Yesterday, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes unveiled a permanent memorial outside Stockwell underground station. Jean Charles, a Brazilian electrician, was shot dead at the station by armed police officers on 22nd July 2005.
Vivian Figueiredo, Jean’s cousin, said on behalf of the family:
Jean Charles was not the first person to be killed unjustly by the police and he won’t be the last. But we hope that through our campaign, we have raised awareness of the importance of police accoutability and how families should always be told the truth about how their loved one has died. To this day, not a single police officer has been disciplined or punished in any way for the deliberate shooting of an innocent man and the cover-up that followed. This is a public scandal and this memorial stands testament to that.
The memorial replaces the “shrine” to Jean’s memory which had been created and maintained by members of the public alongside Jean’s family since the immediate aftermath of his death in 2005.
