Some shocking quotes have come out of the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest as police chiefs attempted to pass the blame for his shooting from themselves to the victim.

There were two particularly worrying comments mentioned in the BBC’s coverage. Firstly:

Last week Det Ch Supt Jon Boutcher told the inquest jury: “I cannot see anything we could have done that would have changed the course of the tragedy of Mr de Menezes.”

He also admitted he could not rule out someone being killed in a similar situation again.

If one of the web applications I support at work went wrong, I’d be expected to find the cause and make sure the same problem didn’t arise again. Apparently in matters of life and death, no such corrective action is considered necessary by the Metropolitan Police. It’s lazy, complacent and worrying.

Far more offensive, though, was the evidence from Deputy Assistant Comissioner Cressida Dick:

“He was extremely unfortunate to live in the same block as Hussain Osman, desperately unfortunate to look very like Hussain Osman, and the things he did in all innocence, the way he behaved getting on and off the bus, contributed to our assessment – my assessment – of him as a bomber.

“But if you are asking me did we do anything wrong or unreasonable, then I don’t think we did.”

To summarise her comments:

People who deserve no blame for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: The police

People who deserve some blame for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: Jean Charles de Menezes

So what can we extrapolate from these two testimonies? That the Metropolitan Police accept no culpability for the shooting and therefore see no need to take any action to stop a similar horrific cock-up from happening again, and that changing your travel plans on the London transport system is considered evidence of being a terrorist.

We should all be afraid.

• My train is late and I can see my breath. Hello, autumn. #
• Coach load of middle-aged people and pensioners being dropped off at Parliament. Is this the House of Lords school bus? #
• Trying out TweetDeck. #
• @stephmog Did you manage to get her to read out “I’m a patronising, talentless waste of the broadcast spectrum”? If so, well done. #
• @secretlondon Now installing mom… #
• Outside Parliament. Bizarre mix of church wedding bells and drumming and shouting protesters in Parliament Square. #
• I can accept tourists blocking other pedestrians by walking three wide – it’s a fact of life. PCSOs should know better. Grumble grumble. #
• Reading the BBC’s coverage of evidence to the de Menezes and literally stunned by the police chiefs’ complacency and insensitivity. #
• Banged my head cooking my first chicken chausseur. Ow. And by “my”, I obviously mean the sauce is from a packet. #
• @HelenDuffett @alexfoster Thanks. Hit it hard on the side of a door. No blood, just pain and a bump. Chicken was tasty though 🙂 #

• Slept for nearly 12 hours. Should go to Croydon today despite the rain… #
• Updating the XFN in my blog links in light of a couple of presentations yesterday. #
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• @plasticbagUK It was a talk at SocialMediaCampLondon about connections between people online. #
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• @artesea Excellent, playing with it now. #

• Up with the lark. I must’ve been drunk last night – I don’t remember bringing a lark home. Beer goggles again. #
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• @benxo I have laptop-related hot legs too. Think I might go back to phone-based twittering for next session. #smclondon08 #
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• http://twitpic.com/ei6d – @qwghlm is presenting #
• Yay! I can haz 3G. New SIM just activated. #
• http://twitpic.com/eic8 – Ben Godfrey about to talk #smclondon08 #
• Very much need an injection of coffee. #
• Just discovered who @anniemole is. No, I didn’t know. Listening to her on blogging. #smclondon08 #
• Blogs more influential than social networking sites. More US readers than Facebook users #smclondon08 #
• @anniemole inspiring me to reinvigorate my too quiet blog #smclondon08 #
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• Want to make a dirty joke about rich structures but considering my online reputation. #smclondon08 #
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• @qwghlm declares that you never win a business card draw with a minicard and then promptly wins with one. #
• @diamondgeezer Done now. Thanks for forebearance. #
• @jamesgraham You were too late to get on the screen. And don’t diss Sussex. #
• @secretlondon Not deliberately. But when 90% of people there are on twitter… #
• @secretlondon Genuinely think it was a bit of fun for a very silly last session of the day. #
• Exhausted now and watching Robot Chicken Star Wars DVD. May have to go to bed before 10. #