soulwood…

mk1fan is trying out himself as a teacher.

That’s about it.

I followed this last night without commenting (hard, at times) to see where it went.

Few comments: there are some real and serious issues being discussed here. About whether the verdict is correct, and whether the police can be better at dealing with the situation and the aftermath. I think most are agreed yes on both counts (on here and in the real world). Silly arguments about cut and paste errors or spelling mistakes have no place in deciding whose argument is more valid.

Second; this suggestion that the police prepare for ops like this by playing loud music and frothing their adrenaline levels into the red. I know that was retracted later but I have to comment; I’m not a firearms officer nor do i know any police firearms officers but I know a couple of guys who work in dangerous situations ‘akin to’ this type of work where at times they are called upon to put themselves and their colleagues at risk. And the last thing they do is pump themselves up to a point where judgement is impaired by adrenaline. The adrenaline comes naturally and needs managing. The time before the operation is more likely spent in reflection. Checking and double checking kit to make sure it’ll work properly. Knowing nthat they are very likely about to face a situation threatening life or limb. Hoping they will make the right call when time comes. And hoping they don’t let their colleagues down. Right now there are people facing this, and they need our support. I wouldn’t swap places with them for the entire contents of a large warehouse in Northern Ireland.

The Times today carries a story about the Jury from the trial – who are now subject to protective measures and have guaranteed anonymity following threats made from the public gallery in the court room.

The article also tells us a bit more about the family and illustrates the difficult job the police have to do – protecting a man who only a week earlier was making threats to kill policemen.

“Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, met community leaders yesterday morning and expressed confidence that progress would be made.

“This is about a relationship. It has much history and many difficult moments over the years. Yesterday was another,” he said. “The positive and constructive way in which we have discussed this challenge gives me great hope for the future.”

The threat to kill two policemen in revenge for Duggan’s death is recorded in two entries in a cache of leaked police documents. A man newly confirmed as one of the six targets of the operation that led to Duggan being shot was reported by an officer to have made the threats.
Less than a week later, police were called on to protect the same man, after intelligence that his life would be at risk should he attend the all-night wake held after Duggan’s burial.

Duggan’s link to the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, can now be revealed. Police say both were members of the Tottenham Man Dem (TMD), but, like Duggan, he has not been convicted of any violent crime.

Officers from the CO19 firearms unit shot Duggan dead when police rammed a taxi carrying him. The inquest was told a limited account of his web of links to the criminal underworld, extending through London gangs to crime families in Manchester, where he spent his teenage years.

The cache of raw intelligence documents seen by The Times first mentions the suspected gangster — a successful businessman living in a large house in an affluent area — when police in North London tried to arrest one of three known gang members seen acting suspiciously in a black BMW.

An officer was attacked and two further arrests were made for obstructing police and assault on a police officer.
“A large crowd gathered whilst Officers were dealing with the Males,” the report states. “[The alleged gangster] was seen nearby . . . [He] approached Officers and tried to engage them in conversation.
“References were made to the shooting of Mark DUGGAN by Police and mentioned made [sic] that 2 Officers were going to be shot in retaliation.”

The man, who was granted anonymity during the inquest under data protection laws, was the subject of further intelligence later that week suggesting that he would be shot or stabbed should he appear at the wake.

It is not clear whether police acted on the intelligence, but there was no violence on the night.

Duggan’s links to known and suspected gangsters extend to his family. He was linked to Manchester’s feared Noonan family via his uncle Desmond “Dessie” Noonan. Noonan’s second wife, Julie, is the sister of Duggan’s mother, Pamela.

Noonan was stabbed to death by a drug dealer in 2005. His brother Dominic, the alleged leader of the gang, was arrested but cleared over allegations that he organised looting when the riots hit Manchester.
Duggan moved closer to the Noonan branch of the family when he was sent to live in the city with his aunt Carole, who has been perhaps the most prominent member of the “Justice for Mark Duggan” campaign, after his behaviour at secondary school became a concern.

On his return to the family home near Broadwater Farm in London, Duggan became involved in the TMD, which the inquest was told had been involved in a string of recent shootings at nightclubs and elsewhere.”

theotherjonv – Member +1

I am not an AFO but I have deployed both with them as a liaison point, driver for Silver commander, deployed in their immediate wake and had firearms teams supporting me when I have been out doing things, there is no hyping or loud music prior to deployment. Firearms briefings I have attended are long, subdued, in depth with regard to roles and responsibilities and unless it is a spontaneous deployment audio recorded. All the AFO’s i know (non MPS) are sensible level headed and relatively mature, the whole training and sift system works to weed out those who are hot headed or panic.
If it helps I am not an IT professional. 😉

However, the article falls short as they, not once, thought of the children.

😆

smiththemainman – Member
My second post and last, in my honest opinion this whole thread is enough evidence why this once proud country is now ruined, I personally thought that this forum was pretty much visited by working class people who tow the line, pay their taxes know right from wrong ,pretty much the basis of what an ideal society needs, we go to bed get up in the morning get to work , in the mean time get the kids to school , work all day and some how get the kids from school with a parent there to look after them, we then run the kids to various clubs then go and coach footy and rugby for the kids and many other things,,why anyone here would want to fight the corner for someone who is everything we are not beggars belief. I’m 46 and cowboys and soldiers carry guns in my ideal world , the guy put himself on the radar in the position of do my actions today allow me go home to the family , or does the hard working policeman go home to kiss the kids good night?? I will sleep easy knowing the pc has the honour!! I will not be arguing with the idiots on here who will try and drag me down to their level and beat me with experience. Good night!!

Although I think to a great extent the population of this forum by and large falls into the category working class. Sadly the era you describe is from a time when Police were not armed, Politicians were not caught with their hands in the till, Lawyers did not chase ambulances, where there was blame there was not necessarily a claim, and we could rely on the impression of an avuncular old bill to ‘fit up’ the bad guys, cos they knew who they were.
We are the victims of American imported values and PC gone mad, plus and I don’t want to get drawn into the immigration thing, but with immigrants come immigrant values and lifestyles and we have an upper echelon liberal elite divorced from the realities of day to day existence in the country that has been created.
We have educated an entire generation to feel ‘entitled’ and fed kids with virtual reality world of shoot em up games and a movie culture where pretty much anything goes.
Even so with all this, put yourself in the shoes of a mother who’s kid is sent on an errand by other kids to fetch a replica gun that’s been fiddled with in a box (we’re not even sure if it was loaded), gets shot dead and she isn’t told about it for 4 weeks other than by what she heard on the news media.

kid is sent on an errand by other kids

Yep, that’s just what he was doing. An errand. A nice favour for some friends. Then, later in the day, he helped Mrs Smith put her bins out, and fed Old Man McGinty’s cat. Such a nice boy.

😐

The gun was loaded and his texts indicated an awareness that he was being followed by police on an anti-gun campaign. So getting out and running when they were stopped was an informed decision, albeit not the right one from my (and probably his, if he was in a position to offer an opinion) point of view.

Have you considered going to the Daily Mail for they also share your sadness at the demise of this once great nation and also like to blame america [ foreigners eh] PC gone mad – I mean if you cannot call a Black person the N word then what is going on with the world RIGHT?] immigrants and of course a liberal elite and kids

Face palm its just paranoid ramblings . I hate to break this to you but everything changes each generation will be different from the last, the world will move on. You can stay stuck in some rose tinted version of the halcyon days of blighty [ that never really existed] blaming foreigners for its demise but really you need to get a grip
Despite all this ramblings you then have an outpouring of empathy for the “poor kid” rather than the know gangster that he was.

I am struggling to see your moral code here or consitency tbh
Your spinning a yarn here rather than describing a reality the vast majority of us recognise

why anyone here would want to fight the corner for someone who is everything we are not beggars belief

Wow. That is a truly shockingly bad thing to say!

I do think when it kicked off he lost control and decided Duggan was getting it

Why do you think that?

Or, if he has really left the thread – I wonder why he thought that?

Well I thought about Mark Duggan and his milieu and the people he “worked” with and I paused to see if I could feel sorry for him. Ummmmm….

Nah.

That doesn’t surprise me at all.

Yes. In the initial aftermath, the IPCC made a statement along the lines of shots being exchanged, which based on the evidence at the time (ie as above with a policeman also with a gunshot injury to the chest) was not wholly unreasonable IMHO. They later retracted that statement as more evidence came to light. To use this retraction as a suggestion that you can’t believe anything they said about the events is wrong. That’s my point here in response to Natrix’s post.

At the inquest the IPCC’s lead investigator, Colin Sparrow, revealed that he knew Duggan had not fired any gun long before the IPCC began briefing the media that he had shot at police first. It then took three weeks for them to correct a ‘fact’ that they knew to be false.

IMHO that is completely unreasonable.

I worked in the met some 13 years ago, I’ll never forget the experience of stopping cars with 3-4 black males inside as the car either reeked of cannabis (yep you can smell it in another car it’s that strong) or there was intel that it contained drugs or weapons. You had to get another vehicle to assist as soon as the car was stopped all the males would leap out and be extremely aggressive and threatening inches from your face calling you racist etc. It would often end up with persons detained sometimes arrested before you even got to search the car. Surprisingly there would be drugs or weapons in the car. Often you would be joined by one or two extra cars of black extremely aggressive males, they were the back up cars. There would usually be complaints of racism, excessive force all spurred on by criminal solicitors ( if you’ve seen breaking bad you’ll know what that means) what I’m trying to explain is that this behaviour is a tactic to discourage police attention, the ongoing noise by the Duggans and their extended families is part of this tactic also. Of course they don’t want to be stopped while they transport drugs and weapons, of course they don’t want the risk of being shot doing what 99 percent of the rest of the population don’t do. Everybody else who is naively sucked into this noise should take note of the saying “be careful what you wish for” I’m not saying the mechanism we have for dealing with crime is perfect, but it is acknowledged the world over it be the best.

This. ^^^

Indeed.
the legal and court system we have has been built up over centuries and whilst far from perfect is the best we have got to.
cases such as this may mean that the law is tested and things change. I don’t have much sympathy that a fellow such as this had to die for arguments to be raised.

the protesters on here were no doubt represented on the jury panel- 20% did not agree lawful killing (given the evidence presented, must have been based on similar ‘hunches’ that the coppers were all lying).

unlike forums, you don’t have the option to basically claim the law is an ass if you’re a juror, you must decide on the options given to you by the judge.

BTW- does anyone know whether the cab driver stood as a witness, and if not why?

It then took three weeks for them to correct a ‘fact’ that they knew to be false.

Duggan was shot on the 4th and a statement from the IPCC released on the 9th to say he had not fired a shot – at the same time the commissioner acknowledges the perceived lack of information being released but stressed that they wanted everything verified and the family informed before it was made public. Source

Pondo – your source is the Guardian online, my source was todays Guardian (paper version)………………

the protesters on here were no doubt represented on the jury panel- 20% did not agree lawful killing (given the evidence presented, must have been based on similar ‘hunches’ that the coppers were all lying).

Point of order – 8 of the ten jurors voted ‘lawful killing’, two ‘open verdict’ and nobody voted ‘unlawful killing’ Which would suggest that rather than think the coppers were lying, they were not convinced either way.

Natrix;

I don’t think the IPCC ‘briefed the media’ that Duggan had shot at the police first. As said elsewhere, the rush for the media to get the story into print first creates this rock and a hard place situation. Statements were made based on information available / believed to be true at the time, but to my mind were not presented as 100% fact.

From the Guardian a few days after the event, not 3 weeks after..

The IPCC’s first statement about Duggan’s death, issued four hours after he was pronounced dead, made no reference to shots fired at police.

However, at least one spokesman from the watchdog appears to have misinformed journalists, leading to reports that Duggan was killed by police after “firing first”.

The Evening Standard said Duggan had been involved in a “shootout”, adding that a “spokesman for the [IPCC] said it appeared the officer was shot first before police returned fire”.

The Mirror quoted an IPCC spokesman saying: “We do not know the order the shots were fired. We understand the officer was shot first, then the male.”

An article in the Independent made a similar claim. It reported: “It is understood that the officer was shot first, but this is not known for certain, an IPCC spokesperson said.”

The IPCC statement said: “Analysis of media coverage and queries raised on Twitter have alerted to us to the possibility that we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists when responding to very early media queries following the shooting of Mark Duggan by MPS officers on the evening of 4 August.”

Conceding it was possible it had issued information suggesting shots were exchanged, the IPCC added: “This was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot and taken to hospital. Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident.”

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/12/mark-duggan-ipcc-misled-media

Pondo – your source is the Guardian online, my source was todays Guardian (paper version)………………

I’d take them to task over misleading / conflicting information. Clearly can’t be trusted. Next….. 😉

Well that’s just political wordplay to give themselves enough wriggle room later to cover their arses. An IPCC spokesman said an officer was shot first then winked and tapped the side of his nose.

natrix – Pondo – your source is the Guardian online, my source was todays Guardian (paper version)………………

Heh! You’d think they’d look back at their own reports – journos…

Yes, its often easy to mistake media supossition for official police statements, or where the line between the two lies.

does anyone know whether the cab driver stood as a witness, and if not why?

Yes, he did – its on the transcript for 14th Oct – essentially he confirms the meeting with H-F, the handing over of a shoebox, and then the stop, but misidentifies which policeman fired, and stated that he witnessed Duggan shot in the back.

Which was widely reported as a rumour at the time

IIRC there was another ‘eye witness’ at the time who reported that Duggan was pinned down on the ground and then shot, and the eye witness in the flats states that he was standing up with his hands up and palms forward, but supposedly holding a what he first thought was a gun, but after reading the newspapers then later decided was a Blackberry because it was shiny, and that at one point he said ‘went flying’ when he was shot, but we know was later found to be still inside the taxi.

Metropolitan police, in response to a Freedom of information Act request, say that they are not confirming **OR DENYING** that they unlawfully kept tape recorded material concealed from Mark Duggan inquest jury.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/your_conspiracy_with_the_ipcc_to#outgoing-326473

And you are surprised?, i lost all confidence in the police and the judicial system 23 odd years ago when i got convicted and sentenced to jail on nothing but pure lies backed up by senior officers as retold in court, thankfully video evidence surfaced within a week that proved my innocence and i was released pending appeal, however nothing was done to those that lied to put me in jail as apparently “evidence was recorded and observed in traumatic circumstances or words to that account” – Utter **** bollocks imho. From recent interactions with the police over the past few years my prejudices have been reinforced still further.

I’m sure there are decent officers within the force but unfortunately i have not met them.

Hang on Emlyn Welsh says she spoke to the met the met taped that conversation she then does a FOI request alleging that details of that conversation were really important and did the met give the details to the inquest? If it is that important why didn’t Emlyn Welsh give the information to the inquest and why isn’t. Emlyn Welsh releasing the information rather than the Mets refusal to comment, l hate the met but this is just childish posturing.

Crankboy – I read it as if she was referring to intercept intelligence that was not disclosed in open court – there were certainly discussions in the court where the judge and barristers were taking great care to stay within whatever boundaries were agreed so as not to reveal the capabilites available to SOCA – however there were pretty extensive discussions in the pre-inquest hearing, contained in the 9th September transcript, that state that all relevant and marginal relevance material had been disclosed, and that both teams of barristers had been working with SOCA to ensure everything that could be revealed was.

Given that Mansfield was involved, I’m sure that if there was an inkling anything had been suppressed, we would have heard about it!