Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.“Why did my son have to die?” The question is put to a Scotland Yard official by the grieving mother of Jean Charles de Menezes in Disney+’s gruelling new drama Suspect. The 27-year-old Brazilian man was killed by London Metropolitan Police officers in July 2005 after being mistakenly identified as a suspected terrorist. The answer — kept from the victim’s family and the British public in the aftermath of the killing — is that de Menezes did not have to die. His death was horribly avoidable and caused by grave operational failings.This four-part series, written and created by Jeff Pope, begins two weeks prior to the tragedy, in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings. The Met, led by image-conscious commissioner Ian Blair (Conleth Hill), is desperate to prove that it can protect a fearful city. Yet two weeks later, Islamist extremists attempt a copycat attack on the capital, only to be thwarted by faulty detonators. With Scotland Yard’s unpreparedness again exposed, the Met rushes its pursuit of the would-be bombers and senior officers discuss using “extreme action” if necessary.An investigation leads the police to an apartment block in south London, from which a young man emerges. His behaviour, as he’s tailed en route to Stockwell station, is deemed nervy by his surveillors; his appearance is described variously as white, Mongolian and north African while discrepancies with the actual target are noted. Despite the lack of positive ID and amid a frenzy of conflicting information, commander Cressida Dick (Emily Mortimer) orders an armed unit to follow the suspect on to the Tube. It’s there that the electrician is shot seven times in the head.The series at once engrosses and enrages as it builds to the fatal incident, pulling focus along the way to the numerous instances of haste and hesitation that result in the killing of an innocent civilian. But there are also scenes from de Menezes’s perspective that offer a glimpse of the cruelly truncated life of a decent man (Edison Alcaide). The brutally graphic depiction of the shooting, meanwhile, accentuates the human cost of this procedural calamity.If the show’s first half is about institutional chaos, then the final two episodes are about the Met’s concerted efforts to control the narrative. Rather than take responsibility, we see senior figures trying to contain the truth, reframe or excuse lapses in judgment, and even insidiously try to shift culpability on to de Menezes himself. Spurious suggestions that he had been evasive or aggressive before the shooting — or even intoxicated — drown out calls for transparency by the conscientious deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick (Russell Tovey), who notices contradictions between witness testimonies and Met statements.Suspect has a habit of over-elaborating with moments of laborious scripting. But some clunky imagined scenes do little to attenuate the impact of the thoroughly researched and unflinchingly re-enacted realities of the story. In highlighting the Met’s mistakes and ethical abdications, the series has already started a national dialogue about accountability in law enforcement. And in dispelling the myths that long tarnished de Menezes’s reputation, it has hopefully brought some closure to the family.★★★★☆On Disney+ now
