Campaign news

Mark Duggan: no justice, no peace

9th January 2014

Mark Duggan: no justice, no peace

Perverse verdict denies justice to the family of an unarmed man killed by the Met Police: LRC statement

The jury’s majority verdict of “lawful killing” in the shooting dead of Mark Duggan at the hands of the Metropolitan Police – despite finding that Duggan was unarmed at the time – is both perverse and unjust, and will inevitably inflame public anger.

This is far from the first time that victims killed by the Metropolitan Police have failed to get justice – sadly just like the family of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson – the Duggan family have been totally failed by the British “justice” system.

The court had earlier heard that forensic tests failed to identify Duggan’s DNA on the gun produced as evidence, or the sock in which he was said to have carried it.

This verdict will do nothing to restore confidence in the police, which has been further undermined recently following the revelations about their attempts to misrepresent and fabricate evidence over incidents at Hillsborough and Orgreave, through to the more recent examples over the Plebgate affair.

Black and ethnic minority communities, who have long suffered from discriminatory and punitive treatment at the hands of the Met Police, are particularly conscious that the Duggan verdict threatens to set a precedent that unarmed members of the community can be gunned-down with impunity if the police claim to have had reasonable suspicions about criminal behaviours, irrespective of the evidence that they presented no threat to police officers.

The LRC would like to send a message of condolence and solidarity to friends and family of Mark Duggan, and to all campaigners for justice for victims of police violence.

No justice, no peace.

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