On 8 January 2014 the inquest into the police killing of Mark Duggan concluded that Mark was lawfully killed by the Metropolitan Police in London on 4 August 2011. Since Mark’s death, his family, friends and community have faced an orchestrated campaign of lies, slander, criminalisation and cover-up by the police, backed up by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and the press. This pattern is all too familiar.
According to the organisation Inquest, 1,476 people have been killed in custody or after police contact since 1990 including 54 shootings. From inquests and inquiries, only 13 unlawful killing verdicts have been recorded. Out of these 13, only eight have been brought to trial and in all cases the police officers in question have either been acquitted or seen their charges dropped.[1] People from black and ethnic minority backgrounds make up a significant disproportion of all of these deaths. An inquest into the death of Roger Sylvester after his arrest in 2003 returned an unlawful killing verdict which was then quashed on a technicality. In the case of Jimmy Mubenga, who died in 2010 at the hands of the private security guards attempting to deport him on behalf of the British state, the verdict of unlawful killing has led nowhere, as a decision was made prior to the inquest not to prosecute. This is under review, but the system’s track record shows that justice is unlikely to be served.
The police killing of Mark Duggan was followed by what has become a standard pattern of events, in common with the killings of Christopher Alder, Harry Stanley, Jean Charles de Menezes, Anthony Grainger, Ian Tomlinson, Azelle Rodney, Jordan Begley, and other victims,[2] through a process of lies, criminalisation and legal whitewashing.
First come the blatant lies. Immediately after Mark Duggan was killed, the police claimed that there had been an exchange of fire and that ‘a police marksman escaped with his life when a bullet lodged in his radio during the confrontation… The Scotland Yard firearms officer was taken to hospital and later released.’ It was soon widely known – as the inquest confirmed – that the bullet in the radio was actually from V53, the unnamed officer who shot Mark Duggan dead. V53 claimed that Mark had pointed a gun at him, yet the inquest proved that Mark was not carrying one. Six months after the killing, the IPCC was forced to admit that it had ‘made a mistake’ by claiming in the immediate aftermath that Mark had been killed in a ‘shootout’.
Next, the victim and his family are criminalised and vilified. To justify Mark Duggan’s execution, his family were subjected to a smear campaign, which persisted in the inquest, where the police told the jury that Mark had a history of gun-related activity and was part of a gang involving ’48 of Europe’s most violent criminals’, despite his actually only having two minor criminal convictions. His aunt Carole spoke of a media crusade, labelling Mark as a ‘gangster, drug dealer, murderer… forcing it down the throat of the public that he was a dangerous man’. The normalisation of police violence is part and parcel of their role as foot-soldiers for the ruling class and protectors of the capitalist state.
The final part of the set-up involves a legal cover-up, using inquiries, reports and agonisingly long court procedures that rarely reveal the truth of the police killing. The police used the trial of Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, who had supposedly supplied Mark Duggan with a gun, to vilify Mark after his death and to justify Operation Trident, the paramilitary policing strategy set up to target black communities in London. Trident police officers testified at the inquest from behind screens; their names were not revealed. The identity of Mark’s killer, as with many other cases, is still unknown. Commander Neil Basu, head of armed policing in London, welcomed the officer back to armed police duties, assuring him that, ‘If he volunteered to carry a firearm again I would want him to do that.’
There are direct parallels between the cases of Mark Duggan and Anthony Grainger, shot dead by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) in March 2012. Police and media referred to Anthony in similar terms, as a ‘dangerous gangster’, and attempted to convict three of his friends of armed robbery, with Anthony named on a court indictment despite his death. They were cleared in September 2012. The IPCC was supposed to publish its report into the death in October 2012; 15 months later, in January 2014, Anthony’s family are still waiting for the report. Likewise, the family of Azelle Rodney, who was shot dead by the police in north London in 2005, continue to wait for justice. The IPCC investigation led to no action and the CPS failed to prosecute the police. The inquest was blocked by the police withholding evidence, so it was left to the family to fight on for justice. In July 2013, seven years after the killing a belated public inquiry concluded that Azelle’s killer had no lawful justification, but still there has been no action against the police. It is worth comparing this drawn-out legal response with the overnight courts and instant draconian sentences meted out to people who committed minor misdemeanours during the August 2011 uprisings which followed Mark Duggan’s death. When it comes to protecting the property of the rich, justice is lightening quick.
On 16 January 2014, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that the police hitman who shot Anthony Grainger would not face charges. Instead, a health and safety charge would be brought against GMP chief constable Sir Peter Fahy, in relation to the oversight and planning of the operation. A similar prosecution was brought against the Metropolitan Police following the shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005; the Met was found guilty and fined£175,000 plus £385,000 costs but all the officers involved in ordering and carrying out the killing escaped legal action.
Anthony Grainger’s cousin Wes Ahmed told FRFI that the decision amounts to ‘nothing more than a slap on the wrist, which the taxpayer pays for. And then that money goes back into the justice system, which you can’t get justice from.’ Wes points to the corruption at the heart of the CPS case: ‘Sir Peter Fahy will take responsibility but he is not liable criminally… which means they are untouchable regarding a death in custody.’ Fahy will not have to appear in court and will not get a criminal record if the jury decides to convict.
Following the Mark Duggan inquest, Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his regret at the death and appealed for calm and respect for the inquest decision. The Metropolitan Police announced plans for firearms police to wear videocameras in an attempt to be ‘more open’ and to appoint a new community engagement officer in Tottenham. A meeting between police chiefs and community leaders on the morning after the inquest was boycotted by the Duggan family. Labour MP Dianne Abbott said the police needed to gain the ‘consent of the community’ to deal with criminality. But in an imperialist, capitalist state, community policing means community control. Strategies to keep the peace and target gangs or guns are designed to stamp out any militant opposition to the rule of the rich, through intelligence gathering, intimidation and the ever-present threat of police violence. Any attempt by the police to engage with a section of the black community has to be seen in this context.
At the Mark Duggan inquest, as Kevin Hutchinson-Foster gave evidence via video-link from Swaleside prison, a barrister representing the police accused Kevin and Mark of triggering the riots, saying ‘Your actions led to unparalleled disorder and remarkable, extraordinary events in London.’ Mark’s family and supporters cheered when Kevin replied ‘That was down to the negligence of the police, not down to me.’ As Carole Duggan says, ‘we don’t call it a riot; we call it an uprising because people were out there because they were sick to the back teeth of the government and the police targeting them.’
NO JUSTICE – NO PEACE!
Louis Brehony
www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/unlawful-killing-verdicts-and-prosecutions
See also: www.revolutionarycommunist.org/index.php/britain/2616-another-killer-cop-goes-free and index.php/britain/169-licence-to-kill-landmarks-in-the-development-of-police-powers-to-kill-and-get-away-with-it-
