StoryCast ’21: EP18/21 The Shooting

On 22 July 2005, when Patricia da Silva learned that police marksman had killed a man at Stockwell Underground Station in London, she had 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 Rd, 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.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 WhiteArchive, Robert FellowesTV treatment, Victoria Hudson-GrantDigital, Tom GillespieHead of Radio, Sky News, Dave TerrisDesign and graphics, Brian GillinghamSocial media, Samuel GouldEmail: [email protected] more on this story, go to www.skynews/storycast21#StoryCast21