In amongst the debate about whether Ian Blair, London’s top cop, should quit (my view? yes), not much has been said about what the IPCC investigations into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes actually found – so I thought it worth quoting in some detail some of them:
[The key questions are] ‘If they thought he [Jean Charles de Menezes] might have a bomb, why was he allowed twice to get on a bus and then on the tube?’ ‘If they thought he didn’t have a bomb, why did they shoot him?’
Nor must there be any attempt to blame Jean Charles de Menezes himself for his fate.
He did nothing out of the ordinary.
He looked over his shoulder as he walked to catch his bus; he got back on his bus when he found Brixton tube station was closed; he texted his friend; he hurried down the final few steps of the escalator when he saw a train was already on the platform; and, like other passengers, he got to his feet when police officers burst onto the train. These actions may have been misinterpreted by police officers hunting a suicide bomber but they were entirely innocent.
… the most fundamental problem on that Friday was the implementation of the strategy set by Commander McDowall, the Gold Commander, that everyone leaving the premises was to be stopped once they were a safe distance away and questioned either for the intelligence they could provide or as a suspect. That never happened – and could not happen because the firearms teams needed to support these stops were not deployed in time to do so.
… failures of communication occurred in a number of ways: at the briefings of firearms officers; between the surveillance team and both the control room and firearms teams; the firearms and surveillance teams were not used to working together; the officers in the control room whose job it was to monitor the surveillance complained about the noise and confusion in the room; there was a lack of clarity in the command to ‘stop’ Jean Charles de Menezes entering the underground system; police radios did not work underground.
In other words – this wasn’t one mistake with tragic consequences – it was as catalogue of failures across vast swathes of the police operation.
And most damming of all:
The Commissioner [Ian Blair] attempted to prevent us carrying out an investigation.
Says it all really about how Ken Livingstone’s turned into a neutered Labour loyalist that these days Ken doesn’t speak out against a top policeman trying to block an inquiry into the shooting of an innocent man. Oh Ken, how have you changed?
Lynne Featherstone 
What is your actual point? It has been recognised that the Metropolitan Police Service were put into a difficult situation and there were various operational and communication processes which proved to be clearly inadequate when Londoners lives were put under threat of terrorist event. For instance, if police radios were active underground, these events could have been prevented. Nobody undermines or denies the inadequate role the police played during the operation and for this reason, the Metropolitan Police were found rightly guilty on health and safety grounds. So I do not know what your exact point is. I acknowledge and fully agree with your argument, on that particular day, there were many significant errors made by officers. I have a question for you Lynne-What would the public have said if this was a terrorist and he did successfully achieve his goal by blowing up a tube train? Would we still be screaming and shouting and Sir Ian. We should recognise that Sir Ian has successfully helped to foil similar attacks in the preparation process. We saw the successfu; arrest of those who tried to set off bombs at Warren Street station and other locations. They are now successfully behind bars. Lynne, you still fail to answer my question:(1) When our soldiers commit enormous blunders in Iraq as members of the Armed Forces, Including the unlawful killing of innocent civilians, why do we not remove the Chief of Staff of the British Army? Why is there not a similar furore about unlawful killings of women and children in Iraq and other countries are soldiers are stationed. Why has the Chief of Army Staff not removed, he is accountable as the head of the British Army? During a medical surgery when blunders do occur, why do we not remove the head of the NHS or of that specific hospital? Surely, the individuals are accountable and not the top person. I can give you a long list of blunders by staff in organisations and institutions, where the Chief Executive or senior Management were not sacked. Why not? They work off public tax money, so why should they not be sacked? The Metropolitan Police have learnt important lessons from this tragic incident, and they will now minimise the possibility of such a tragic event happening again.ThanksMash
Mash – yes, I think the head of a hospital should go if they hospital makes serious mistakes. Hospital scandals have resulted in calls for senior people to take responsibility and go or be sacked just like the de Menezes shooting has. Why shouldn’t the top person take responsibility, particularly when their high rates of pay are often on the basis that the person at the top has a big influence on everything that happens?
Hi Anon,I would say that there is a clear distinction between “should go” and “have to go”. One advance the argument that we would ideally want senior people to go and dictate who should be in what senior position, however this is not reality. There has been serious criminal errors or blunders in Iraq since our invasion into the country. However, the political Leaders of the Labour, Lib Dem nor the Conservatives have called for the resignation of the Chief of Staff of the British Armed Forces. Why not? There are blunders everyday occuring in Government Departments, particularly with issues around immigration and other political issues, why has nobody called for the resignation of the Prime Minister for blunders within the various Government Departments?There are thirty thousand police officers, PCSOs and civilian staff in the Metropolitan Police Service. The Met is the largest employer in London, you do not expect the head of such a large organisation based around an entire city to know every single thing that happens during the day.You have got to take into consideration, the Commissioner’s role also makes him accountable to several public and internal committees and bodies, which as a consequence, take up a great deal of the Commissioner’s time. Sir Ian is the most publicly accountable and open police Chief in Britain and probably the world. During the trial, as Len Duvall asserted so eloquently, ‘it was not the Commissioner nor any officer on trial, it was the Metropolitan Police as an organisation on trial. ThanksMash