Death of Jean Charles de Menezes

Who is Death of Jean Charles de Menezes?

Jean Charles de Menezes 7 January 1978 – 22 July 2005 was a Brazilian man shot dead by the London Metropolitan police at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground after he was misidentified as one of the fugitives involved in the previous day's failed bombing attempts. These events took place two weeks after the London bombings of 7 July 2005, in which 52 people were killed.

Contemporaneous and later police and media accounts contradicted each other, specifically regarding Menezes's manner and clothing as he entered the station, and whether there had been any police warnings before they fired. The death sparked an intense public debate over a shoot-to-kill practice known as Operation Kratos. The codename was dropped in 2007, but the policy continues.

Police put the communal entrance to a block of flats in Tulse Hill, south London, in which Menezes was living under surveillance, and saw Menezes leave the building. Plain clothes officers, armed with pistols, followed him as he took a bus to Brixton tube station, before boarding another to Stockwell because the tube station at Brixton was closed. Specialist firearms officers were called to Stockwell. Just after Menezes entered a train, several officers wrestled him to the ground and fired seven bullets into his head at point blank range. The train was still at the platform with its doors open, having just been evacuated by officers.