Can we really trust the police?

What do a former Government Cabinet member Andrew Mitchell and a London gang member, Mark Duggan have in common? Answer: On the same day officers of the Metropolitan police have been accused of collective fabricating, lying and tampering with evidence against both individuals.

Mark Duggan having been shot dead by a Met office clearly has no voice in regards to the last minutes of his life. However, the evidence against the Met is so damning, so alarming that Black people in particular will have even less confidence in our police force than before.

The critical question surrounding Duggan’s death is the contention that the Met officer claims he shot Duggan twice because he, ‘saw him raise a gun wrapped in sock’ and whilst in fear of his life shot him. But what the officer couldn’t explain was how that he claimed he saw in Duggan’s hand being raised then miraculously found it self some 12 feet away from Duggan’s body over a fence. ‘How did it get there? ’, the officer was asked, ‘I really don’t know’, he replied.

So, the most important piece of evidence in this police officers life simply cannot be explained, unless he and his fellow officers involved are lying. After all the gun didn’t get over the fence on its own.

A more plausible explanation would be that they -the officers- had strong evidence that Duggan might have a fire arm. The officer in question then fearing for his life reacted in good faith to what he thought he saw and shot him. Other officers either planted a gun or found the gun in the car and threw it over the fence to prove that the gun did not stay in the car. But of course the story the officer tells simply doesn’t stack up.

Then to the other police story of the day: Andrew Mitchell. Black people know that some police officers not only abuse their power, but lie and can ruin people's lives in the process.

An innocuous interaction with the police can easily end with a young Black man being charged with assault. Let's not forget just last week we heard the story of the promising young actor Daniel Kaluuya  who by the skin of his teeth escaped getting a criminal record with the courts believing his account of what occurred when Camden officers suspected him of dealing drugs. Who would the courts have believed if Daniel was not a promising young actor but another unemployed Black man?

But for white middle/upper class man, whose life of privilege is a million miles away from ordinary Black people's lives, the police are always right and their word is never to be questioned. And yet in a 45 second encounter with the Downing Street police, his life was to be turned upside down, with officers lying, fabricating evidence, and conspiring at the highest level to ensure his downfall.

Worse still, it now transpires that along with the lying Downing Street officers and another three very senior officers colluded in a dishonest pact to tell the media that after a closed meeting with Mitchell, that they had no confidence in him and he should resign. A by then suspicious Mitchell taped the meeting with the three officers and was able to disprove their accounts of that meeting, thereby showing a deceitful agenda.

Both cases are extremely shocking, but sadly not new to Black people. The question remains how can we trust them the police?. It has probably come to the point at which without a full Judicial public inquiry we will not know the level of the corruption and lack of integrity much less begin to outline how we resolve it?

Yesterday was a watershed in British policing our society as a whole and in particularly the Black community said ‘enough is enough’.

Simon Woolley