green hopes, ought to consider how successful he has been at this so far. For the rest of us, I would have thought the record is bad enough: not one innocent man shot, but two; not one lie, but many; not one near thing, but hundreds. How much more should we have to endure?

Labels: ian blair, Jean Charles De Menezes, metropolitian police, new labour

No Justice for Menezes posted by Richard Seymour

From the second Menezes was murdered, the police have pulled every means to protect themselves. They have lied about the circumstances of the shooting, they lied about who knew what and when, they lied about and smeared Menezes, they threatened a whistleblower. They sent the killers on a paid holiday, and then the CPS refused to prosecute. Now, the IPCC has produced/leaked its report, after having been altered due to legal threats from the police. Its account is summarised here, and the main finding is discussed here.

The IPCC's report focuses on the aftermath of the shooting, rather than the shooting itself: it is about the issue of who knew what, and when. Its conclusion gives Sir Ian Destroy The Brain Instantly Utterly Blair a free ride, insisting - quite incredibly in my view - that he was ignorant of what had really happened, despite several of his subordinates knowing exactly what happened. AC Andy Hayman is said to have lied to his boss about whether the victim was known to be among the four suspects, thus withholding information that he would certainly have to provide very soon, and that the Commissioner could certainly get from someone else in the organisation. No serious person could believe this. Hayman appears to have been behind a number of decisions, including the issue of a misleading press release on the day of the shooting, despite the fact that it had become clear before the release was issued that the dead person was Menezes and that he was not a suspect. Undoubtedly there was attempted deceit from top to bottom, but this inquiry has presumably done what it was supposed to: handed the public and the Menezes family a single head, for one part of the crime.

No criminal charges have been brought, there has been no public inquiry, and there is to be no change of policy. And this is important: the whole point behind the police's outrageous conduct during this affair has been not only to defend the institution, but also to ensure that the policy is not questioned. Every bit of quackery from Ian Blair, every obnoxious intervention from 'experts' like Peter Powers, every diversion and red herring, has been pushed with the specific intention of maintaining the police's range of extraordinary powers. And of course, only months after the shooting, the police were permitted to use shoot-to-kill in domestic and stalking cases. The team that killed Menezes would strike again. And let's not forget that another victim of police shooting has been calumnied as a terrorist who was actually shot by his own brother, and as an evil paedophile. Anyone can be shot at, slandered, lied about, beaten, tormented - anything to keep that fucking policy in place.

Labels: 21/7, 7/7, Jean Charles De Menezes, operation kratos, police shooting