On 22 July 2005, when Patricia da Silva learned that police marksman had killed a man at Stockwell Underground Station in London, she’d no reason to second-guess news reports describing the deceased as a terrorist.
The capital then was on high alert.
Just two weeks earlier, a series of bomb attacks killed 52 people, injured hundreds and London was left reeling.
Then, on 21 July 2005, four men targeted the capital’s transport network in a carbon-copy style attack.
This time, the terrorists' bombs failed to explode and they fled.
So less than 24-hours after that failed attack, when Patricia left for work, she knew from news reports that police were in a race against time to catch the bombers.
She’d absolutely no idea that the block of flats where she lived on Scotia Road in Tulse Hill was already under intense surveillance; that it had been linked by police to one of the terrorists — Hussein Osman, the target of the police shooting in Stockwell.
Or was he?
Critically, Scotia Road, Tulse Hill was much more than a location of police interest, it was home to Patricia, and her cousin — Jean Charles de Menezes, an electrician also from Brazil.
On the morning of 22 July, when Patricia learned of the shooting, she couldn’t have imagined that a catastrophic chain of events had already cost Jean Charles de Menezes his life.
In 2021, Sky News is marking some of the century’s biggest news events through the personal stories of lives defined by unforgettable moments from the last 21-years.
Batman raids Buckingham Palace is episode 17 of the 21-part series StoryCast ’21
CREDITS -
The Shooting was produced by Rob Mulhern and Tom Gillespie.
Story originator, Tom Gillespie.
Special thanks to our contributors, Patricia da Silva and Mark White
Archive, Robert Fellowes
TV treatment, Victoria Hudson-Grant
Digital, Tom Gillespie
Head of Radio, Sky News, Dave Terris
Design and graphics, Brian Gillingham
Social media, Samuel Gould
Email:
storycast@sky.ukFor more on this story go to
www.skynews/storycast21#StoryCast21
