Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has renewed his condemnation of Boris Johnson’s description of officers involved in the Stockwell shooting as “trigger happy”, branding the comments “extraordinary” and calling for them to be “reversed”.
The Mayor’s comments come after Mr Johnson responded to a letter from Labour Assembly Member and Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority Len Duvall declining to withdraw the remarks which were originally made last week on the BBC’s World at One.
In an exchange of letters published yesterday by MayorWatch Mr Duvall urged Johnson to withdraw the comments and accusing him of “a fundamental misunderstanding of policing in the capital”.
Mr Johnson has previously stressed his support for the police calling them “personally extremely brave” but says he had “absolutely no intention” of withdrawing the use of the phrase. In his response to Duvall’s letter Mr Johnson said it was “hard to think of any other description of a catastrophe in which a completely innocent man ends up with seven bullets in his head.”
In today’s intervention Mr Livingstone said this statement was “an extremely serious allegation, to the level of a slur, against the officers of the anti-terrorist squad who daily risk their lives to protect London.”
“It is not negated by Boris Johnson’s acknowledgement of the personal bravery of the officers concerned – Londoners have no need of, indeed would be endangered, by officers who were brave but trigger happy.”
There was also condemnation from One London Leader Damian Hockney AM who, commenting on our earlier story, described Johnson’s letter as a “cack-handed defence” adding “Boris Johnson has even less understanding of policing in London than I’d thought.”
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2BemusedLondoners says
Someone really needs to get a grip of Boris and stop him digging any deeper a hole – Livingstone’s going to make mincemeat of him by election day.
T .Hurtz says
Here is what Boris said….
“I think the real reason Jean Charles de Menezes got killed in the Stockwell Tube was not just because the police were too trigger happy, although I think you could argue that they were,
These comments are a disgarace. Johnson is not fit to tie the shoelaces of those officers who put thier lives on the line on a regular basis. As for his defence that he has in past cited police officers as both ‘brave and courageous ‘. Kens point is well made – who needs brave, corageous trigger happy police officers ?
He is toast
Steve Kay says
Well of course you wouldn’t want highly trained officers of the elite anti-terrorist squad losing their cool and turning trigger happy. Yet, despite all the evidence heard at the Old Bailey, Ken Livingstone insists that never once happened and Boris Johnson says it manifestly did.
London needs trigger happy officers endangering innocent people like you’d need a hole in the head.
The horrendous thing is, that’s just what young Jean Charles de Menezes got!
Justice must yet be done.
Steve Kay says
Messrs Duvall, Hockney and Livingstone should be reminded of just how nearly the surveillance operation could have resulted in three fatal shootings on the Stockwell Tube that day. Fortunately for undercover officer “Ivor” and, inexplicably, the uniformed driver, those two “critical split-second decisions” stopped just a couple of split-whiskers short of death for two more innocent men. Alas for poor Jean Charles.
When armed officers turn on one of their own colleagues, dragging him along the floor, gun to his chest with him pleading for his life and then setting on the terrified train driver, they can hardly expect to stand clear of accusations that they were being “trigger happy”.
Not only did armed officers have no real idea of who the passenger (who like the other public passengers was making for the nearest exit door, hands attached to the ends of his arms) actually was, they were apparently sent out without the fore-knowledge to be able to recognise the faces of the surveillance team they were supposed to be working with and to protect. The danger faced by brave officer “Ivor” and the man driving the train that morning on the Stockwell Tube was in reality not from a suicidal terrorist but from armed officers who were supposedly there to protect both police and public.
“Londoners have no need of, indeed would be endangered, by officers who were brave but trigger happy.” Quite so Mr Livingstone, John Charles de Menezes is dead!