shum mistake

The BBC continues to report that the police who shot Jean Charles de Menezes "mistook him for a suicide bomber". This highly ambiguous phrase repeatedly appears in media coverage of the case and is the likely reason why the police who shot de Menezes were not prosecuted for something more serious than breaching his health and safety.

The phrase carries the implication that the police thought at the time that de Menezes was about to carry out a suicide attack, in spite of the fact that he clearly wasn't and they clearly couldn't have done. It is unlikely that a jury would convict police who killed someone who was about to let off a bomb. It is more likely that a jury would convict police who killed someone who tried to let off a bomb yesterday but we will have to wait for the evidence in the trial to see whether the police make any kind of identification, mistaken or otherwise.