SHOOT TO KILL
Haunted cop who shot innocent Jean Charles de Menezes dead as terror panic gripped UK says ‘I thought we would all die’
'They were saying, ‘armed police, armed police, out of the way, out of the way,' witness tells The Sun
FACE to face with a man he believed was about to blow up an underground train in South London, a firearms officer thought “if I don’t do something now we are all going to die.”
Having bravely stepped into the carriage at Stockwell station on July 22, 2005 under orders to stop a terrorist, the policeman known as C12 shot two bullets into the suspect's head.
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It was to be a horrific split second error, because the victim was innocent electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.
Now for the first time, the retired officer reveals his identity to give a blow-by-blow account of the unbearably tense events that led to the 27-year-old Brazilian’s shocking death.
In a two-part Channel Four documentary titled Shoot To Kill on Sunday and Monday, the former Metropolitan police officer tells how he is still haunted by Jean Charles.
Altogether he and his colleague, known as C2 in the film, fired seven rounds.
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C12, whose face is not blurred but chooses not to give his name, says: “This is something I and C2 have to live with for the rest of our lives and it is our duty to explain to the family why we acted and how we acted.”
There were protests in London after it was revealed that the police had shot dead an innocent man and Jean Charles’s family wanted the officers to be put on trial.
The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge either C12 or C2 with any offence and they returned to duty.
Having left the police after 40 years of service and with the 20th anniversary of the fatal shooting to be remembered next year, C12 has decided to tell his story.
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State of fear
The Channel Four film takes us back to a time of fear and confusion in Britain’s capital in the summer of 2005.
Four years after 2,977 people were killed by Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the same terror outfit murdered 52 people on London’s transport network on July 7.
Chilling moment smiling killer mimics strangling girlfriend - just hours before he told cops 'I think I've killed her'
Exactly two weeks later four copycat bombers failed to detonate improvised explosive devices in their backpacks on three Tube trains and one bus.
That meant four would-be mass murderers were on the loose and Britain’s security services had to find them.
Douglas McKenna, the detective superintendent in the anti-terrorist branch responsible for investigating the July 21 failed attacks, says: “There was a great deal of concern about what they were going to do next. They were all unknowns.”
But a gym membership card was found in a bag at the bungled Shepherd’s Bush bombing with a photo of a man called Hussen Osman.
The first mistake was that the Met gave only one copy of the photo to the firearms officers expected to stop Osman.
C12 says: “We had to commit one grainy image to memory”.
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Shoot to kill
The threat to the safety of citizens was so great that the firearms team were told to switch to hollow bullets that would give a target little chance of survival.
C12 reveals: “We were told to change over the ammunition in our hand guns from our normal to 124 grain dum dum bullets which were specifically authorised for suicide bomber operations to potentially deliver a critical shot.”
A surveillance team was placed on a block of flats in Scotia Road in Tulse Hill, South London, where Osman lived.
They followed a suspect leaving the property on to the number two bus and thought it was suspicious when he got off the vehicle in Brixton and then back on again.
What they thought was an "anti-surveillance" manoeuvre was simply Jean Charles realising that the underground station was closed.
The electrician got off at Stockwell underground station, using his travel pass to get through the barriers and walked normally down to the platform.
Waiting outside for further orders, C12 admits “the anxiety was building up”.
The officer recalls: “Suddenly the radio came to life ‘he must not get on the Tube, stop him from getting on the Tube,’ then my team sergeant said ‘state red, state red’ which was our terminology for deployment.”
C12 believes he’d been given permission to shoot to kill.
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The plain-clothed officer vaulted the barriers to the station, brushed a staff member aside and sprinted down the escalator.
He says: “I know my weapon was out at this stage, but I had tucked it down by my right buttock out of view.”
There have been questions about whether members of the public knew they were police officers.
But eye witness Theresa Godly, who followed C12 and C2 down the escalator and on to the platform, tells The Sun: “These police officers were making it very clear that they were armed police officers.
“They were coming down the escalator, they were saying, ‘armed police, armed police, out of the way, out of the way.’”
Once on the platform the 49-year-old actress, who has appeared in shows such as Bridgerton, was “vehemently” told by officers with guns “to get the hell out of there.”
Split second decision
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C12, though, had to step onto the carriage into what he thought was a life and death situation.
An undercover officer indicated to him that a seated man was the suspected terrorist.
Jean Charles stood up and came towards C12, who raised his weapon, pointed it at his head and shouted “armed police.”
The officer says: “At this point in my head I thought this man knew who we were and was about to detonate a bomb and kill us.”
The surveillance officer was trying to pin Jean Charles down to prevent him detonating what he mistakenly thought was a bomb.
C12 continues: “I am expecting an explosion at any time, we are going to die, that’s the nub of it, if I don’t do something now we are all going to die, the public, we’re going to die.”
He pushed his colleague aside with the nub of his gun, pulled the weapon up and fired two shots.
Time seemed to slow down
C12
C12 recalls: "Time seemed to slow down now, I remember a shot going in and then having to close my eyes because of the force of the explosion."
More shots were fired by both C2 and C12.
He continues: “I looked at C2 and I thought ‘what’s happened?’ He was covered in blood, head to toe, I was in the same state.
“There was no elation, no s***ty high five. It was just that ‘we've survived.’”
Survival was a feeling shared by commuters.
Mother-of-two Theresa, from South London, who was fleeing as she heard the shots being fired, says: “When I was running to get out of that station, thinking that any minute I would die, there were images of my daughter in my head.
“I needed to get out. I needed to get home.”
Stockwell shooting timeline
2005
July 7 - four suicide bombers kill 52 people in London
July 21 - four terrorists fail to detonate explosives in London
July 22 - 9.33am surveillance officers see Jean Charles de Menezes leave a block of flats in South London, thinking he is terror suspect Hussen Osman
10.01am - Jean Charles enters Stockwell tube station
10.04am - ‘State Red’ declared meaning firearms officer ordered to stop the suspect
10.05am - Armed officers confront and shoot Jean Charles
4pm - Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair tells a press conference the Stockwell shooting was "directly linked" to the attempted bombing.
5pm - The police admit the victim was not linked to terrorism.
July 27 - Four of Jean Charles’s cousins, pictured above, demand an end to the "shoot-to-kill" policy.
August 16 - ITV reveals details of Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation that contradict the Met’s version of events.
2006
July 15 - It is revealed that no one will be charged with the murder or manslaughter of Jean Charles.
2007
November 1 - The Met Police Commissioner and his office were found guilty of health and safety offences and fined £175,000.
2008
December 12 - A coroner’s inquest records an open verdict on Jean Charles’s death.
2009
November 23 - The Met agrees to pay £100,000 in compensation to Jean Charles’s family.
Mistaken identity
Due to his bloodied clothes containing potential DNA evidence, C12 had to wait two hours before being able to take a shower.
He needed to “cleanse” himself and remembers the gruesome tasks of washing “parts” out of his hair.
Within about five hours of Jean Charles being shot, the Met police knew they had the wrong man.
Despite that, the then Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told a press conference the shooting was “directly linked” to the ongoing anti-terrorism operation.
He denies knowing it had been a case of mistaken identity at that point.
In my head I thought this man knew who we were and was about to detonate a bomb and kill us
C12
That evening the truth was revealed but the police continued to maintain that Jean Charles’s behaviour at Stockwell “added to their suspicions”.
The Met didn’t correct false eye witness reports that the Brazilian had run into the Tube.
And when an ITV producer got hold of the truth via leaked Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) documents the journalist was arrested by officers.
All this led relatives of Jean Charles to believe there was a “cover-up.”
The officers who fired the fatal shots faced the very real prospect of going to jail.
C12 says: “I always thought it was good versus evil. We are the goodies.
“I never thought I had to face a situation where I would turn from being a goody to suddenly being a suspect in the case.”
But he welcomed the “scrutiny” and no charges were brought against him.
Police scandals
Wayne Couzens
In 2021 serving Metropolitan police firearms officer Wayne Couzens kidnapped, raped and murdered 33-year old Sarah Everard after faking an arrest.
The case shocked the nation and led to widespread criticism of the Metropolitan Police, especially for their handling of the vigil held in her memory.
Couzens was handed a whole-life order in September 2021, meaning he will die in jail.
David Carrick
Rapist ex-cop David Carrick was jailed for a minimum of 30 years in Februrary 2023 for a string of violent sexual offences over a period of nearly two decades.
The former firearms officer admitted to 49 charges, including 24 counts of rape, against 12 separate women.
The case led to criticism of the police for failing to perform sufficient background checks, with the Met admitting sufficient intelligence checks had not been conducted.
Baroness Casey report
A year-long investigation into the Metropolitan Police by Baroness Casey published in 2023 concluded that the force needed a “complete overhaul”, and that racism, homophobia and misogyny was rife.
The 363-page report also found widespread evidence of bullying and “boy’s club” culture, and that it was possible other officers like Couzens and Carrick were still serving.
Child Q
In March 2022 it emerged that in 2020 officers had strip searched a 15-year-old girl at her school, after she was wrongly suspected to be carrying cannabis.
The girl had been searched without another adult present and while she was on her period, prompting an investigation that saw four officers served with gross misconduct notices.
Hamas Protests
The Metropolitan Police has come under fire recently for its handling of anti-Israel protests that have taken place in London over the last year, including accusations of soft-touch policing and allowing supporters of Hamas - a banned terrorist group - to act with impunity.
And in April this year, Campaign Against Antisemitism chief executive Gideon Falter was called “openly Jewish” by an officer, and threatened with arrest.
Offensive messages
Numerous serving police officers have been disciplined or sentenced for sharing offensive messages, including racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes in group chats.
In October it emerged that chair of the Met’s Black Police Association is set to face a hearing for sharing “racist and violent” messages over WhatsApp, while in December last year six former cops were handed suspended sentences over racist messages sent in a group chat.
Instead it was the Met Police that was fined for “failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare” of Jean Charles under health and safety legislation.
Tony Blair, who was Prime Minister at the time, says: “It was just a terrible, terrible tragedy, but it is important to recollect we were just two weeks after the 7/7 bombings and everyone was in a heightened state of nervousness.”
All four terrorists were arrested and jailed thanks to the efforts of the intelligence services and the police.
It is C12 who now has to live with the series of errors that led to Jean Charles being wrongly identified as a suicide bomber.
Reliving events is “painful” and he is reluctant to face the Brazilian’s family because it might cause flashbacks to “the person I shot” who “I don’t really remember”.
But he is not seeking sympathy.
C12 concludes: “The proper victims in this are the family of the man that was shot.
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”I am suffering in a way, but in no way would I count my suffering as their suffering.”
Shoot To Kill: Terror on the Tube airs on Channel 4 on Sunday 10 and Monday 11 November, 9pm, and available on streaming.
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