"Some extremely basic and obvious rules were broken by the man who was killed. Among them: When you have Middle-Eastern appearing features or could be thought of as having such features, you don't 1. Wear heavy and bulky overcoats on a warm day with wires hanging out of the pockets 2. Fail to stop when law enforcement officers order you to. 3. Run into a popular terror target when you've been ordered to stop."
My own views on Ian Blair are somewhat less charitable than vimto's and here you have inadvertantly highlighted the reason why his position is currently in some doubt.
The facts of the case are that Jean Charles De Menezes was not wearing a bulky overcoat on the day in question, he was wearing a denim jacket, similar in fact to what I was wearing on the same day. There were no wires hanging out of his jacket. He was not ordered to stop by police officers outside the station and did not 'run into a popular terrorist target', he entered the station normally, used his pass to proceed through the ticket barriers, made his way onto a train and took a seat.
It is the very fact that it was Ian Blair who put most of these incorrect 'facts' into the public domain, at a time when his officers working on the case already knew them to be wrong, and then failed to correct the misleading story for some days afterwards that he is being criticised for.
That's very interesting and the first that I've heard of the points that you mention.
I hope that the truth will ultimately reign supreme, and if Mr. Blair must step down that his replacement be VERY tough on terror....our British Friends deserve no less.
"Some extremely basic and obvious rules were broken by the man who was killed. Among them: When you have Middle-Eastern appearing features or could be thought of as having such features, you don't 1. Wear heavy and bulky overcoats on a warm day with wires hanging out of the pockets 2. Fail to stop when law enforcement officers order you to. 3. Run into a popular terror target when you've been ordered to stop."
Those are not my words. I accept the shooting was a mess compounded by poor communication. However, the heavy coat description is not come form Ian Blair - but was reported by people in the Tube who seem to have been subject to some hysteria (fair enough). No, The operation was a mess - but it may yet have been the SAS. Even so - errors , bad ones do happen - not every battle goes well - but you have to get on with it and focus attention on the real issues - the Islamists, without whom this would NEVER have happened.
Warm regards.