How long until justices comes?

The Inquest into the death of Kingsley Burrell, who died in police custody in Birmingham March 2011, is finally set to take place – nearly four years after his death.

The 29-year-old died in March 2011 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QE) . Kingsley was out with his youngest son shopping and called the police after being stalked by a local gang. He was subsequently beaten and forcibly arrested in front of his child. Instead of being helped, he was violently arrested under the Mental Health Act and detained. His family then saw him battered and bruised at the hospital. Later that day following an incident where the police were called Kingsley Burrell was pronounced dead. The family suspects and I think the evidence points too, him being brutally beaten.

In June 2014 the CPS announced that there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute four police officers and six NHS staff who were involved in handling Kingsley in the days and hours before he died. The Inquest in to his death will take place on the 7th April and is scheduled to last for 6 weeks.

And once again the black community is left to bury its dead and search for answers. Time and time again we see the same scenario played out where the CPS and Inquest courts, conspire to ensure that police officers, prison guards, mental health workers, detention centre guards are never prosecuted for black deaths in custody.

The Institute of Race Relations recently published research found that between 1991 - 2004, 500 black and ethnic minority people died in custody in suspicious circumstances yet not one person has been successfully prosecuted with a single crime. Let that just sink in for one moment - not one.

British justice remains blind to black injustice and the issue of deaths in custody represents the critical fault line in relations between British police and black communities.

We are not considered British citizens. We are third class citizens, sub human beings, black citizens who are treated with utter contempt.

Black lives are cheap in Britain and justice is in hiding from the truth. They continue to kill our people whilst we occasionally get angry, then over time our anger subsides until we the process repeats itself again.

We've become infantile in our search for justice, preferring he emotive outburst to sustained radical action. How many more have to die, how many more families must endure tragic loss and the searing pain of injustice before we decide that this must stop? Another 500 ?

Too many of us are seduced into believing we are making a difference by attending meetings. Too many believe that we can rely on the good sense and compassion of a criminal justice system that is designed to criminalise and oppress whole communities.

Seminars, conferences, more research, consultation, partnership, engagement these are the fuck you buzz words of their containment and co-option strategy.

We cannot remain co-authors to our own destruction by providing 'professional' cover for those institution who seek to evade justice. I think the time has come for us to stop playing with these people and literally to take the fight to the state. Its time to confront and expose our injustice.

We must stop pausing for their applause, get radical and fight for our cause. Radical cilvil disobedience, occupy the inquest and high courts, the police stations, stopping the city in a peaceful, determined and disciplined manner. That's what I believe will bring about real change.

What we fear most is the absolute licence to kill that seems to exist for police officers and other statutory agencies. The British police are infected with rampant institutional racism, whilst the process of investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission is like some sort of sick Monty Python parody. The CPS and the Courts operate an Orwellian regime where no police office can ever be found guilty for the death of a black person , whatever the circumstances or evidence.

So we sit and waiter justice and truth. We wait in police stations, we wait in hospitals and morgues, we sit and wait in lawyers offices and judges, courts. We wait and pine for justice and at each and every turn we are told with remorseless regularity 'no justice today' .

As we now contemplate on justice for Kingsley I fear another set piece ballet at his Inquest, where the usual things are said and done, leading toward the final act and the predictable outcome.
The Burrell family have called for support and we should give them that one solace we can offer, that if they are going to deny bus justice once again, they will do so surrounded by a thousand eyes watching their ever move.

Come to this Inquest to hear the sickening brutality that Kingsley endured in his final hours. Come and look into the eyes of his children and family as they relieve their horror, sure come to support and sympathise the family in the hour of need, but don't come expecting equality, don't come expecting a search for the truth and don't come expecting fairness and justice. You need to learn the lesson were all supposed to learn about British equality and justice for black people in Britain.

You're the wrong colour in the wrong country. ?#BlackLivesMatter ?#NoCoverUps ?#NJNP

Lee Jasper