The Times Distorts Again

The New York Times is wasting no time piling on the London police for their killing of a man who they believed was a terrorist and a killer. Their article today, full of early quotes from people highly critical of the police, is a masterpiece of misdirection.

But you’re too smart to buy that line. Let’s dive into what we know.

The man who was killed was a Brazilian national who had been living in London for the past three ears and was working as an electrician. Upon investigation, he had no ties at all to any terrorist groups. So, according to these folks, that makes him an innocent.

The shooting shocked many of the country’s 1.6 million Muslims, already alarmed by a publicly acknowledged shoot-to-kill policy directed against suspected suicide bombers. And it has dealt a major setback to the police inquiry into suspected terrorist cells in London.

“This really is an appalling set of circumstances,” said John O’Connor, a former police commander. “The consequences are quite horrible.” Azzam Tamimi, head of the Muslim Association of Britain, said: “This is very frightening. People will be afraid to walk the streets, or go on the tube, or carry anything in their hands.”

A cousin of the dead man, interviewed on Brazil’s leading television network, identified him as João Alves Menezes and said he was an electrician who had been working in England for more than three years. The cousin, Alex Pereira Alves, identified Mr. Menezes’ body in London, the network said.

Mr. Menezes was from the interior state of Minas Gerais, home of the bulk of migrants from Brazil to the United States and Europe and had been in Britain legally, Mr. Alves said. He would have been on his way to work that morning, he said, and had no reason to flee the police.

“How could they have done such a thing as to kill him from behind?” Mr. Alves told the Globo Television Network. “How could they have confused and killed a light-skinned person who had no resemblance at all to an Asian?”

Another cousin, Aleide Menezes, said in an interview with Brazil’s national radio network that Mr. Menezes understood English well and would have understood the officer’s instructions. Other relatives, in television and newspaper interviews, said the family was Roman Catholic and that Mr. Menezes had nothing to do with Islam.

In an official statement issued late Saturday, the Brazilian government said it was “shocked and perplexed” by the killing and was waiting for an explanation.

…

Asked if Prime Minister Tony Blair would address the killing of Mr. Menezes, a spokeswoman said Mr. Blair was “kept updated on all developments, but this is a matter for the Metropolitan Police. We have nothing to add.” But with the nation jittery after the attacks and the shooting, Mr. Blair was expected to confront political passions likely to be inflamed by what his critics are depicting as excesses of a war on terrorism that have eroded freedoms.

“This policy is another overreaction of the government and police,” said Ajmal Masroor, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Britain.

Both the government and the police have sought the support of British Muslims to assist in the inquiry.

“This will turn people against the police, and this is not good,” said Mr. Tamimi, of the Muslim Association. “We want that people stay beside the police. We need to convince the people to cooperate.”

Civil rights groups also seemed likely to demand new curbs on the police at precisely the moment officers have been given much freer hand to pursue the investigation.

Wow…freedoms compromised? Muslims cowering in their homes, afraid that if they so much as peek their heads out their front doors, they will be shot dead by marauding police officers? Is that what England has become?

Oh yes. Surely it is. I mean, look at how the article describes London.

Of the fast-unfolding developments, the most overwhelming for many Londoners, was the police admission that an apparently innocent man had been gunned down in full public view – a killing that left the city even more rattled after a wave of attacks, alarms, scares and shootings that, in a brief three weeks has propelled London from the euphoria of the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park to a sense of embattled siege.

“Overwhelming”. “Gunned down”. “Sense of embattled siege”.

Definitely the signs of a city in mortal fear, isn’t?

Read how the Times describes the events leading to the shooting.

The shooting occurred the day after the copycat attackers tried to bomb three other subway trains and a bus, but their bombs failed to explode. Plainclothes police officers staking out an apartment followed a man who emerged from it, then chased him into the Stockwell subway station and onto a train. The man tripped, and one of the officers in pursuit fired five rounds.

Those police had to be negligent and overzealous, didn’t they? They just “gunned down” an innocent man who was doing no more than running for a train, right?

Well, not exactly.

Here’s what happened. The man left an apartment that had been under surveillance in conection with the attacks. He was wearing a heavy, thick coat on a hot July day. He went into a subway station where police gave him a verbal order to stop. He didn’t stop. He jumped over barriers at the station and ran directly into a train, despite repeated warnings. Once on the train, he grabbed hold of a pole and a person on the train. He was still struggling as the police officers piled onto him. That’s when one officer fired five shots into him, killing him.

This happened the day after terrorists tried to kill more people at three subway stations and on one bus.

This man was not innocent, as the Times seems to indicate. He appeared in every single way to be another bomber and gave police absolutely no choice but to kill him. Not one time did he attempt to surrender. Not one time did he obey a single police order. Not one time did he do anything but act exactly as a suicide bomber would act.

The Times article is disingenuous in the extreme and is a perfect example of how a major newspaper can twist the story, omit facts, and pull sympathetic quotes to distort a story. In the wake of the bloody explosions in London, the Times ought to know better. It’s almost enough to make you ask: whose side are they on?

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Category: Fighting the Islamists, Oh, THAT liberal media.