Talk:Jean Charles de Menezes

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	To-do list for Jean Charles de Menezes:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
Add details from the inquest when they come out. Continue to use {{note}} and {{ref}} to document sources. Continue to reword for clarity and brevity. Please attribute and cite sources accurately with regards to the IPCC leaked documents. If you have not recently, please review NPOV tutorial. Although this is a current event, please bear in mind that it is an encyclopedic article, and should be written from an historical perspective, as if it would be read the same 1 year or 100 years from now. The prevailing tense of sentences should be past-tense. Also avoid phrases such as "The latest reports indicate..." Use British English for this British/Brazilian topic. This article ought to be slimmed down! Suggestions: Use footnotes to explain items rather than explaining them inline Propose a series of smaller articles on the incident and aftermath Just edit down, remove every unnecessary word The notes needs to be numbered correctly - it's a mess clean up description of the incident itself, it is not easy to follow and makes little sense as is

Contents 1 Archive discussion 2 Latest development 3 'Disputed' facts and events 4 Officers mistook him for bombing suspect? 5 Inaccuracy in biography section 6 Rape Allegations 7 Roman Catholic 8 Mark Whitby 9 Number of Shots 10 Criticism of Justice4Jean 11 Conspiracy Theories 12 Rape insinuations 12.1 Rape allegations 13 Sir Ian Blair may face charges 14 CPS Investiagtion 15 Amnesty Internation and POV 16 "illegal immigrant" in the article summary 17 GAC 18 Autopsy 19 de Menezes officer involved in another shooting

[edit] Archive discussion

/Archive1 - Created 27 February 2006

[edit] Latest development

Latest development posted at the news section of the Brazil Portal, if it should interest. Regards, Redux 01:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

pt:Universidade de São Paulo

[edit] 'Disputed' facts and events

I just feel that there is something seriously misleading about titling like this. First, we aren't stating WHO is disputing what events and facts. Once the leaked documents emerged, they appear to have quickly superseded the previous account. The current verbage seems to suggest there is an on going, or at least notably heated argument over which version was accurate, which there is/was not. --Fangz 01:06, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree PizzaMargherita 07:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Officers mistook him for bombing suspect?

The second sentence of the article claims that the officers who killed de Menzes mistook him for one of the attempted bombing suspects. Is there any reference for that claim (which follows verbatim)?

Menezes was shot and killed at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground by unnamed Metropolitan Police officers, who had mistaken him for a suspect in the previous day's failed bombings.

This claim is not made elsewhere in the article. Given that that even the Metropolitan Police have given contradictory statements as to whether officers believed de Menezes to be an existing suspect, and that we do not even know the identity of the officers who actually shot him let alone what their thoughts were at the time, I believe this claim should be removed from the first paragraph.

If there is a source which makes this claim, IMO it should be moved to Jean_Charles_de_Menezes#Pursuit_and_shooting, probably with other views on this matter.

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 05:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they monitored his family's conversations in Portuguese, and the very well trained spy agents concluded that they spoke Arabic and the official translation of the conversations from Arabic into English provided conclusive evidence that they were going to bomb the train.--tequendamia 05:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this documented? PizzaMargherita 07:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

See above at Introduction, where this was already discussed in much depth... KWH 06:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I just read all the archives and I don't think a consensus was reached on whether the beliefs of the officers who shot him should be included, and, more crucially, no one there has given a single reference for the claim, "who had mistaken him for a suspect in the previous day's failed bombings".

IMO we shouldn't be stating as fact the intentions of an individual involved in a suspected crime (especially in the first paragraph and without any reference to someoene even expressing the claim as their opinion), as we really have no idea what the their intentions were (especially as the individuals have not given any indication of what happened or even released their names).

I wouldn't have a problem with stating different views on this in a disputed facts section, but, as it stands, I believe it is not WP:NPOV and is second guessing the criminal investigation and any future prosecutions. For instance, by assuming the truth of this factoid (that they thought he was one of the suspects from the previous day), many would consider it reasonable to assume that there was a necessary level of recklessness or negligence on the part of the officers in order to secure a criminal conviction at least for manslaughter (because De Menzes didn't look like any of the suspects).

Is it fair for us to use weasel words in the second sentence of a controversial article to imply that someone who does not (and possibly is not allowed to) defend themselves has committed manslaughter or murder?

Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 14:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

This seems to depend very much on the meaning you are applying to the words. The officers who set the chain of events in motion were the plainclothes officers on the bus. ("At some point during this journey, the pursuing officers contacted Gold Command, and reported that Menezes potentially matched the description of two of the previous day's suspects, including Osman Hussain.") These officers then followed him into the station and pointed him out to the firearms officers who arrived. The firearms officers shot him. You are correct that we do not know the state of mind of the firearms officers, but they presumably would not have shot Menezes if the plainclothes officers hadn't identified him. So is it reasonable to say, for reason of brevity in an introduction, that a team of officers does an action collectively? Shall we say of a sports team that the team won the game, or shall we say that these several players won the game, a few others sat on the bench, and a few others weren't present? I'm open to another wording as long as it's suitably brief. Perhaps:

"Menezes was shot and killed at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground by unnamed Metropolitan Police officers, after he was mistaken for a suspect in the previous day's failed bombings."

(And please note: I was defending the exact same view on this text as you, Joe, back in August 2005 before the leaked IPCC report came out with further details) KWH 02:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I admit I haven't read the leaked IPCC report (and only have a vague idea about its contents) so maybe I should. I brought this up, because, despite not liking to get into arguments over controversial articles, seeing this paragraph has been annoying since August and it still hasn't changed. Regardless of the contents of the report (which, of course, shouldn't be taken as gospel, especially as it was a leak of a work in progress), it seems clear that that it would not be right to say he was "shot by officers who mistook him for" (as the who clause can only refer to the shooters and "mistook for" is defined as "to recognise someone/sthg as someoene sthg/else" and "recognise" means "to perceive with the senses as something/someoene else based on past experience"), so I've changed the wording to what you suggested.

Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 22:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I am surprised that little or no mention is made of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner's false and misleading statements in the immediate aftermath of the killing (i.e. that day), and of his attempt to block any investigation of it by the relevant authorities. Could someone knowledgeable add some such comment?

Pete (a Northern Irishman in Australia)

[edit] Inaccuracy in biography section

According to a statement by the British Home Office, he did not apply for an extension, and was living illegally in the UK after that time.

This account is both inaccurate and biased.

I remember quite vividly, although I cannot get hold of the sources, that the Home Office said that the Home Office stamp that Jean Charles de Menezes had on his passport was not in use by the Home Office at the time, thus implying that there was a possibility that he was living in the UK without a valid visa.

I also remember that the IPCC complained about the timing and the nature of this statement from the Home Office, which was uncalled for and not relevant. I think it would be nice to add these very meaningful details, and either way to support this section with references. Can you please help me find them? Thanks. PizzaMargherita 19:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I got them. I was only partially correct, but still I think the current wording in the article is not ideal.

• Brazilian's visa expired in 2003
• Home Office slated over shot Brazilian

PizzaMargherita 07:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rape Allegations

I have heard that the rape case has now been closed, however as far as i am aware the DNA sample that was requested by the police was never provided by the family, there are only two reasons i can think the case has been closed, that he was in fact the rapist or another person was caught and charged with the rape. As this was a pre existing alligation which only came to light after the victim saw the pictures of him in the media, its not possible that they were simply made up, the polic had evidence and genetic matierial collected at the time of the rape, so whats going on here??? Was Mr De Menezes a rapist???? —This unsigned comment was added by 82.39.134.72 (talk • contribs) .

All the sources I can find online don't indicate that the case is closed, but is still under investigation. KWH 02:02, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Case is closed and Mr de Menezes was cleared of all rape allegations [1]. And such allegations were very 'convenient' so start with, weren't they?!? Slander, slander, slander... I can almost see some chubby fingers crossed, hoping that the allegations would stick.

Now that the allegations have been thoroughly disproved, I wonder whether they justify a separate section (complete with details as to the supposed circumstances of the "rape".) Should it be reduced to just a couple of sentences in another section (possibly "An innocent man"?). Vilĉjo 22:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Clearly a cynical attempt to smear de Menezes. Not content to have taken his life, the police were determined to tarnish his name as well. Sickening. Guv2006 11:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roman Catholic

Why is this category relevant? Why don't we add a "people with dark hair" category then? Besides, do we want to build a database of all Roman catholics? I think somebody tried to do the same with jews in the past and it was decided that it wasn't a nice thing to do. PizzaMargherita 07:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Whitby

Anyone else aware that he managed to get "eyewitness" spots on all the major channels, and yet talked a load of utter crap.

Some claim that the unreliable "eye witnesses" were plants employed to spread misinformation. On the other hand, and I think it’s more likely, that the witnesses misidentified various plane clothes police officers as the Terrorist. Witnesses saw an ordinary passenger, Jean Charles, killed by a terrified police officer who looked like a cornered rabbit, who had sprinted over ticket turnstiles in his bulky jacket/bullet-proof vest. Diamond Dave 19/09/2006 14:19 UT

[edit] Number of Shots

Why does the article quote two random sources stating that there were two separate and distinct sets of gunfire? This does not accord with the majority of the eye-witness accounts (including my own). Most witnesses are quoted in the newspapers are saying there were between 5 and 8 shots. The majority don't talk about two separate bursts, so why refer to this in the main article? In my view this is biased towards making out some case for a hidden agenda and cover-up.

Hi anonymos. There were 11 shots according to several sources citing the leaked documents: "The documents say that a post-mortem examination showed Mr Menezes had been shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder, but that three other bullets had missed him."[2][3]EyesAllMine 13:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Found one more [4]

That's not disputed. What is though, is giving weight to one witness statement saying that the shots took place over a 30 second period when not one other witness appears to say the same thing. I don't see why that should be given any more weight that the evidence of the 30+ other witnesses.

[edit] Criticism of Justice4Jean

I've noticed that any criticism of Justice4Jean seems to get removed by anonymous IPs every few months, most recently 9 March: [5] Might keep an eye out for that in the future. KWH 05:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The "justice4jean" campaign. How efficient and encouraging has the campaign been? The j4j campaign website seldom gets up-dated - not since the campaign 22 January "6 months Vigil". Would-be campaign supporters repeatedly report that telephone calls are not returned and that various supportive requests have fallen on deaf ears. And that regular meetings have not been called by core justice4jean members so that matters can be discussed, campaign responsibilities more adequately shared, and a more broad based supportive campaign ethos is established. Is the justice4jean campaign in the tight grip of a group of relatively elite inward looking activist "operatives". Would be gratifying to be proved wrong!!

I don't really accept the rebuttle (in the indented paragraph that immediately follows this one) of some of the criticisms cited above. Having had repeated direct contact with a number of J4J campaigners and from my own attempted involvement, the campaign has had very serious shortcomings. There simply have not been (during the first half of 2006) regular meetings (I mean "regular" and "open" meetings) to enable discussion, and to promote collective commitments and these shortcomings are too serious to be air-brushed away by claims that things have been (and usually are) a bit disorganised in political criminal justice campaigns - for certain there are some very experienced political acivists connected with this campaign who appear to have deliberately not been as outgoing as they ought to have been, hence the lack of regular and necessary meetings. Would be J4J campaigners eager to engage more fully with this campaign have privately expressed repeated disppointment that ongoing opportunities to engage collectively were not materialising. These latter would certainly include a very small group of J4J campaigners who have worked very hard throughout the whole post 22 July '05 period to establish and safeguard the Stockwell Station J4J shrine. As an experienced activist in relation to criminal justice system campaigns since the early 1970's I have been astonished by the way the J4J campaign proceeded. I do not seek to suggest that the immediate family and closest friends of Jean Charles de Menezes as being at fault, I would draw a clear distinction between those personally burdened and deeply traumatise folk and the J4J core "political activists".

With the greatest respect to KWH, another way of looking at this is that all campaigns are a bit disorganised, which is a different POV from that which accuses people of being elitist. As someone who has been involved in the Justice4Jean campaign, I can confirm that it is true that work has fallen on a relatively small number of people - but that is always what happens in these type of campaigns, the more so when Jean's relatives in London are working all hours they can to survive. In terms of decision-making, everything the campaign does has to be checked with both Jean's cousins in London and his family in Brazil. It was Jean's cousin Alex who decided, for example, that he wanted to march alongside the family of the young man who was shot and wounded in the raid in Forest Gate, when a march was called by local groups on 18 June.

I can confirm that the Justice4Jean website has been completely overhauled and will be relaunched before 22 July, and there is a public meeting on the first anniversary of Jean's death at Friends Meeting House on Euston Rd, London NW1

The new Justice 4 Jean website is now up and running

[edit] Conspiracy Theories

It has been said that Menezes was an electrician on the London Underground and had witnessed the placing of the bombs underneath the carriages. Who was his employer? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.75.243.78 (talk • contribs) .

With the corpus of evidence already available indicating criminal behaviour of the police at all levels, is it worth spending any time chasing ghosts? PizzaMargherita 06:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

According to [6] he was working as an electrician, and had been called out to fix a broken fire alarm. Megapixie 07:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Is the idea that he had worked in the tube network a claim or just an hypothesis?

[edit] Rape insinuations

Just how sick is this? The man was shot by police, and that is the reason for the article. Now this sort of rubbish is being introduced. Even if the allegations were true, and they are not, they would not be relevant to this article. I doubt any English national would be subjected to this sort of prejudice by the London press. Wallie 23:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I have no intention of re-introducing the material you removed and I had no input into it being placed into the article in the first place, so I have no axe to grind, but just for the record - a) There are no "English nationals" only British nationals. b) There is no "London Press" to speak of apart from the Evening Standard. The popular press in Britain consists mostly of national newspapers. c) You obviously know little about British tabloids, the red tops report all sorts of scurrilous stuff no matter what a person's nationality. So these is no kind of prejudice going on here. d) There was an allegation and it was investigated and proven to be false. This was widely reported, not just by the red tops; indeed one of the references was from The Scotsman. Jooler 02:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Wallie, the section should be dropped. This is an article on de Menezes, so if the allegations were true, it would be relevant. Also, I don't agree that being cleared of a crime is offensive, nor that we should remove sections on the basis that they are offensive. But anyway yes, drop it. PizzaMargherita 05:44, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I take the point about "London press" and "English nationals". The language is a little off the cuff, and this is only a discussion page. I like the term "red tops" too. I was suprised you mentioned that the Scotsman covered this. However, even they can get desperate for material sometimes and jump on the bandwagon. The offensive bit to which I was referring was the fact there was any mention of the rape in the article at all. I can only assume it was there to put a question mark over Jean Charles's character to somehow justify poice actions. Note that the only reason for an article on Jean Charles is because of the shooting, and only material relating to this topic should be considered. Wallie 08:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's significant that the family believes that the police's willingness to investigate the rape allegations came from the continuation of the desire to smear JCdM in the press to take some heat off the Met. It did succeed in putting 'a cloud' over JCdM's reputation for a few weeks while some of the most damaging leaked allegations over the shooting were coming out. The way this is mentioned doesn't at all "put a question mark over [JC]'s character", but clearly states that the allegations were proven false... I could go either way on this, but it is a shame to throw away NPOV and verifiable content.KWH 16:28, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting angle. Like when the Home Office in the middle of the investigation hurried to disclose the (irrelevant) news that JCdM's visa was a stamp that was "not in use by the Home Office" when it was placed (they did not categorically say that it was a fake, which sounds even more fishy to me), presumably to ease the pressure on the met. If it's phrased as below I could be convinced to swing the other way, but I don't feel strongly either way. PizzaMargherita 16:53, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not want to throw away NPOV stuff either. But it does seem to me that the rape allegation was a big "red herring". It seems that you are more in touch with the news in the UK. I was not aware that the rape allegation was around for a while. I suppose I saw it in the article, and genuinely thought it irrelevant. The problem is with these allegations, is that if they hang round an article for long enough, they gain legs. People become as interested in the rape or non-rape, as the shooting itself. Wallie 23:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The libel accusation by Brian Paddick [7] is an example of a truly ephemeral news byte - it only lasted 11 days and ended up with nothing happening except a 'clarification'. But I think all of these bits are relevant since they show something of the still volatile political climate nearly a year after the shooting.

Let's talk this out - is there anything that can be done to make the below paragraph clearer for a 'naive' reader? Example = change the title to "False rape allegations" or "Spurious rape allegations"? (Both bad examples since they are a bit accusatory). I already edited it once for style, [8] and I just made a few additional changes. KWH 23:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

before it's removal the rape piece simply read: On 25 April 2006 it was confirmed that forensic tests had cleared the late Mr De Menezes of involvement in a rape alleged to have occurred 3 years earlier. His family had given permission for blood samples to be used in the tests.[28]

This is a short, straightforward and both factually correct and non-contentious summary. I propose that it be re-inserted. The section below attempts to provide too much detail relating to a closed, transitory sub-story to the main article content, namely the shooting. The ref link can provide further readingleaky_caldron 08:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually let's clarify that... the text below was originally in the article. Wallie removed it for POV qualms [9] on 5 May, then an anon IP added it back in a different way [10] on 7 May, and then you (leaky_cauldron) edited and added a ref to that. [11] I removed this representation when I refactored some things because it was in the wrong place (the rape is another police matter, not related to the IPCC investigation) and I felt the story was better represented by the below paragraph, though I did add your reference to the below paragraph.

The sentence you mention alone has no context; it seems a bit confusing to me, if I pretend for a moment to be a reader with no knowledge about the story. It says in brief - "he was cleared of rape charges-his family gave permission for blood tests" - nothing about where the charges came from, and nothing about the family's reaction. An offsite link provides verifiability, but we can't expect it to substitute for briefly describing the event since it might be taken offline (also, it's not going to help a reader of Wikipedia 1.0 on CD or paper.)

IMHO, the rape allegations are a lot like the allegations from the Home Office about the status of his immigration visa - it was a non-sequitur at the time but was somehow "made" relevant by various commentators and some apologists. People were putting it out there that JCdM may have run from police because his visa had expired, but it eventually came out that he didn't run at all, period. [12] This is where I think that Rape allegations also belongs under Disputed facts and events; all of these items are completely irrelevant in the sense that they were proven untrue, but they are highly relevant in the sense that it describes the circus of falsehoods which have surrounded the truth since day one.

I tried to trim down the below paragraph a little more, to just the facts. Feel free to reword further. The version added by the anon ip is here [13] but I felt that it had some confusing changes in verb tense. KWH 14:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm perfectly happy with the latest wording suggested by KWH. leaky_caldron 15:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rape allegations

Original version, being edited below

In February 2006, a woman claimed to police that a man who resembled de Menezes attacked her in a hotel room on New Year's Eve 2002 in West London. Scotland Yard spent several weeks investigating the claim.^[1] After the claim was made public in March 2006, the de Menezes family denied the allegations and claimed that the Met was trying to "smear" de Menezes.^[2]

Although the family initially resisted giving the claim any credibility, a blood sample was eventually taken with their permission from de Menezes's autopsy. On April 25, 2006 Scotland Yard announced that forensic tests on the sample had cleared de Menezes and that the allegations were proven false. ^[3]

[edit] Sir Ian Blair may face charges

The Independent is reporting that the Crown Prosecution Service is considering civil charges against Ian Blair: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article624682.ece.

Just thought I'd post that here in case anyone wants to follow put anything in the article, or keep an eye out for developments (Im not familiar enough with the details to write anything useful, so I'm going to leave the editing to someone else). Chovain 00:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

See todays BBC for further on that: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5186050.stm I will update the artical accordingly. The One00 19:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CPS Investiagtion

I have added a paragraph about the shooting. However, I know only a little about it. Anyone with further information to hand would to well to add/ supplement/ clarify my bit. The One00 19:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Amnesty Internation and POV

In the section Jean Charles de Menezes#Public reaction, What exactly is the need of Amnesty International reporting how many people die in Brazil because of Police? These are the reasons I can think of:

1. Amnesty was interested in this whole incident and used this incident to show how police is brutal all over the world (and how HR are voilated all over the world etc.)
2. Amnesty was NOT interested in this particular case as such and just reported how police is brutal all over the world (and how HR are voilated all over the world etc.)
3. Amnesty wanted to show that people in Brazil die all the day and one or two killing in Britain is not such a big deal.

Until it is the third case, the current sentence: ...some British commentators who noted that extra-judicial executions by the police in Brazil are far from rare. An Amnesty International report published in 2004 pointed out that official figures show that in 2003 police shot dead 915 people in São Paulo alone, while 1,195 were killed by police in Rio de Janeiro[citation needed]. Amnesty also reported that such deaths were rarely investigated. reads like Amnesty was trying to prove how british commentators were right. If it was not so, or the commentators used Amnesty's report in such arguments, it should be written that way. I will wait for a week before I do the edit.

See previous discussion at Talk:Jean_Charles_de_Menezes/Archive1#Brazil_police_shootings. KWH 05:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "illegal immigrant" in the article summary

In the article summary I consider these edits to be non-NPOV bordering on vandalism. --Sully 22:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about vandalism - people have their views and can choose to focus on different things - but it is misleading; if one were to read only the summary, one might be lead to believe that JCdM had immigrated illegally, not that he had overstayed a visa. Not to mention that it is undue weight, it has virtually nothing to do with what happened to him. KWH 22:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I do believe that this is a contentious POV. People are normally and often identified by their home country and occupation - this is de rigeur in WP:LEAD grafs in Wikipedia. People are not normally identified by crimes they have committed unless their notability is based entirely on that crime. (e.g.: Ted Bundy "was an American serial killer and rapist…") I think that is pretty germane to NPOV. KWH 00:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I respect your POV. However, he was originally described in the introduction as an electrician. I think it is more important to the story that he was in the UK illegally than that he was an electrician. His skills as an electrician bear have no connection to his death. However, the fact that he know he was in the UK illegally, and would therefore is likely to have wanted to avoid the police, may be very relevant. I would like to believe that this is a genuine difference of opinion rather than people trying to advance an agenda. Arce 06:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

So this is using the "running from the police" argument that's already listed in disputed facts and events and that's been completely discredited by the IPCC leak? His immigration status is briefly mentioned in the main body of the article, the summary is supposed to be a brief summary of the article for those unfamiliar with the subject. If the main thrust of the article was about Jean Charles de Menezes being an illegal immigrant and his illegal immigration it might have some merit in the summary but even then the summaries should avoid contentious labelling.--Sully 09:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Saying that he might have wanted to avoid the police is speculation, not encyclopedic reporting: putting "illegal immigrant" there hoping that readers will do that speculation themselves is weaselly. (Besides, he was not given any warning, and the police were not in uniform.) I support leaving it out. Robin Johnson (talk) 10:12, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

If he was shot for being an illegal immigrant this would have merit in the lead, but in this case it is both contentious (overstaying a visa versus illegal immigration) and emotive. Establishing him as an electrician may have no purpose in the lead other than conforming with general practice, but replacing it with a POV term is not the solution. Yomangani^talk 10:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Sully - the "running from the police" theory was discredited months ago. Moving onward.KWH 13:35, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Introducing someone using nationality and job is standard practice. Having "illegal immigrant" is POV and misleading. PizzaMargherita 12:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I assume you deleted my comment by mistake. I will repeat it: "He wasn't shot for being an electrician was he?" Why is there no mention that he entered the UK on a false pretext of being a student, forged a stamp on his passport so it appeared he’d been granted indefinite leave to stay and then set himself up in business in the black economy? It is pretty clear that some of the people here have an agenda which is about supressing anything which might cast this man in a poor light. 81.19.57.146 13:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

No doubt to the disappointment of some Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph readers, having a possibly-irregular immigration status does not carry a death penalty in this country – and it has not been proven that his status was irregular. Keep this article to the known facts, not rumour and spin. -- Arwel (talk) 13:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say he was shot because he was an illegal immigrant. I said he was shot AND he was an illegal immigrant, both of which are properly sourced facts - even in The Guardian. 81.19.57.146 15:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Please support your claim with links. PizzaMargherita 15:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Also very curious how User:Arce suddenly lost interest after an edit war. PizzaMargherita 15:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Wrong. I am reading the discussion with interest and will accept the conclusion. Arce 17:44, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't dispute that and it is .... mentioned the article already! You are trying to confuse the issue by implying this discussion is about whether it should be mentioned in the article at all. It isn't. There seems to be a tendency by some editors on wikipedia to stick everything but the kitchen sink in article summaries making the article look like a mess or mention pet small issues with the major ones making the summary non-NPOV, it adds weight to something that it probably should not have, if it only merits a tangential mention in the main article it probably shouldn't be in the article summary. If you're suggesting this article is missing some major issues related to his immigration status that were relevant to his shooting I suggest you add them citing suitable references.--Sully 18:50, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

This discussion seems pretty concluded to me. Unless Arce/81.19.57.146 would like to continue, perhaps offering some resources. PizzaMargherita 08:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I am researching resouces as suggested, please give me 48 hours. Arce 22:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Put that he was a living saint if you like, he'll still be dead.Arce 22:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The police certainly put that electrician's lights out. Arf! NLB 10:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GAC

The article was judged based on 7 criteria:

1. Well-written: Pass
2. Factually accurate: Pass
3. Broad: Pass
4. Neutrally written: Neutral
5. Stable: Fail
6. Well-referenced: Pass
7. Images: Pass

Unfortunately, the article fails. As it is undergoing an edit-war, as well as having a NPOV tag, placed only this morning, it cannot be said to be stable, and quite obviously the neutrality is disputed. While it is quite well referenced, there is also a section with a "lack of references" tag, which, while not enough to fail the article criteria, is troubling. I would ask that the article be cleaned up and resubmitted, and I am willing to take an immediate look at the article again once submitted, rather than having it wait in line, as it took 2 months the previous GAC nomination. Thank you. --PresN 17:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I took care of the missing references. KWH 04:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

As it has been a week since the tags were up and the discussion was active, I have been asked by KwH to re-evaluate the article. It is, as above, stable. I'm not going to bother with checking anything else out- no red left means that this article passes GAC. Congratulations! --PresN 04:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Autopsy

Is is true that his autopsy showed a high level of a class A drug in his blood? If so, this is relevant.This unsigned comment was added by 195.92.40.49 (talk contribs) .

How is it relevant? He wasn't shot because he was a drug user, he wasn't acting suspiciously because he was high, his flat wasn't watched because he was a drug dealer.--duncan 17:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• Er, don't you understand that this entry is not simply a record of his shooting to death, Duncan. Nor is it eulogy. It's a biography with a significant event about which information should not be selectively chosen to avoid harming sensitivities or protect the agenda of others, and therefore if his autopsy did indeed uncover heroin snorting or cocaine injecting on his part (and I myself recall hearing a TV news report here in the UK mentioning the autopsy find of drugs), please explain why it should not be added. Otherwise please leave politics and irrelevant sensitivities at the door. 62.25.106.209 11:44, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, if you can find a reliable source that mentions his drug habits, feel free to add it in.--duncan 18:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

If it is verifiable in line with the Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons it may be. If it's not, it's gossip which has no place here.--Sully 17:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this could be true, the evidence would fit with him being stoned. Was he a dealer or just a user? NLB 10:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

How does the evidence fit? He was an electrician on his way to work. Most of the claims made by police sources and eyewitnesses at the time (he ran, he had bulky jacket, etc) were later proven to be false. What makes you think the evidence indicates he was stoned?--duncan 15:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If it's true it can be added - by this resource's own rules it can (and we all know how much you lot keep quoting "the rules", so be consistent and don't ignore them when it suits you). And if true it shows that he was not the squeeky-clean, never-did-a-thing-wrong angel-on-earth that all his friends and family claim he was. Remember that just because someone died in tragic circumstances doesn't mean the truth should be selectively edited - something the Met are constantly accused of in this case. If he was indeed a Class A drug abuser (and therefore a serious criminal) that is a fact that should not be ignored in a biography simply because he was killed for entirely unrelated and wrong reasons. I tell you what, if it turned out one of the cops was a druggie you'd all quickly be fighting to be the first to add it. 86.7.208.240 00:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] de Menezes officer involved in another shooting

One of the officers involved in the de Menezes shooting has shot another person. The incident was on Tuesday 31 Oct 2006 during an alleged armed robbery at the New Romney branch of the Nationwide Building Society. The person later died in the William Harvey Hospital. - Source: BBC CEEFAX and ITV Teletext 2 Nov 2006. Ian Dunster 13:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Just had an update on the Radio on Kmfm news.

I have added a paragraph on the report to Jean_Charles_de_Menezes#Similar_incidents but as it's only breaking as I write it may need revising and updating later. Ian Dunster 13:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)