Jean Charles de Menezes

Similar incidents

The Metropolitan Police have been involved in a number of other incidents in which innocent people have been shot and/or killed, such as:

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• 1983 — Stephen Waldorf, shot and injured whilst driving a mini car. Police were looking for escaped prisoner David Martin, believed Waldorf's girlfriend Sue Stephens was Martin's girlfriend, and on this basis shot Waldorf. Two officers stood trial for attempted murder and attempted wounding but were cleared of all charges; Stephen Waldorf made a full recovery and eventually received £150,000 compensation.
• 1999 — Harry Stanley, 46, from Hackney, east London, who was shot and killed by Metropolitan Police officers who apparently had mistaken a chair-leg being carried in a plastic bag for a firearm.

Other UK police forces have been involved in similar incidents:

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• 1988 — the Attorney General announces that eleven RUC officers investigated by the Stalker/Sampson inquiry into an alleged "shoot to kill" policy are not to be prosecuted. International criticism followed.
• 1998 — James Ashley, 39, who was shot and killed by Sussex Police while naked and unarmed during a drugs raid at his flat in St Leonards in East Sussex.

British military have also faced legal consequences in at least one similar incident:

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• 1988 — three IRA operatives were shot dead in Gibraltar by SAS soldiers, allegedly under a "shoot to kill" policy intended to prevent them from operating any detonator on their person. The three people killed had no explosives or detonators on them, although a timed car bomb was found later. They had been under surveillance for some time prior to the incident. The European Court of Human Rights held, by majority, that there was an opportunity to stop them at an earlier stage without having to shoot them and accordingly their right to life had been infringed {{ref|ECHR}}