Mark Duggan- Shooting was lawful

[Whitershadeofpale]

here

Absolutely. And I say that as a serving officer who has provided statements against other officers. They were not supported by colleagues.

But you do agree that there are many examples that have come to light where police officers have supported those who commit crimes, whether those have been within the police and outside it?

There is one other reason not to be too harsh on armed police officers who had reasonable belief that the person they are facing has a firearm and intends to use it to shoot them or bystanders: we need people to agree to be armed police officers. Not many of them, but we need some.

Therefore once a jury (of randomly selected non-police adults remember) has examined all the evidence (which can only be done by sitting through every bit of the trial, the visit to the site etc) and decided that it was a lawful killing, we have a responsibility as a society to stop publicly berating that police officer. They have to live with taking a life which with hindsight was a mistake, is that not enough?

Note that if I think that responsibility for this also goes all the way up the chain of command.

You're having a laugh Nickynacky.

Some police certainly do support those who commit crimes, you may be an honest in all counts police officer, but not all are. As has been proven in the past.

to just discard the standard to which you hold government law
enforcement to because he was a wrong un is baffling to me

I completely agree with this. It is repellent to keep reading all the 'live/die by the sword' and 'play with fire, get burned' comments.

The sad thing in this case is that it is entirely credible both that Duggan was and was not as awful as he's been made out to be, and also entirely credible that the shooting was kosher and that it was a result of or heavily influenced by a desire to deal with someone believed to be a hideous gangster who had not been convicted of any serious offence.

I've no idea which is right, but I sympathise enormously with the jury that did have to decide. People should acknowledge what an incredibly difficult task it is.

I'm reminded of Winston Silcott. Police, some in the belief he was a (i) violent criminal and (ii) actually guilty, fitted him up for the revolting murder of PC Blakelock. Much was made of his apparently fearsome reputation and the fact he was convicted of another killing (also denied by him and the rightness of which is disputed by many). Except that, whatever kind of man he was, almost everyone now accepts he did not kill PC Blakelock and his conviction for it was overturned. It's very difficult for people to know what to believe about Silcott then and now. He was deliberately demonised so that the focus of the debate became what kind of man he was, and not, whether police had acted lawfully and reasonably.

Deja vu.

It's all a distraction. Everything boils down to that split second when they were confronting Duggan. Did the officer truly honestly hand on heart think he had a gun. Yes or no.

The jury believed he/she did believe that. Everything else is utterly irrelevant.

I'd like to know if you were given a gun and told to protect your family/friends. I will then randomly draw something quickly out of my bag. It could be a gun, it could be a banana. If it's a gun I will shoot you.

How many of you would wait to see? How many wouldn't take the chance and pull the trigger to stop me?

Well fancy that. Duggan was related to the Noonans.

Agree with Angela to a large extent. I feel for the jury - who were split, several counts were majority verdicts.

Mark Duggan also lived on Broadwater Farm - there are horrible echoes of a resident being painted as a wrong 'un that is (wrongly) used to justify them being fitted up for a crime they didn't commit. In this case the officer may have 'honestly believed' Duggan had a gun in his hand, but he did not. Despite the IPCC falsely claiming 'shots were exchanged' initially presumably they got that from the officers on the scene?

The officer gave the court a description of Duggan's movements esp. his hands that simply didn't accord with the facts. There is a long and ignoble history of the police making false claims about the innocent people they kill - remember poor Ian Tomlinson? And Jean Charles de Menezes? The truth about the killing of Mr Tomlinson only came out because a witness happened to record it - without that evidence the police would have got away with the lies.

This case may be different. Maybe the officer did 'honestly believe' there was a gun in Mark Duggan's hands. In which case he should be taken off firearms duty because an officer who has such a vivid imagination is clearly dangerous.

So many closed minds on here.
The case wasn't about whether there are any dishonest police officers - of course there are, as in any organisation or group. It was about whether this one individual officer behaved correctly in the heat of the moment. And the coroner's jury said that he did.
They also said that some other issues weren't properly handled, and they had better be sorted very soon.
No-one comes out well from this, except perhaps the jury themselves who should be credited with having done a difficult job very well.

niceguy2 it's not often I am on the same side of the fence as you, but that was well put.

onesleep "His family aren't the most upright or convincing people, tbh"

His mother has cancer. For the second time. And I'm not sure your personal dislike of his family, based on a few seconds of TV footage, actually justifies killing Mr Duggan.

Sallying, just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they have 'closed minds'.

Agree with you that it is only the jury that emerge with any credit, however.

Just to point out again the jury was split - many of the verdicts on the different counts are majority verdicts, so it's overplaying the police case to say 'the jury decided' as if they all agreed.

Edam, "vivid imagination?", "clearly dangerous?". Seriously?

If that was the case it wouldn't have been deemed lawful!

Edam the jury was split but none, I repeat none considered it "unlawful".

I think it is similar to what happened with Menezes in that when the police realised that someone who was not armed at the time had been shot they concocted a story to strengthen the case for shooting him.

On the day this happened the police rushed out the story that Duggan had fired at an officer . The bullet turned out to be from the marksman and passed though Duggan's arm and lodged in another officer's radio.

In the heat of the moment, that officer may not have realised where the bullet came from. Or maybe he did. It's never been adequately explained how he and all the other officers thought Duggan was armed and shooting when he most definitely wasn't.

The testimony the officers gave to the IPCC was remarkably similar suggesting that they’d colluded in their accounts. That was put to Asst Commissioner Rowley this morning and he didn’t deny it. He just said that the Met might ask officers to stop doing that in future.

I think the officer who shot Duggan may have thought he was holding a gun - in which case the jury was correct.

But he may not have cared whether he was or wasn't, and in that case I don't know what the verdict should have been - perhaps that's why two people delivered an open verdict.

Duggan may have thrown the gun over the fence. The jury appears to have accepted that theory though no one gave evidence saying they saw it happen.

People did say they saw an officer at the boot of Duggan's vehicle. I think it was the marksman who found the gun. He was seen to walk to it remarkably confidently. When asked in the inquest why that was, his answer was roughly that it was a lucky guess. Which, of course, it could have been.

I don't think the police planted the gun in the car. But somehow it ended up over the fence.

Brian Paddick's on the telly now. He said collusion is a very loaded term. Apparently those officers were simply reminding each other of what happened when they gave flawed evidence to the IPCC.

their testimony was similar, so people conclude they were lying? if it was different, people would conclude they couldn't get their stories straight and were lying.

it doesn't matter what the police say, there are people that are determined to believe it's all a set up, a cover up, and the police's fault.

But you bet these are the same people that would have been blaming the police if he HAD had a gun, the police hadn't stopped him, and he'd have gone on to hurt or kill someone else.

alice who said they were lying?

But in reminding each other of what happened that day they made various mistakes which misled the IPCC and made them look rather stupid.

Contaminated testimony doesn't help us reach the truth, does it?

No other witnesses can get together and compare recollections without having their credibility challenged as a result. I don't say the police a re routinely dishonest in doing this, I do think they should not be given exceptional treatment. Put your heads together on what happened, credibility affected as a general rule for everyone strikes me as only sensible.

Sallying, just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they have 'closed minds'.
The only thing I have ever said on here is that the jury did the right thing. If anyone disagrees with that due to their own prejudice then then do certainly have closed minds.

Agree with you that it is only the jury that emerge with any credit, however.
Good. The police do have questions to answer.

edam 8 said it was lawful. 2 said it was 'open', they couldn't decide. That's a pretty clear decision by any standard.

It's well known and accepted in court that after any incident the events will be discussed by colleagues, especially when it's traumatic. But that's a million miles away from being collusion and dishonest. I have done it many many times and have been asked at court if it has been discussed. It would be unbelievable if it wasn't.,

Supportive discussion about a difficult incident between colleagues is different from a relatively formal collaboration with notebooks (as apparently happened after the de Menezes killing).

I agree with Angela. Supportive and/or peer supervision sessions are very different to comparing notes.

One is about what you feel and the other is about chronology.

I would love to say that when there is an armed police officer between someone who they believe to be dangerous with a gun and my child that I would want the officer to only fire if they were 100% sure my child was about to die. I'd love to be that principled.

I'm not.

What % would I settle on? 90% sure. 80% sure? I don't know because I realise that one day my child might be the one that the police officer thinks is dangerous and is pointing a gun at. I get that the police can't shoot at will (unlike USA where % is set very low and even public can preemptively shoot if they feel at risk).

But I am proud to live in country where any shooting by police officers is investigated and covered in media and that a vote by peers determines outcome.

Sad for Duggan, his family and for the officer who has to live with fact he killed someone. Wrong verdict? No.