Can ARIK’s Blog

No police charges in accidental terror death February 16, 2009

No police will be charged in the death of a Brazilian who was mistakenly shot by officers in the tense days following 2005 terror attacks in London, prosecutors announced Friday after a new review of the case.

Prosecutors had previously decided not to file charges against any police for killing 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes in a London subway car two weeks after 52 commuters were killed in suicide bombings on the British capital’s transport network.

But prosecutors were required to review the case one final time after a jury at a coroner’s inquest returned an “open verdict” on his death in December.

Prosecutor Stephen O’Doherty said there was insufficient evidence that police had committed any offense.

De Menezes was mistaken for a suicide bomber. In returning its “open verdict,” the inquest jury rejected police claims that they lawfully killed de Menezes, who was shot seven times at close range by police who followed him onto a subway car.

Police had insisted they were trying to protect the public from a suicide attack when its officers shot the unarmed man. De Menezes was killed as he sat aboard a subway train on July 22, 2005, a day after terrorists tried to set off bombs on London’s transit system and two weeks after four suicide bombers killed 52 bus and subway commuters.

The two officers who shot him testified that they believed de Menezes was one of the failed bombers who had tried to attack subway trains and a bus the day before. De Menezes had an apartment in the same building as Hussain Osman, a subway bombing suspect later convicted in the failed July 21 attack. But in their December verdict, the 10 jurors rejected several claims made by police.

London’s acting police chief Paul Stephenson said de Menezes’ killing had been a “terrible mistake.” “He was an innocent man and we must, and do, accept full responsibility for his death,” Stephenson said in December. But he said that the anti-terror officers “set out with the intention to defend and protect the public” and that “no one set out that day to kill an innocent man.”

No individual has been charged in de Menezes’ death. A British court convicted London’s police force last year of health and safety violations for endangering the public’s safety during the shooting. The force was fined 560,000 pounds ($820,000).

AP

Police Study Way to Jam Cellphones in an Attack January 11, 2009

New York police officials are studying the feasibility of disrupting cellphone communications between terrorists during any attack, after revelations that gunmen in Mumbai received electronic transmissions during their killing spree in November.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly raised the possibility in Washington at a Senate hearing on Thursday, but he noted there were technological hurdles to shutting down cellular service in a narrow location, like a hotel or movie theater.

At the hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Mr. Kelly testified, “Law enforcement needs to find ways to disrupt cellphones and other communications” during an unfolding crisis like the one in Mumbai.

But he stressed, under questioning by senators, that care must be taken in pursuing such plans, suggesting that widespread shutdowns could hamper emergency personnel or keep civilians from making emergency calls.

Later, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said the department wanted to preserve the option of monitoring conversations between terrorists should that prove more advantageous than cutting them off. He said that any plan to shut electronics transmissions was “only in the discussion stage.”

Mr. Browne said, “Our communications and technology people are looking for ways to disrupt cellphone and hand-held devices in a pinpointed way.”

He added: “We are not at a point where we are testing any equipment. We are talking to the industry and to people in other government agencies and among ourselves. What is known about this? What is possible? And what is being tested along these lines?”

Electronic jamming of cellphones or of global positioning systems is complicated but possible, and might already be in use by foreign military agencies, said Eric Lustig, a data systems manager at Eastern Communications, a Queens company that provides radio equipment to government agencies and other clients.

Cellular service in a big region, like a borough, could be simply shut down, he said. More compact sites, like an official motorcade, could be jammed by devices in the cars.

“You cannot draw straight lines around, or a circle around, an area where you would do it, but it is certainly possible to jam an area,” Mr. Lustig said. “If you are talking about a tall building, you would knock out cellphone communications for a far larger area. If you just wanted to knock out cellphones in a movie theater, it could be done.”

Mr. Lustig said it would be much more difficult to jam a satellite phone than a cellular phone, since the antenna is pointed at the sky.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. The New York Times