Duggan Case

[C.A.R.]

Can we have a sensible debate on here about this?

Obviously this is big in the headlines today - the killing of Mark Duggan has been ruled as lawful following investigation.

There seems to be a lot of keyboard warriors online defending this chap and portraying the officers who were on duty that day as 'murderers'.

The family of Mark Duggan are still seeking what they call 'justice' for his killing.

Let's not let this descend into racial slur or petty arguing.

[Sian]

Didnt the officers them selves say they didnt actually mean to kill him! But they thought he was holding a gun or something?



Although im agreeing i couldnt decide which one lol!

[Grant]

Completely agree with the decision.

It's a sham it's been dragged out so long

[Pete]

100% on the police's side. If he did what was asked of him he'd be here today (at her majestys pleasure probably) Every time I hear ' he was no angel but' from a bereaved relative I translate it as ' he was abit of a lady garden and had it coming to him '

[Dodgy Bob]

I totally agree with the case findings, but it's obvious the family ain't gona let it be, the problem with our whole legal system now is that regardless of a case outcome people can carry on appealing, appealing, and appealing, then going to review after review until they find someone who finally agrees with them to criminalise those already found innocent.
The fact remains that tragic as it is that a man lost his life he was hardly a angel as the family make out (a reoccurring trend unfortunately when tragedy befalls such families) He was a criminal, a gang member, a thug, and the fact of wether he was holding it or not he had been carrying a firearm which whatever the circumstances (as a chivvy on the street obviously) is 100% illegal in this country and it was and probably already had been used to commit even further crime.
Tragic? Pretty much. Avoidable? Yeah totally. Whose responsible? Him himself!

[powerandtorque]

If you play with guns then expect to get shot.

As someone said above, while I completely understand why such occurances needs to be investigated, it's a shame for all the officers involved that they've had this hanging over them for so long when they were simply doing their job.

[THE_Liam]

Just to remind everyone as C.A.R asked, please keep this civil and sensible or the thread will be locked. Thanks guys.

[C.A.R.]

I thought as much too, but so many people I talk to seem to think there is course for retribution. Because he wasn't (that we know of) actually armed when the bullets hit him, people are calling it an execution?!

Whether you are armed one split-second from the next you were still 'armed' more than it is legal to be - there is no grey area.

There is course for doubt also - 8:2 say he was not holding the weapon when he was killed.

My theory is that he was shot at whilst symultaneously throwing the gun, hence the doubt from the Jury. Regardless, if he had left the weapon in the taxi he would still be here today.

[bigcheez2k3]

I just hope the knuckle draggers don't decide to start shit again. I now work pretty close to Croydon and I live near other places all the 'rioting' happened. I use quotation marks because it wasn't people rioting over his killing, it was scum who decided to go looting.

[powerandtorque]

I use quotation marks because it wasn't people rioting over his killing, it was scum who decided to go looting.

Got it in one - it was just an excuse for lawlessness.

[Dodgy Bob]

We'll come on, realistically how many people who rioted 'for him' actually knew him? Maybe a few in the borough where it happened / he was from, but Liverpool? Birkenhead? NONE! Just criminal actions for the sake of criminal actions with little or no justification!

[r3k1355]

Criminal with *gun gets shot by police, big news story??

*Technically he tossed the gun as the police arrived, he was shot because they thought he had another gun on him.

[lolsteve]

Gangster in some of the most dangerous groups,father of 6, who thought to be on the way for a big drug deal and did have a gun at some point. I would rather the police acted as they did rather than sit back and wait for him to kill/hurt someone before they intervene since he could have hurt someone innocent

[Grant]

Gangster in some of the most dangerous groups,father of 6, who thought to be on the way for a big drug deal and did have a gun at some point. I would rather the police acted as they did rather than sit back and wait for him to kill/hurt someone before they intervene since he could have hurt someone innocent

+1

[Niall]

Completely agree with the fact that it was a lawful killing. The police had evidence that he had a gun in the taxi with him and they had reason to believe that he had the gun on him when he was outside of the car. As others have said, play with guns and expect to get shot. You can't blame the police for their actions. They were acting on a educated guess that he was armed and all the evidence was stacked against him that he did.
The police aren't stupid. They wouldn't shoot someone for no reason like a lot say they have because they know they have a major chance of going to prison them selves if they don't have a reason to believe he was armed.

[THE_Liam]

I'm another who agrees with the actions of the police. I've actually de-friended 3 people from Facebook because I'm bored of their conspiracy theories, these are also the same people who share stuff from pages with names like "Illuminati exposed" and "You are the resistance".

You're a copper. You have been told you're apprenhending an armed suspect. You point weapons at the taxi he's travelling at, and rather than putting his hands up he starts to get out and move towards you. I know what I'd have done.

If a copper points a gun at you, you put your f*cking hands up and do as you're told.

[Niall]

I'm another who agrees with the actions of the police. I've actually de-friended 3 people from Facebook because I'm bored of their conspiracy theories, these are also the same people who share stuff from pages with names like "Illuminati exposed" and "You are the resistance".

You're a copper. You have been told you're apprenhending an armed suspect. You point weapons at the taxi he's travelling at, and rather than putting his hands up he starts to get out and move towards you. I know what I'd have done.

If a copper points a gun at you, you put your f*cking hands up and do as you're told.

Exactly a lot of people are just using this as an excuse to voice their opinion on the government. How the hell is this the governments fault?!
People moan about are police but in reality, they aren't that bad in comparison to a lot of countries out there!

[Dum-Dum]

Lets not forget that Mark Duggan was a thoroughly nasty piece of work, at one point apparently one of the 50 worst gangsters in Europe, a member of one of the worst gangs in London, and someone who had been implicated in numerous shootings and murders however had largely escaped conviction.

Now Jurys are a funny thing, Potentially it only takes one or 2 strong minded people and opinionated people on one to help sway those who maybe aren't so mentally strong.

I personally don't believe for a second that he threw the gun before being shot, the officers say they saw a gun and the only things that say otherwise are a witness (who sounds quite anti police in the TV interviews) who was 10 floors up and across the other side of a busy road (probably 50m away then) and saw something in his hand but is certain it was a mobile phone and wasn't a gun, someone with no firearms training. So tell me from 50m away could you be certain if I had a gun or a mobile phone in a split second? Also the pathologist says he couldn't of thrown the gun 20ft after being shot with his injuries but you forget how short a distance 20ft is, its 6 meters or about 3 and a bit times the height of a tall person like me and not only is it a short distance but from the height he held the gun at and then the drop into the park and then going down hill its actually 20ft over a 5-6ft drop.

I think the family are on a witch hunt and wont stop till they either get paid off or someone other than Mark Duggan gets held responsible for his death and punished.

The thing that is bugging my is that his supporters after claiming that he was a lovely chap who wasn't in a gang they are claiming that he was executed and I'd love to ask them this "You are aware that the Police in this country only kill about one person a year so if Mark is such a nice chap and not a real criminal then why would the Police pick him to execute rather than someone who causes real problems?"

[Poodle]

Got told off by the boss today for shouting "f*ck off you lady garden" at the radio when some whiney retard came on saying how it's a good job the rest of the country's police don't have guns, else we'd all be dead by now. And as best i can tell he was one of the more intelligent supporters of the Duggan campaign, 'nuff said as far as i'm concerned. Clearly this is an argument being perpetuated by idiots, why it's even still under debate is beyond me.

[Chris28190]

I'm on the police side. I mean afo's don't go out and just shoot someone because they looked at them funny. I feel bad for the officers for how long it's all been dragged out.

[Kezzieboy]

An unnecessary death is always tragic, and by the sounds of it his death could have been avoided. I belive it was a mistake on the armed officers part, a slightly itchy trigger finger, but I guess these things happen, and at least the guy that caught the bullet was actually a previously armed criminal, and not a bystander.

The death of this particular criminal was merely the straw that broke the donkeys back, and caused the riots. The riots began in protest of the fact that black people are unfairly treated by the police in London, and larger parts of the UK. And clearly this was the case, as the police have taken steps against this, such as reducing the number of 'random' stop searches.

I'll get flamed for this, but the riots (pre-looting) were almost a breath of fresh air to me. We're so passive in this country, everyone is resigned to the fact the government/police do whatever they want and that there's nothing we can do about it, that seeing people actually take action was incredible.

[THE_Liam]

It wasn't a case of people taking action, it was mindless destruction of people's property. That's never a positive thing.

[Chris28190]

I think people just jumped on the bandwagon for the riots. People say it's because of Dugan but I don't think half of them knew what they were doing it over.

[C.A.R.]

An unnecessary death is always tragic, and by the sounds of it his death could have been avoided. I belive it was a mistake on the armed officers part, a slightly itchy trigger finger, but I guess these things happen, and at least the guy that caught the bullet was actually a previously armed criminal, and not a bystander.

The death of this particular criminal was merely the straw that broke the donkeys back, and caused the riots. The riots began in protest of the fact that black people are unfairly treated by the police in London, and larger parts of the UK. And clearly this was the case, as the police have taken steps against this, such as reducing the number of 'random' stop searches.

I'll get flamed for this, but the riots (pre-looting) were almost a breath of fresh air to me. We're so passive in this country, everyone is resigned to the fact the government/police do whatever they want and that there's nothing we can do about it, that seeing people actually take action was incredible.

This is the crazyness I was referring to in the opening post. I'm baffled dude!

How is it having 'an itchy trigger finger'? Were you there? Is your understanding of events different from that of the Jury who were presented with a wealth of evidence we did not see? He wasn't 'previously armed' he was armed and dangerous. As was mentioned in another forum, the Police in this country are responsible for the death of 1 person per year. If they wanted to kill someone, there's a long queue of people who were in front of Mark Duggan.

As for the riots, they are largely un-connected. They gave criminals a (poor) excuse to commit the attrocities and crimes which they would otherwise only have considered doing, but because they had this backwards 'reasoning' in their minds they were OK with it, and fighting back against society.

Damaging public property, eventually leading to blatant looting, is this really the way to prove your point that you're not to be profiled as a criminal?

I will say nothing of the colour of peoples' skin who decided they would participate in the rioting, but regardless, if you're protesting against being deliberately targeted / profiled as a criminal, the last thing you should do is perform criminal acts. Which is exactly what they did.

Being so easily tipped over the edge into a criminal lifestyle due to the largely irrelevant killing of a dangerous gangster proves only one thing; that the Police were right to target you as a potential threat. Because you just showed that you are one.

D'oh

[THE_Liam]

Thread cleaned. Any more racist comments and it'll be locked.

[Kezzieboy]

I missed the inevitable spiral into racism. Shame.

Anyway, the thing that disturbed me most about the whole thing was the medias involvement, but that's always the case, so no surprises there. Was at home for a few days this week and had a long and heated debate about this, and the thing we all agreed on is how worrying the control the awful media in this country has over the population.

In my eyes there is never a justification to kill someone unless they have a weapon pointed at you and are clearly prepared to shoot you, but I guess that's why I'll never be a member of the armed plod. Maybe he did, but what I've heard suggests he didn't at the time of death, but like you say that's why the verdict was Lawful, as we don't really know and it was deemed reasonable force. I'm not arguing against that, if the courts say it was lawful then fine, but those people celebrating, or justifying the death of any individual (apart from Thatcher, anyway ), regardless of circumstance need to take a look at themselves. Cue people talking about Hitler...

Repeating myself again, but I do NOT condone the damage to the property of innocent civilians, however I haven't got it in me to speak against people rioting with the police who have been oppressing them, that seems reasonable to me, especially seeing as they were generally outnumbered and outgunned.

[budd]

Interesting debate, if you listen to radio/ watch the news on TV etc you could be forgiven for thinking (judging by the screaming shouting hordes heckling the Police spokesman) that public opinion is firmly with the Duggan family, but if we are to assume the opinions posted here are a more accurate reflection of actual public opinion rather than that of the rent a mob outside the court then it seems the ‘man in the street’ wholeheartedly supports the Police in this matter.
We live in a country where people aren’t routinely shot on the street, I myself have never had a gun pointed ay me but then I’m not involved in crime and don’t carry / deal in firearms, ‘live by the sword die by the sword ‘ is a little clichéd but in this case just about sums it up,

Quite how the Duggan family intend to fight for ‘justice’ is beyond me, Mark Duggan wasn’t shot by Police because he was black/mixed race, he wasn’t targeted at random, he wasn’t ‘executed, he was killed because as a armed man running round London he posed a clear threat to both Police and public, he was killed as a result of his involvement in crime specifically gang activity, drugs and firearms, not quite the doting father and all round ‘nice chap’ his supporters portray him as.

This guy wasn’t a lovable rouge he was a nasty piece of work and while no one wants to see criminals shot down in the street and fortunately it’s a very rare occurrence but when it does happen the blame must fall firmly on the perpetrator, it’s like when grieving parents blame perusing Police for the death of a teen joy rider, they say the Police caused them to crash by chasing them, I say if they hadn’t nicked someone’s pride and joy in the first place they’d still be alive, people need to take responsibility for their actions, rather than blaming the consequences of these actions on others.

The Police have a thankless task, it must take some balls to approach a suspect with little more than a metal stick and some pepper spray, remember beat Police aren’t armed but are generally the first responders, and as a reward for putting themselves in a possible life threatening situation every aspect of their conduct and procedure is scrutinised by high ranking officers who are little more than politicians in uniform, the quote ‘loins led by donkeys' comes to mind

[Dum-Dum]

The death of this particular criminal was merely the straw that broke the donkeys back, and caused the riots. The riots began in protest of the fact that black people are unfairly treated by the police in London, and larger parts of the UK. And clearly this was the case, as the police have taken steps against this, such as reducing the number of 'random' stop searches.

I've gotta say I can understand the riots on the first night in Tottenham, tensions with the Police in that area are ALWAYS high and this did push things over the edge, it was proper angry violence seen by the targeting of the police and the damage and destruction like the torching of cars and shops rather than looting them. I do not in any way condone them mind. The days after that were just about stealing because they knew the police couldn't cope. Thats why you wont have rioting now. Its too cold, too wet, people have too much of the January blues, they have just got new trainers for christmas so don't need to steal them, the sales are on so stuff is cheap anyway, the schools have just gone back and there is loads of police on. Wait till there is a re-inquest or judicial review that ends near a weekend over the summer holidays.

Black people aren't unfairly treated in London and its ridiculous to think so. The problem is where these tensions are greatest the population tends to be largely non white or even largely black and so if the police were searching a fair demographic of society they would search more non white people than white people. The other thing is if most of your burglary or robbery suspects in an area are black male youths then you are going to search black male youths if there is grounds. They have stopped using the blanket stop and search powers quite so much but they still do when necessary. The bit I like most is trying to increase the hit rate from searches ie searches where something is found or the subject is arrested or otherwise punished at the end of it and thats gone from 11% to 16% in the last year according to one of the senior officers thats been on telly in the last few days (mine is probably about 90% though)

In my eyes there is never a justification to kill someone unless they have a weapon pointed at you and are clearly prepared to shoot you, but I guess that's why I'll never be a member of the armed plod.

I've gotta say mate having more than once been in the position where I thought my death was imminent at work to have the ability to think clearly and make a well thought out reasonable decision under that pressure is seriously impressive as even though I can deal with pretty much everything every time I have pretty much just frozen with fear, when you have been too scared for your life to flash before your eyes you'll know what I'm talking about.

Interesting debate, if you listen to radio/ watch the news on TV etc you could be forgiven for thinking (judging by the screaming shouting hordes heckling the Police spokesman) that public opinion is firmly with the Duggan family, but if we are to assume the opinions posted here are a more accurate reflection of actual public opinion rather than that of the rent a mob outside the court then it seems the ‘man in the street’ wholeheartedly supports the Police in this matter.
We live in a country where people aren’t routinely shot on the street, I myself have never had a gun pointed ay me but then I’m not involved in crime and don’t carry / deal in firearms, ‘live by the sword die by the sword ‘ is a little clichéd but in this case just about sums it up,

Quite how the Duggan family intend to fight for ‘justice’ is beyond me, Mark Duggan wasn’t shot by Police because he was black/mixed race, he wasn’t targeted at random, he wasn’t ‘executed, he was killed because as a armed man running round London he posed a clear threat to both Police and public, he was killed as a result of his involvement in crime specifically gang activity, drugs and firearms, not quite the doting father and all round ‘nice chap’ his supporters portray him as.

This guy wasn’t a lovable rouge he was a nasty piece of work and while no one wants to see criminals shot down in the street and fortunately it’s a very rare occurrence but when it does happen the blame must fall firmly on the perpetrator, it’s like when grieving parents blame perusing Police for the death of a teen joy rider, they say the Police caused them to crash by chasing them, I say if they hadn’t nicked someone’s pride and joy in the first place they’d still be alive, people need to take responsibility for their actions, rather than blaming the consequences of these actions on others.

The Police have a thankless task, it must take some balls to approach a suspect with little more than a metal stick and some pepper spray, remember beat Police aren’t armed but are generally the first responders, and as a reward for putting themselves in a possible life threatening situation every aspect of their conduct and procedure is scrutinised by high ranking officers who are little more than politicians in uniform, the quote ‘loins led by donkeys' comes to mind

You seem like quite a reasonable chap and thats a pretty well written response mate.

[Kezzieboy]

I'm glad you see that there is an underlying issue, and that it wasn't just mindless violence and thievery from the start, unlike most people seem to think.

I doubt I'd cope well in that sort of situation, I'm fairly sure I'd freeze in panic and get shot, but as I say, that's why I'm not in the armed response and I don't think it's unfair to expect those chosen to be in those situations to be incredibly calm, focussed and prepared.

I still think you're wrong about the treatment of ethnic minorities though. Racism is still rife in this country, and I'm sure the police are better than most segments of society, but I still think it's fair to say that minorities are treated unfairly by the authorities. You also have to look further back to why there are more black youths committing crime, and that's due to their socio-economic backgrounds, stemming from their disadvantages in employment and careers, which is at least in part due to racism. It's a bit of a chicken and egg argument, but the more marginalised those committing crime feel, the more likely they are to commit crime, and so that feeds the statistics, it's a vicious cycle.

[Niall]

I still think you're wrong about the treatment of ethnic minorities though. Racism is still rife in this country, and I'm sure the police are better than most segments of society, but I still think it's fair to say that minorities are treated unfairly by the authorities. You also have to look further back to why there are more black youths committing crime, and that's due to their socio-economic backgrounds, stemming from their disadvantages in employment and careers, which is at least in part due to racism. It's a bit of a chicken and egg argument, but the more marginalised those committing crime feel, the more likely they are to commit crime, and so that feeds the statistics, it's a vicious cycle.

Sorry but IMO, thats rubbish. Do you honestly think in these days when everything has to be politically correct, black people are unemployed because people don't want them just because they are black? Your saying that its more black youths committing crime yet in areas like Tottenham for example, there is a high population of black people so in this area, yes it is going to seem like its just crime and violence from black youths but in reality, if you compare the figures to a similar sized area which might be a area mainly populated by the Polish, you would probably find that the amount of people committing crime is similar yet it won't be black youths as a majority, it will be polish people.