I Had No Choice, I Had to Kill Menezes, Says Yard Officer

Evening Standard - London › October 25, 2008

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Summary

A POLICE officer who shot Jean Charles de Menezes told the inquest today: "I had no alternative." The officer, known by the codename Charlie 12, said he had to shoot to kill to protect the public from another Tube explosion. He said the Brazilian had been positively identified as a potential suicide bomber and when challenged kept walking towards him.

"I didn't have any alternative if I didn't act now members of the public would be killed, my colleagues would be killed and I would have been killed and I had a duty to protect the public," he said.

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Extract

I Had No Choice, I Had to Kill Menezes, Says Yard Officer

The officer was speaking for the first time in public about the morning after the failed 21/7 bomb attack in July 2005.

Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times by two armed police in Stockwell Tube station after being followed from his home in Tulse Hill.

Th...

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