Police were criticised Thursday over the mistaken killing of an innocent Brazilian man in the wake of the 2005 London bombings, although the head of Scotland Yard himself escaped censure.
The long-awaited report found “serious weaknesses” in police management, and said a top officer misled his boss and the public in the hours after Jean Charles de Menezes died on July 22, 2005.
The Brazilian electrician’s family criticised the report, saying they could not believe Metropolitan Police head Sir Ian Blair did not know about the mistake until the next day. “The police have been allowed to get away with murder,” said Patricia, a cousin of the dead man. De Menezes was shot in the head at point-blank range at a London Underground train station, the day after an attempt to launch further suicide bombings following attacks that killed 52 people earlier that month.
