[Closed] Mark Duggan lawfully killed

I also happen to believe that our jury system works, and that the jury and judge have had far more evidence than any of us, on which to make this decision.

Me too.

[url= http://rt.com/news/duggan-killing-lawful-jury-332/ ]Link[/url]

29-year-old Mark Duggan was lawfully killed by the police, a UK jury ruled by a majority of eight to two on Wednesday.

With the same eight-to-two margin, the jury decided that Duggan had been weaponless when he was surrounded by the officers.

So it's now lawful to kill an unarmed man?

bainbrge - Member

Ah, those zombie maggots. If I could be bothered I'd post a picture of those nihilists from the big lebowski.

I like you even if your mum doesn't.

My mum love me very much if that helps and she agrees with me that zombie maggots are roaming the world creating pain in the arse for everyone.

MSP - Member

Seem to be quite a few posters who are anti gun but pro shooting.

I pro guns and pro shooting but only feel that it is appropriate to shoot to defend from severe harm.

Guns don't kill people do.

As I said I wouldn't be surprised if the policeman who pulled the trigger lies awake at night thinking "I killed a man, could I have handled it differently". That's a horrible thing to have to live with.

Well you may believe everything the police say, but for balance to your supposition I will say he doesn't cry himself to sleep each night and probably doesn't care.

Interesting too that the Grauniad thinks this story worthy of live minute by minute coverage. Gives an interesting perspective on what they consider crucial news.

It tells us they think this is more imoportant than Micheal Schumakers skiing accident and some basketball player visiting North Korea, I think they are probably right.

I also happen to believe that our jury system works, and that the jury and judge have had far more evidence than any of us, on which to make this decision.

I don't, but I can't think of a better system.

Guns don't kill people do.

No, that's wrong, it's rappers. I seen it in a documentary on BBC2.

I have a general distrust of police with guns
The murder of de menezes was a case in point the police lied from start to finish and the judge in his summing up criticized them for colluding to lie about it afterwards (the group get your story straight debrief is like something out of the sweeney)

And with Duggan there were initial similarities the police putting out misinformation and in that case, falling to engage with the community that precipitated the riots

Saying all that it's hard to feel sorry for Duggan and I think the police and jury probably made the right call
he was carrying a gun immediately before being shot and he must have known the risks of the gang/ drug culture he was in. (although the extent of that is questionable,I mean would the police close ranks and lie to protect their colleagues maybe you should ask Andrew Mitchell)

the problem is that stockwell and other incidents have left people with little trust in the police and this time with the series of forensic/procedural failings afterwards I can see why the family and others dont trust the verdict.

So it's now lawful to kill an unarmed man?

The answer is that it depends.

Every situation is different so no definitive answer can be given to this question.

There are numerous scenarios where killing an unarmed person could subsequently be held to be lawful. Similarly, a minimal change in the facts of this case could have rendered this killing unlawful.

Well in terms of the actual operation, they pretty much did, didn't they? Is the bit you're bothered about that the statement didn't mention that they didn't do the best job with the intelligence about the gun before the operation?

As the jury agreed, hard stop went very well. The real nub of this whole matter is whether or not Duggan was holding a firearm when he was shot. The police say they thought he was, the jury after hearing a great deal of witness testimony voted 8-2 that he was not. Either he was or he wasn't. He wasn't holding anything else at the time so either he was holding a gun or he wasn't. If he wasn't why did the officer open fire?

I absolutely hate using Wikipedia as a source but the account on there about the initial investigation, the trial of Kevin Hutchinson-Foster and the role of the IPCC have been fairly neatly summarised. Here is a short extract.

Officers of the Metropolitan Police Service stopped a minicab which was carrying Duggan as a passenger at about 18:15 BST on 4 August 2011.[34] There was no CCTV coverage of the place where they stopped the cab, and some witnesses allege that police chased away onlookers.[35]

According to an unnamed firearms officer at the trial of Kevin Hutchinson-Foster in September 2012, Duggan pivoted out of the cab and pulled a selfloading pistol or handgun from his waistband.[36] According to the taxi driver, Mark Duggan left the car and ran:

The car that had stopped – men got out of it very quickly who were carrying guns in their hands. Then I heard the sound of my rear door opening. I saw that Mark Duggan got out and ran. At the same time, I heard firing from the front. I saw shots strike Mark Duggan. He fell to the ground.
At the same time a man came and he opened my door. Very angrily he pulled me out by my arm and then he dropped me or knelt me down on the ground by the rear tyres of the car.[37]

The police then fired twice, hitting Duggan in the thigh and chest, killing him. A firearm was not found on Duggan after he had been shot.[36] Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service and medical staff from the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service attended, but Duggan was pronounced dead at the scene at 18:41 BST.[38][39]

The police who shot Duggan were part of the Specialist Firearms Command (CO19), accompanying officers from Operation Trident, a London Metropolitan police unit responsible for gun crime within the black community.[20]

According to an eyewitness cited by The Independent, Duggan "was shot while he was pinned to the floor by police."[40] According to another eyewitness cited in The Telegraph, a police officer had "shouted to the man to stop 'a couple of times', but he had not heeded the warning".[23] According to a witness cited by the BBC, a police officer twice shouted: "Put it down" before Duggan was shot.[41] A Metropolitan Police Federation representative asserted that the officer who killed Duggan had "an honest-held belief that he was in imminent danger of him and his colleagues being shot".[42]

A police officer was also shot, apparently by someone other than Duggan. They were taken to a hospital and released the same evening.[19]

Subsequent police actions
Police proceeded to move the taxi in which Duggan had been traveling.[43] After some dispute over when the vehicle was moved, it was stated that police moved the taxi for examination and then returned it to the scene.[44] The IPCC initially claimed ignorance of these events, but later admitted that it had sanctioned removal of the vehicle and then requested that it be restored to the scene.[45]

An initial "short-form" report of the incident—filed by an officer identified as "W70"—did not say that Duggan had raised a gun. W70 filed another report 48 hours later which described Duggan drawing a gun from his waistband. (Officer W70 later testified that short-form reports are "deliberately brief".)[46]

Police waited a day and a half to inform the Duggan family of the death. Several days later they apologised for this delay.[47]

IPCC explanations
Initially, a spokesman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was stated that they "understand the officer was shot first before [Duggan] was shot;"[23][27] police later called this statement a mistake.[43][48] A bullet was found embedded in a radio worn by a policeman,[49] and ballistics tests on the projectile indicate it was a "jacketed round", or police issue bullet fired from a Heckler & Koch MP5 semi-automatic carbine used by the police.[38] Its presence may have been due to a ricochet or overpenetration.[49][50]

The IPCC stated that a loaded Bruni BBM blank-firing pistol converted to fire live rounds was recovered from the scene. The IPCC had commissioned tests on the pistol by the Forensic Science Service and had received advice that it was an illegal firearm.[38][51][52][53][54] The gun was wrapped in a sock, a practice allegedly used to avoid leaving evidence if it was used.[55] The IPCC announced on 9 August that there was no evidence that the gun had been fired, that this had not been ruled out and further tests were being conducted.[38][56][57]

On 18 November 2011, the IPCC announced that the 9mm gun associated with the scene of the killing had been found 10–14 feet away, on the other side of a fence.[32][58] Witnesses told the IPCC that they saw police throw the gun over the fence.[43] The IPCC initially reported that three officers had also witnessed an officer throw the gun, but later retracted this report.[45]

It was also announced on 18 November that the IPCC would investigate whether the same gun had been used in an earlier incident, on 29 July 2011, when a man was assaulted in Hackney.[59] On 15 June 2012, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster was formally charged with passing the gun to Duggan.[60] Duggan's fingerprints were found on a cardboard box which appeared to have contained the gun when he collected it. The sock and gun were taken out of the box before Duggan was shot. His DNA and fingerprints were not recovered from the sock which wrapped the gun, nor from the weapon itself.[61][62] Additional tests found no gunshot residue on Duggan.[62]

As the jury agreed, hard stop went very well. The real nub of this whole matter is whether or not Duggan was holding a firearm when he was shot. The police say they thought he was, the jury after hearing a great deal of witness testimony voted 8-2 that he was not. Either he was or he wasn't. He wasn't holding anything else at the time so either he was holding a gun or he wasn't. If he wasn't why did the officer open fire?

The answer is in there.

@schnor; In this case yes, because the jury has found so on the grounds that the policeman involved believed him to be armed and took action appropriate to that belief. As I said before, the jury verdict is not based on whether that subsequently proved to be right or not, just whether they believe the policeman's version of events.

The police say they thought he was, the jury after hearing a great deal of witness testimony voted 8-2 that he was not

The two don't have to be exclusive. The policeman may have been 100% convinced that he was armed but be wrong in that conviction. The jury have access to other facts to enable them to decide, over as long as they like, whether they think he was or wasn't. What they don't have is a policeman's eye view or have to make that judgement in a split second in fear of their life.

I've seen elsewhere witnesses saying he was holding a phone, so it's not even as simple as empty handed vs holding a gun.

It tells us they think this is more imoportant than Micheal Schumakers skiing accident and some basketball player visiting North Korea, I think they are probably right.

More important than those two stories? Absolutely. Worthy of minute by minute live coverage? Absolutely not.

That said I love reading the Grauniad and watching Polly and the rest work themselves up into a self righteous lather over anything or anyone they decide they will no longer tolerate. Funnier than the Daily Mash quite often.

Thanks for the explanation TGA and theotherjonv!

Police had good evidence he had a gun. He did have a gun, moments before being shot.
If I was the armed officer I would not risk my life if I had reaonable belief a known thug was about to pull a weapon on me.
Hard choice, maybe the stop could have been managed differently, but ultimately Duggan comdemned himself by his actions leading up to this moment.

That said I love reading the Grauniad and watching Polly and the rest work themselves up into a self righteous lather over anything or anyone they decide they will no longer tolerate. Funnier than the Daily Mash quite often.

Sounds like you get yourself fairly worked up about it while you're reading.

If I was the armed officer I would not risk my life if I had reaonable belief a known thug was about to pull a weapon on me.

the problem is that stockwell and other incidents have left people with little trust in the police and this time with the series of forensic/procedural failings afterwards I can see why the family and others dont trust the verdict.

I'm not entirely sure what I find more annoying - dumbass shottas carrying dem [illegal] pieces... or internet blowhards pontificating about it, ex post facto.

Sounds like you get yourself fairly worked up about it while you're reading.

Not worked up at all. I find them very relaxing and amusing. I don't agree with their opinions on free speech, but each to their own.

And I do like the cycling and cricket coverage in said paper. Probably the best of all the papers.

I don't agree with their opinions on free speech, but each to their own.

Does the paper have [i]one[/i] opinion on it?

By the way, white folk appear to make excellent ballroom dancers.

They said he had pulled out a gun

Did they though? (The firearms officers in evidence at the inquest). Or did they something along the lines of 'he reached to his waistband, brought his arm up towards me whilst holding an object that, given the information known to me at that time, I believed was a gun'? (Reference to reaching to his waistband from BBC article).

Because the first as we now know isn't true, but the second may be - the jury must consider what the officers who killed him reasonably believed at that moment in time. The reasonable part is very important - they must explain or justify why they came to that belief to the satisfaction of the jurors.

It's a pretty shit state of affairs - an alleged drug pushing gangster gets put down by the corrupt and racist Met.
There were no winners today.

especially when it's used against young black men. About 75 people a year die in police custody

I think thats i) wrong and ii) quite unfair

The stats here:

Suggest its consistently less than half that number, and the statistics include people who have died both in police custody and after contact with the police, this document goes into more details, but includes, for example, a drug smuggler with packages inside him, and someone who jumped out of a window after being arrested - very few of them have been directly connected in any way with the actions of the police

Does the paper have one opinion on it?

No, I was using their in the plural. Referring to a lot of the commentators who write for the paper. Oh, and some of the folk who comment on the stories. Jings, I though there were some butters on here, but......!!

What are their opinions then? All slightly different I'd imagine.

Who'd be a police officer, sounds shit.

Just to add a bit of speculation, I wonder whether Duggan was shot in the process of drawing and throwing the gun.

Largely they seem to be of the opinion that freedom of expression is only acceptable when the "correct" opinions are being expressed.

The overwhelming message I get from this is don't have an illegal firearm. All the rest is cobblers really. If you have a gun about your person it's just not going to end well is it?

Mark Duggan lawfully killed

Good

Mark Duggan is a victim of himself only. He has been arrested before and escaped justice probably through very good free legal advice. It is a classic example of someone who believes they somehow operate outside of consequential behaviour, that their actions do not impact upon themselves, if it does then it's not their fault. Mark Duggan refused to learn from his behaviour and pushed this to the maximum. I know if I was subjected to a hard stop by armed police with the commands of "don't move"' the last thing on my mind would be to jump out and flail my arms about getting rid of the evidence. He gambled, probably for the umpteenth time and lost. If he stayed put, got charged for possession of a firearm we know that he would be out after serving half of his sentence. He made this happen, no-one else.

So the unasked question is: who would Mark Duggan have killed with HIS gun, if the police hadn't stopped him?

And would there have been a riot if he did kill someone?

if the MET can stitch up a government minister with impunity, and then seem to openly revel in it, then it would appear that they're massively confident in a system that allows them to literally get away with murder. And it looks like they've done it again.

All those saying 'a gangster got shot' are missing the point pretty spectacularly. What this points too is a police force (and it does seem to be exclusively the Met) that has become literally a law unto itself. Is this a healthy state of affairs in a democracy? In some ways it seems like they've now become an almost paramilitary force, with it's own agenda

I've never been a big fan of the Police, or Sting's solo work either, come to think of it. 😯

Do you really think that any police officer sets out to kill another human being, it will be the last thing he wants to do.
Have you ever been faced with a violent person with a weapon?
I have and you have to make decisions in a split second, and sometimes thise decisions can be life changing and terrible, but if the officer hadent made that decision on the day, who is to say that he woukdent have been the one lying in a pool of his own blood,

tonyd5000 - Member
So the unasked question is: who would Mark Duggan have killed with HIS gun, if the police hadn't stopped him?

Binners do you really believe that or are you just trolling, because I have to say that seems a bit tinfoil hat.

joolsburger - Member
Binners do you really believe that or are you just trolling, because I have to say that seems a bit tinfoil hat.

Really? Lawrence, de Menzes, Tomlinson

Well put easygirl.

I think the jury was probably on balance correct
it is most likely that he was unarmed when shot and it seems most likely that the copper genuinely thought he was armed
Its a very tough balancing act for plod and society
On the one hand if i were the armed copper and I was told he was armed and he got out and moved his arm towards me in that split second thinking of wanting to be alive and my family, I would shoot them assuming it was a gun. i suspect the overwhelming majority of us would as well.
On the other hand we cannot have a situation where the police can make mistakes and nothing happens as we may end up with what Binners fears has happened
Personally i think the coppers , due to heightened tensions and fear, made an honest and genuine mistakes with fatal consequences in this case.
I can see little satisfactory outcome as an automatic prosecution for coppers would mean no one would carry a gun I assume and we would all lose out and a tacit acceptance of shoot to kill is unacceptable for obvious reasons

Genuine mistake leading to death no idea at all what or how we resolve or balance this

I'm not saying the police are perfect but I think the vast majority of coppers do a very hard job incredibly well. When I was a youth in Brixton in the 70's and 80's you expected to get pulled and searched for knives, drugs etc black or white I don't think it was racially driven TBH, you know why - Because many of us had knives and drugs. We knew that guns were not to be mucked around with. That situation has changed, guns are more common now and that has put the police in a real spot. Gun crime means the response has to be immediate and decisive and the consequences, as we've see here, can be fatal.

Do you really think that any police officer sets out to kill another human being, it will be the last thing he wants to do.

Not least because of the massive amount of paperwork nause it must create!

More seriously, I met an armed response police bod who could not have been prouder that he had not fired a round in anger and inferred this was a common feeling.

Just like Bloody Sunday they (1 para) were[b][u] not[/b][/u] firing at them they just jumped in front of the bullets!

Just cycled home from pub soaked and pissed.....your honour!!

Binners is right and the smug death-glee club is spectacularly wrong. The case is not about whether Mark Duggan was a nice guy or whether anyone has sympathy for him being killed, it is about the actions of the police at the time if the death and afterward.

You can squeal "ha ha good riddance" because Duggan was of bad character but you're ignoring the fact that next time the police kill someone in dubious circumstances it could be a Brazilian electrician getting in the tube, a newspaper seller walking home through The City, a naked man in bed in Brighton...or you.

I think we can't really say much as we will never know as much as the jury did. I understand they can say the didn't think he had a gun in is hand after time in court being presented with evidence etc, but fact is the copper had to make that decision in a split second when he thought his or someone elses life could be at risk.

and the "no justice, no peace" chants seem like a thinly veiled threat for more riots...

I don't think anyone deserves to die for committing a crime (that's why we don't have the death penalty) and him serving his time for the possession of the gun would have been a better outcome, but I am still a bit confused as to why he is portrayed by some as such a good person when he was carrying an illegal weapon.

It's what happened directly after the shooting that seems to have a depressingly familiar ring to it. After a number of incidents like this, the evidence given in court by independent witnesses tells a very different story from that issued by the police in the direct aftermath. Whether it was Duggan shooting at police (he wasn't), De Menez vaulting barriers (he didn't), or Ian Tomlinson posing a direct threat (again... Far from the truth).

But it all points to the same thing. Officers getting together and concocting stories which are then given to the press as the gospel truth, safe in the knowledge that the actual facts are only likely to emerge (if at all) at the court case a lot further down the line, by which point the police version of events has remained as 'fact' in people's minds.

And again.... The Andrew Mitchell case demonstrates exactly this sequence of events, which, like him or not, cost the job of a democratically elected politician.

It suggests that if they're prepared to do this in such high profile cases, and the cynical distortion and manipulation of the criminal justice system seems so well practiced and routine, then that should be of concern to us all

Do you really think that any police officer sets out to kill another human being, it will be the last thing he wants to do.

I think that may well be the case for most, but not all. Some police officers revel in their powers, they believe they are judge and jury. Even among the police officers who post on here, most of whom are perfectly reasonable, one was on here last year boasting about how he righteously gives out beatings to "wrong uns".