By ALAN CLENDENNING Associated Press Writer 2:50 PM PDT, July 24, 2005
GONZAGA, Brazil — Jean Charles de Menezes couldn't get ahead at home so he went to Britain to eke out a living as an electrician, hoping he could return to this rugged, farming community with enough savings to become a cattle rancher.
The 27-year-old mistaken for a terrorist and shot dead last week by police on a London subway recently told family members he would have enough cash in a few years so he would never have to leave Brazil again.
But this Sunday, his father, Matzinhos, cried in the family's small concrete home with red roof tiles at the end of a rutted dirt road. He was holding a recent photo of his bare-chested son smiling while lifting weights.
During the trip home last year, Menezes told family members and friends he was doing well, making good money and friends, and driving a relatively new pickup truck. His father, a bricklayer and lifelong Gonzaga resident, was concerned London could be dangerous, but Menezes told him not to worry.
"They don't have violence," he recalled his son saying. "It's good there, nobody walks around with a gun." ...
Carl