An analysis of the Stockwell shooting

An article from the ‘The Ergonomist’ August 2009

The fateful events in Stockwell, on the 22nd July 2005, need little introduction. A manhunt was on for the perpetrators of the previous day’s attempted bombings. A gym membership card, found with one of the failed devices, connected Hussain Osman and the address ‘21 Scotia Road’ to the attacks. An operation was mounted at the address to apprehend Osman as he left the flat’s communal entrance. At 09.33 hrs a man, allegedly bearing a resemblance to Osman, left the flat. Officers followed him on his 33-minute journey to Stockwell Tube Station. Two minutes after he entered the station, members of the Metropolitan Police Service’s (MPS) specialist firearms department (CO19), entered the underground station with orders to ‘stop’ a suspected suicide-bomber. Surveillance officers directed them towards the suspect. Moments later, two of the CO19 officers approached the man and between them fired seven shots into his head and one into his shoulder from close range. This man was later found to be Jean Charles de Menezes (JCdM), a completely innocent Brazilian national.

The organisation involved, the MPS, failed to balance its responsibilities of preserving the life of the public, its officers, and suspects. Whilst the situation can, unquestionably, be defined as complex, dynamic, and safety critical, procedures to tackle suicide bombers, defined by the codename Kratos, have been in existence since 2003. Thus, the pertinent question is how was this outcome allowed to happen.

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