I remember thinking, brilliant, they got one of them.” Jeff Pope’s horror is tangible, even over Zoom, but his instinctive reaction to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes was likely one shared by millions when the news broke that a suspected suicide bomber had been shot at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005. It came 15 days after the 7/7 bombings that killed 52 and injured more than 700 across London’s public transport network, and just a day after four more failed explosions that left a second terrorist cell at large.
As we swiftly discovered, it was not “brilliant”, nor was De Menezes “one of them”. Suspect: The Killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, on Disney+, subjects both assumptions to rigorous interrogation. A four-part dramatisation of 7/7, 21/7 and the shooting of De Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician who was pinned down and shot seven times in the head by firearms officers, it relates a grimly familiar story of avoidable errors, reputation management and obfuscation by the Metropolitan Police. In short, the sort of story in which Jeff Pope specialises.
