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Ian Blair, commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, said Sunday that he had not known until 24 hours after the killing of a Brazilian man by police officers that the man had been an innocent bystander and not, as first suggested, a potential suicide bomber.
The man, Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot in the head by plainclothes officers under a contentious shoot-to-kill policy one day after bombers tried to attack London’s transportation system on July 21.
“At that time–and for the next 24 hours–I and everybody who advised me believed the person who was shot was a suicide bomber,” Blair said Sunday in the News of the World.
Blair said he will not resign and has denied suggestions of a police cover-up.
