Back in 2005, in an earlier incarnation of this blog, I wrote at length about the mistaken killing of a Brazilian electrician supposed by London police to be a terror suspect. In particular, I was interested in how eyewitness and police accounts were conflicting and unreliable. They appeared to be influenced in part by the panic that followed recent subway bombings.
The inquiry by the police was slow in coming, raising suspicions of a whitewash, but a court yesterday found the department guilty of endangering the public. The jury cleared individual officers involved and ruled that the organization as a whole was responsible. The head of the police, however, said he would not resign because there was no evidence of “systemic failure.”
In the Twin Cities, we have a different version of a slowly unfolding investigation. Here's some of my earlier posting, and more current information from Joel Rosenberg, who continues to follow the case closely.
In the first case, early surmising about what was justified police action was wrong. We still don't know what happened when an undercover cop got shot, but it's possible I'll be the one wrong this time.
