Viewing 40 posts - 121 through 160 (of 469 total)
  • Mark Duggan lawfully killed
  • binners
    Full Member

    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

    tonyd5000
    Free Member

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

    easygirl
    Full Member

    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,

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    mikewsmith
    Free Member

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

    Who knows but generally if you are stopped by armed police, moving very slowly and doing exactly what they say would be a good idea. So would not being involved in gang crime in London.

    joolsburger
    Free Member

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

    geoffj
    Full Member

    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

    kennyp
    Free Member

    Well put easygirl.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    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

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    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.

    convert
    Full Member

    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.

    SD-253
    Free Member

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

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

    konabunny
    Free Member

    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.

    wiggles
    Free Member

    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.

    binners
    Full Member

    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

    MSP
    Full Member

    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”.

    pondo
    Full Member

    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.
    That does rather neglect the findings of the jury who, with far more evidence thatn we’ll ever see, said it was a lawful killing.

    hora
    Free Member

    Forgive me if I don’t feel upset about the verdict.

    It doesn’t mean that I am hardhearted in the slightest on this particular matter.

    smiththemainman
    Free Member

    The more I look at this story I keep going back to the same thing, Did the cabbie get his fare?

    rogerthecat
    Free Member

    Can’t feel any sympathy for Mark Duggan, there is only one reason to carry a gun and that is to do harm to another person, often harm that turns out to be fatal.

    The matter Binners raised re Police collusion in this, and other cases mentioned, is far more concerning for all of us.

    Carol Duggan on R4, very sensible, let’s hope everyone else is as measured and responsible.

    thejesmonddingo
    Full Member

    Binners,Andrew Mitchell was democratically elected as an MP,not as Chief Whip,his own party took that away from him and AFAAK, he is still an MP.

    hora
    Free Member

    Binners want to argue over a pint the next time your in Chorlton? I can watch the door for you incase the Feds are following you 😉

    binners
    Full Member

    Oh…. That’s ok then. Just disregard everything I said then. As long as he still remains an MP then the manipulation and fabrication of evidence to suit the politically motivated police agenda is perfectly ok

    As you were

    hora
    Free Member

    We could discuss new managers too.

    Is Sven or Steve Mclaren free?

    thejesmonddingo
    Full Member

    Just trying to keep a grip on the truth as opposed to opinion.

    Pigface
    Free Member

    Have you ever been faced with a violent person with a weapon

    Ian Tomlinson did and died as a result

    aracer
    Free Member

    Er, no – he resigned as a direct result of the police manipulation and lies
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20012435

    I’m certainly far from thinking the police are whiter than white in this case or any other, but I’m with the majority who are happy to let the jury decide (unless they’ve somehow managed to load the jury I’d expect them on average to be less sympathetic towards the police than I am).

    natrix
    Free Member

    He has been arrested before and escaped justice probably through very good free legal advice

    Hmm, what ever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”??? He’d only ever been found guilty of minor offences like possession of cannabis.

    How much can you trust the police version of events when they initially said that he’d fired shots at them?? – Something that seems to have been conveniently forgotten. If the police had been honest and upfront from the beginning, then maybe there wouldn’t have been so much suspicion later on.

    thejesmonddingo
    Full Member

    aracer,do you think his resignation was entirely voluntary?

    geoffj
    Full Member

    I’m with the majority who are happy to let the jury decide

    Isn’t the issue around what the jury were asked to decide? From the reports I’ve read, the lawful killing verdict has been described as a technicality. You could argue that the culture in the met had promoted an environment where the pc was expecting to be shot at and so he did really believe that Duggan was holding a gun.

    aracer
    Free Member

    dunno – it’s not all that relevant in the context – I’m not exactly sure what point you’re trying to prove here

    aracer
    Free Member

    A technicality based on them believing that the PC did believe Duggan had a gun? Is it all that unreasonable a belief given Duggan did have a gun very shortly before? Is that belief making it a lawful killing so unreasonable?

    ninfan
    Free Member

    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.

    But in this case its quite clear that despite the police officers being allowed to sit together and concoct a story, only two of them claim to have seen what they thought was a gun, and nobody saw it thrown or land – I mean, if you’re going to accuse them of making stories, you would have thought they would at least back each other up wouldn’t you, the facts just don’t fit in with the conspiracy.

    Just like you’ve said it was the polices concocted story that was given to the press – if you bothered to read the transcripts (and I did) then it was clear that the whole ‘exchange of fire’ thing had nothing whatsoever to do with the police that were there, not one of them made that comment or even had the opportunity to make that allegation, because that was down to a misunderstanding between officers who weren’t there, and happened before the armed police had even made their statements.

    Its like the whole ‘police planted the gun’ theory – the police just happened to have a gun on them that had the DNA of the bloke who Duggan met a few minutes before and gave him a shoebox, and had been used in a vicious beating a few days earlier, and instead of planting it on Duggan or next to him, they hide it twenty feet away behind some railings and then all denied seeing him throw it?

    ransos
    Free Member

    A technicality based on them believing that the PC did believe Duggan had a gun? Is it all that unreasonable a belief given Duggan did have a gun very shortly before? Is that belief making it a lawful killing so unreasonable?

    An independent witness reasonably believed that Duggan was holding a mobile phone…

    It seems to me that “reasonable belief” allows for a multitude of sins. It also fails to address why the police failed to cooperate with the IPCC, why the two officers involved were allowed to produce a statement together, why their account directly contradicted an independent witness, and why their account contradicted the findings of the pathologist.

    imnotverygood
    Full Member

    An independent witness reasonably believed that Duggan was holding a mobile phone…

    That independent witness was a hundred yards away at the time. Get someone to walk a hundred yards away & tell me if you can say what they are holding in their hand. The jury didn’t believe his evidence. Neither do it I.

    ninfan
    Free Member

    It also fails to address why the police failed to cooperate with the IPCC,

    Well, they didn’t – they did what they were legally required to do and gave a written statement, on the advice of their solicitors. Since potentially the police could have had charges brought against them that seems entirely reasonable, In a similar way that anyone accused of a crime has the right to give no comment.

    why the two officers involved were allowed to produce a statement together, why their account directly contradicted an independent witness, and why their account contradicted the findings of the pathologist.

    They weren’t – the officer who took the shot was dealt with separatley to his teammates initially, and theres been rafts of research done on both post traumatic stress and perceptional distortion that say that the best way of getting an accurate report is for them to be allowed to do it together. As for the independent witness, a reporter gave evidence that his story had changed several times in the course of her meetings with him, and regards the Pathologist, there were two pathologists who entirely disagreed on the significance of a number of things, like the position of the arm, or which bullet did what.

    aracer
    Free Member

    Presumably the policeman should have checked with this independent witness before shooting?

    kimbers
    Full Member

    the problem is that the Met are perceived to be untrustworthy

    can you put any faith in their statements after plebgate, demenezes?

    and the procedural failings here; moving the taxi away then moving it back before forensic analysis etc make it easy to question the police version of the truth

    thejesmonddingo
    Full Member

    My point is that the unreliable evidence of the Met officers didn’t mean that Mitchell had to resign,but he was sacrificed by CMD pandering to percieved public opinion.(and no,I don’t like what I’ve seen of Mr Mitchell either)

    ninfan
    Free Member

    Presumably the policeman should have checked with this independent witness before shooting?

    The evidence from the BBC journo who interviewed him and made notes of the conversation was that the witness commented that he initially thought it was a gun, but after reading the newspapers and thinking about it thought it must have been a blackberry ’cause it was shiny, and if he had a gun he would have aimed it

    duckman
    Full Member

    Junkyard – lazarus
    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

    Pretty much this.

    natrix – Member

    Hmm, what ever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”??? He’d only ever been found guilty of minor offences like possession of cannabis.

    Yet was part of of a vastly expensive police operation targeting just 5 men. And was known to have a firearm in his posession…sheesh, thats a slippery slope, “reefer madness” must have been right.

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