A de Menezes update: police and military radios both were on different frequencies and apparently didn’t work underground. It’s shades of 9/11.
Police marksmen and army surveillance teams following Jean Charles de Menezes onto a Tube train could not receive orders in the vital moments before he was shot dead because their radios did not work underground… The undercover officers sitting alongside Mr de Menezes are understood to have decided he was not a threat, but they could not get this message back to Gold Command at the Yard nor relay it to the marksmen.
As the firearms officers ran into the station they are believed to have been out of touch with everyone else involved in the operation. It has been disclosed that the two groups involved — one from Scotland Yard and the other from the Army — were using different radio networks as they trailed the innocent electrician from his home on July 22. Officers on the train are understood to have decided that from the way Mr de Menezes was dressed, and that he was not carrying a bag, he was not about to blow himself up. [Link]
Active suspects should never have been let onto the tube in the first place:
One of the troops who accompanied the Yard marksmen on to the tube also reportedly told military chiefs that the armed police arrived far too late and should have intercepted their target outside Stockwell Underground station, in South London. [Link]
A military surveillance team was involved, though the shooters were police. Of course, the shooters are pointing the finger at the military:
At least half a dozen soldiers specially trained in reconnaissance techniques in Northern Ireland took part in the operation on July 22. They had to be drafted in because the police were so short staffed… Scotland Yard detectives have offered a different version… They point the finger at a soldier who was already on attachment to the Yard… the soldier was relieving himself behind a tree…
There’s no better argument for upgrading to software-defined radios:
The goal of this design is to produce a radio that can receive and transmit a new form of radio protocol just by running new software. [Link]