News media today are full of talk of the appointment of Cressida Dick as the first-ever female head of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). Tories are congratulating themselves, while certain right-wing Labour ‘usual suspects’ are using it to make nonsensical digs at party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who appointed the first-ever majority-female Shadow Cabinet:
My friend @SadiqKhan doesn't just talk a good game on feminism he lives it.
— Jess Phillips MP (@jessphillips) February 22, 2017
Khan and Amber Rudd have, of course, been anything but shy about capitalising on the photo opportunity:
Some news outlets have mentioned that Ms Dick was the officer in charge of the operation that led to the death by shooting of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes, but it has not been allowed to detract from the general approval.
This evening, the SKWAWKBOX has been contacted by a senior army officer, whose bona fides have been established beyond question by this writer and others, who shines a far less flattering light on Ms Dick and the prospects for the MPS under her:
Cressida Dick is the person who was in charge of counter-terror op that killed de Menezes.
A few years before that incident, she attended a “how to do counter terrorist operations course” and the trainers were not impressed.
She turned up a day late, was inattentive, then left a day early.
Ask around and you’ll find there ample evidence she’s an incompetent operator, but knows how to be a political butt-kisser.
When the de Menezes killing was investigated, her claim all along was “I said ‘stop him’…” – as if that was vague and she didn’t mean shoot to kill.
I don’t think it ever came out publicly that we – I say “we”, I used to do this too – have a concept of “hard stop“.
It’s usually discussed and agreed BEFORE an operation is launched – and it’s very clear what it means:
Survival rate for suspects is supposed to be zero, by design.
A further important point is this: if you read accounts of his death, they confirm the three “officers” who pursued and shot him were codenamed Hotel 1, 2, and 3.
The codenames used at the time by both Police and Military were T (tango) for terrorist, P (papa) for policeman, and H (hotel) for Hereford…the home of the SAS.
So Cressida, as officer in charge, knew that Menezes was actually killed by military personnel, not by police officers, but that received little or no coverage at the time.
In the opinion of this senior and decorated army officer, the MPS has not done well to receive Cressida Dick as its Commissioner, Sadiq Khan and Amber Rudd have not done well to appoint her – and London should be have serious concerns about the prospects for its safety with her at the head of its police service.
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It is not so much the obvious incompetence that concerns me. At least it might suggest a non-malevolent intent. She was undoubtably a player in the attempted cover up & I have no confidence in the subsequent pretend-independent investigation. I live in London and feel she is more of a threat to me than any individual Muslim.
In-fact, on reflection, if you were to add together the threat from every single Muslim in London: who might be of a greater threat? (let’s not include all the good they do for this calculation). I actually think she is more likely to cause my death & I’m a white heterosexual male.
It also sounds just possible that a “senior and decorated army officer” has been delegated to get the military’s retaliation in first, before somebody who by now may well have acquired a good insight into the murky (and macho) relations between army shoot-to-kill units and the ‘proper’ police, gets her feet under the desk. It was of came out at the de Menezes inquest that everything started going wrong when the specialist firearms team (the most likely military component of the operation) did not turn up on time, nor was on hand to stop de Memezes before he entered the underground. The surveillance team, whose job this was NOT, and who had already (literally) cocked-up their proper job—surveillance (the crucial one taking a piss when he should have been on watch)—were left scampering. The latter do sound like real plods, only, unfortunately, they were only armed ones around when he got on the tube. Anything from unimpeachable anonymous MILITARY sources is suspect. There’s a bit (but not much) more clarity here— http://nclg.org.uk/menezes-jurys-verdict-explained/
Not anonymous to the SKWAWKBOX and has been spot on before, but interesting info!