For the Cliffs Notes version, Jim Henley:
- DO NOT BELIEVE THE GOVERNMENT WHEN IT TELLS YOU THINGS!
For those of you who need some historical context, Arthur Silber unearths this quotation from a similar episode in the U.S.: “Burning to death was too good for them. They’d like a slower method.” Clue: a Democrat said it.
The error many people who should have known better made immediately after the de Menezes killing was to offer analysis based on the official narrative — instead of analyzing that narrative. Cue this guy:
- No one asked, but here’s my opinion of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes – he brought it on himself. First off, when police told him to stop, he ran. Right there they’re justified in shooting him. Secondly, if Mark Whitby is a reliable witness, Menezes was wearing a jacket. In July.
Unless police and witnesses are lying about the situation, there’s no fault with police here.
Oh, I know, I know, there are caveats — “if Mark Whitby is a reliable witness,” “Unless police and witnesses are lying about the situation…” Yet it still boggles my mind. Unless the lynching party and terrified witnesses are lying about the situation, there’s no fault with the Ku Klux Klan here. I mean, come on, the victim did whistle at a Caucasian woman, and he did run from the nice men in hoods. If you find that analogy over the top, read this account of London police brutality over the last three decades. I guarantee you they’ve effectively lynched more people than the KKK has during the same period.
But the racial particulars of this case aside, why proceed in any situation from “unless the state is lying”? The state may occasionally tell the truth, of course, but what thinking person in the post-Powell era assumes that it will???