- Home
- News & Blogs
- About Us
- What We Do
- Our Communities
- Info Centre
- Press
- Contact
- Archive 2019
- 2015 Elections: 11 new BME MP’s make history
- 70th Anniversary of the Partition of India
- Black Church Manifesto Questionnaire
- Brett Bailey: Exhibit B
- Briefing Paper: Ethnic Minorities in Politics and Public Life
- Civil Rights Leader Ratna Lachman dies
- ELLE Magazine: Young, Gifted, and Black
- External Jobs
- FeaturedVideo
- FeaturedVideo
- FeaturedVideo
- Gary Younge Book Sale
- George Osborne's budget increases racial disadvantage
- Goldsmiths Students' Union External Trustee
- International Commissioners condemn the appalling murder of Tyre Nichols
- Iqbal Wahhab OBE empowers Togo prisoners
- Job Vacancy: Head of Campaigns and Communications
- Media and Public Relations Officer for Jean Lambert MEP (full-time)
- Number 10 statement - race disparity unit
- Pathway to Success 2022
- Please donate £10 or more
- Rashan Charles had no Illegal Drugs
- Serena Williams: Black women should demand equal pay
- Thank you for your donation
- The Colour of Power 2021
- The Power of Poetry
- The UK election voter registration countdown begins now
- Volunteering roles at Community Alliance Lewisham (CAL)
Mark Duggan lawfully killed, even without gun!
The Jury listening in the inquest that led up the killing of Mark Duggan, which sparked off nationwide riots, have given a verdict which is incredibly difficult to understand. They concluded that at the fatal moment Mark Duggan was shot, he was not holding a gun. The jury was also satisfied that Duggan had probably thrown the gun before the confrontation with the police.
But the same jury then concluded by a eight to two majority verdict that Duggan was lawfully killed. There were gasps of anger and bewilderment outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Some family members shouted obscenities at the jury, and screamed, ‘A Black life aint worth nothing’.
Writing in the Guardian Vikram Dodd who was at the courts wrote:
Police say they found the gun three to six metres (10-20ft) from where Duggan had fallen, on the other side of a fence. None of the armed officers surrounding Duggan, all trained to keep their eyes on the gun, saw it flying in the air in the sunlight of a summer's evening.
Tests showed no forensic evidence that Duggan had held a gun. His fingerprints and DNA were not on the gun or sock it was in. The jury heard that while areas of Duggan's clothing exposed when police opened fire were covered in gun residue, there was none on the weapon he was supposed to be holding.”
Diane Abbott just tweeted:
If the duggan jury believe that he did not have a gun in his hand when he was shot, how can they find it was a lawful killing? #baffled."
Youth worker Clasford Sterling in Broadwater Farm, Tottenham said:
It's very sad that another black person is killed in this manner ... It would have been easier if the police had put their hands up and said 'we made a mistake'."
The verdict was "totally, totally wrong", he said.
The Jury had three options to choose from this inquest: Unlawful killing, Lawful Killing or Open Verdict.
The fact they were so sure he was lawfully killed even without a gun in his hands, will like Diane baffle many. Others will conclude that a more nuanced finding should have been found, at least an Open Verdict, that might recognise the police officers' fear, but that an unarmed man was shot dead.
Simon Woolley