Shot de Menezes family: We finally got some justice
THE parents of an innocent man shot dead by police under the command of Cressida Dick are “very happy” at her resignation.
Alex Pereira, 44, told the Sunday Mirror that the Met Commissioner’s downfall is justice 17 years on from the killing of his cousin Jean Charles de Menezes.
Jean, 27, was shot seven times in the head by two officers at Stockwell Tube station, South London, in July 2005 in a counter-terror operation led by thenCommander Dick. No officers were prosecuted for the killing.
It happened just two weeks after the 7/7 bombings and one day after a foiled bomb plot when cops mistook the Brazilian electrician for fugitive terrorist
Hussain Osman.
Ms Dick was cleared of
“personal culpability” for de
Menezes’ death but his family have always been angered by her rise to the Met’s top job.
Alex said of Jean’s mum: “I think Maria is very happy now.
I think Jean’s father feels the same way – maybe even more than his mother. It’s a little justice, but it is a justice.
“They should have sacked her 16 years ago.”
Alex, who lived with Jean in London for six months in 2002, remembers a happy childhood growing up near his
cousin in the small town of Gonzaga in south-eastern Brazil. Sharing a picture of them together as kids with Alex’s sister, he said: “No one had shoes – we used to go out barefoot. We made all our own toys. We dreamed of owning bikes.
“But it was a good life because it was very peaceful with zero violence.”
There is no suggestion Jean’s death was a factor in Ms Dick’s resignation.
She blamed a fall in support from London Mayor Sadiq Khan.