Not many Times readers would relish the responsibility or the potential danger that faced the Metropolitan Police officers attempting to catch suspected suicide bombers after the July 21 attacks. Members of the firearms team who fatally shot an innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, must genuinely have believed that the lives of Tube passengers were in peril. Nonetheless, an innocent man was killed, and particularly disturbing questions remain about the circumstances surrounding his death.

The partial leak of findings by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to ITV News suggests that a series of disastrous errors led to the fatal shooting. Moreover, it appears that the Met may have been less than candid with the public over what happened; and that they initially sought to delay an IPCC inquiry.

It should be emphasised that we still await the IPCC findings. The evidence is as yet incomplete, even if that released appears to be damning. Nonetheless, there are enough alarming facts now in the public domain to raise serious questions both about the operation itself and the Met’s response.

At the time of the shooting, Scotland Yard said that Mr de Menezes’ clothing and his behaviour at the station were suspicious. This claim was buttressed by witnesses who claimed that he was wearing a bulky jacket on a hot day and that he leapt over the ticket barrier at Stockwell station.

Now, it turns out that he was wearing only a light denim jacket at the time of his death: perfectly appropriate garb for the time of year. Nor was he carrying a bag or rucksack. There is apparently CCTV footage that shows him walking normally into the station, picking up a free newspaper and using his Oyster card to pass through the barrier. He allegedly began to run only when he saw a train pulling into the station, after which he boarded it and sat down in an ordinary fashion. What, then, was suspicious about either his clothing or his behaviour?

Soon after the killing, the BBC quoted security sources suggesting that Mr de Menezes was in Britain illegally, his student visa having expired. This was taken as constituting good reason for him to run away when challenged. Yet the police would have known by then that he had not acted suspiciously. Why, then, was this information leaked? And why did the police allow the inference to go uncorrected? The false identification of Mr de Menezes as one of the suspected suicide bombers seems to have been the result of a series of blunders. According to evidence to the IPCC, the officer given the task of identification had left his post when Mr de Menezes emerged. He was therefore unable to take video footage that could have been compared with film of the alleged bombers. Nor, apparently, did any of the officers who followed the Brazilian on the bus take pictures of him. Yet still, authorisation was given to kill him, if necessary.

The Met’s shoot-to-kill policy has been operating secretly for two years. In an era of random terrorism, it is undoubtedly necessary. But the procedures must now be investigated, since clearly the safeguards against shooting an innocent person are not robust. There will no doubt be parliamentary debate, but there also needs to be a formal, transparent review of the Met. To have many ordinary citizens questioning their confidence in the police is in itself a tragedy.