Policing - new material (94)
01 July 2011
The Spotlight is back on black deaths at the hands of police, Harmit Athwal. Institute of Race Relations website, 2011. This article discusses the fate of Marc Duggan, who was shot dead by CO-19 police officers on 4 August in Tottenham, and the police disrespect shown to his family, which resulted in local riots that spread across the country. Athwal’s piece juxtaposes the multiple layers of self-serving police misinformation leaked to the media with the unanswered questions concerning the circumstances of Duggan’s death asked by his family. Upset at this absence of information, Duggan’s family held a protest outside Tottenham police station, demanding to speak with a senior police officer – they were ignored. Once they left the police allegedly struck a young woman who joined the protest. Athwal, who monitors black deaths in custody for the IRR, demonstrates that the police response to the Duggan family is typical of many other deaths over a period of 40 years, as the death of another African-Caribbean Tottenham resident, Roger Sylvester, in 1999 demonstrates. Police attempts to manipulate the media by demonising the deceased has also become a standard tactic; just as Jean Charles de Menezes was described as a “terrorist”, Mark Duggan was a “gangster” or even a “crack dealer” according to the right-wing newspapers. Perhaps even more damning than police “spin” is the impunity with which police officers are permitted to act: there has only been one successful prosecution of police officers for their involvement in the death of a black person – in 1971. Available at:
http://www.irr.org.uk/2011/august/ha000019.html
Police establish new regional bugging units, Ryan Gallagher and Rajeev Syal. The Guardian 26.7.11. Short article on the establishment of police regional surveillance units, formed with the planned demise of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. This development has provoked fears of an increase in covert police operations and concern at how the new regional groups will be monitored. The article reveals that in early July five police forces, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire formed the £2m a year East Midlands Technical Surveillance Unit (Emtsu) to improve access to surveillance and the planting of bugs.
Police dumdum bullets safer for public, says Met, Rob Parsons and Justin Davenport. The Standard 12.5.11. This piece considers the Metropolitan police’s decision to issue hollow-point bullets as standard ammunition to its firearms officers. Police spokesmen have denied that this lethal ammunition is the same as a dumdum bullet, by redefining the term to apply only to ammunition used by criminals, and justifies this proliferation by explaining that its use will be safer for members of the public. The move has been condemned by the Justice4Jean campaign, which represents the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, a passenger on the underground system who was killed by police who fired eight dumdum bullets into his head when they mistook him for a “terrorist”. The Justice4Jean Campaign: http://www.justice4jean.com
Campaigns challenge lethal force, Helen Shaw. Labour Briefing September 2011, p. 9. Shaw, the co-director of INQUEST, places the police killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham on 4 August 2011, within the context of previous surveillance operations. Thirteen of the 30 people shot dead by the police in England and Wales since 2001 were shot by the Metropolitan police force, seven of whom were black. Shaw draws comparisons with the shooting of Azelle Rodney, who died in a similar “hard stop” interception in Edgware in 2005, and whose death is the subject of a public inquiry which is expected to open in 2012. She also highlights “the kind of misinformation [that] is fed to a willing media who report unsubstantiated comments from press officers with damaging consequences” and “the failure of the IPCC to understand the historical context” in which the fatal police shootings take place. Shaw concludes: “For Londoners to have confidence in the police, the investigation into Mark Duggan’s shooting and the public inquiry into the death of Azelle Rodney must both reveal the truth about the individual deaths and examine in detail the way in which the Metropolitan police use lethal force.” Inquest website: www.inquest.org.uk
Bird’s-eye Policing, Hollie Clemence. Police Review 3.6.11, pp. 18-19. This piece discusses the launch of the National Police Air Service which will launch in April 2012 to provide “borderless coverage across England and Wales.”