Mark Duggan Jury

[Stu Monty]

It's the most logical conclusion and not contradicted by any independent evidence I'm aware of. Your speculation was; very clearly.

 

Telling you to stop acting the cock isn't being on a high horse. It's just telling someone to stop acting the cock.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

 

Here's a 9mm compared to a match on my kitchen table. Our soldiers don't have a sidearm, only officers.

 

They chose 9mm as it means lots of rounds and they can use same ammo as in MP5s etc.

Is cutting off gas not enough for you?

 

Now you're using bullets to finish the job. You're a cold man rico. Cold.

[Bjornebye]

It's the most logical conclusion and not contradicted by any independent evidence I'm aware of. Your speculation was; very clearly.

 

Telling you to stop acting the cock isn't being on a high horse. It's just telling someone to stop acting the cock.

 

In your opinion. 

 

No. 

[George Costanza]

Shoot them all.

 

I won't lose any sleep over this.

 

a scumbag gets shot boo fucking hoo

[Bjornebye]

Fuck Stu Monty, Fuck Kosma, Fuck all you hating cunts, why? 

 

[stevebaby]

Some other points:

 

1) If the gun was in the shoebox, and the police shot him, it can still be a lawful killing. The police only have to have a belief he was about to use a weapon, and given they believed he'd just purchased one, it wasn't unreasonable to think that.

 

2) If the shoebox was empty and no gun was ever found, it can still be a lawful killing. The police only have to have a belief he was about to use a weapon, and given they believed he'd just purchased one, it wasn't unreasonable to think that. They'd have a slightly harder time with this, due to calamity of him not actually buying a gun in the first place, but if the armed policeman was told he had a gun, any gesture by Duggan that resembled the pointing of a weapon could be considered grounds to shoot.

 

3) The officer does NOT have to see the weapon. As long as they believe there is an immediate threat to life, they can kill. The difficulty comes later when they have to justify how they came to that belief.

 

 

The officer's defence is basically this:

 

a) He was informed they were to apprehend a dangerous criminal

B) He was informed that Duggan had at least one weapon in his possession.

c) Duggan was twice (I believe) asked to 'stop' but did not do so.

d) Duggan's fleeing from the vehicle is consistent with an attempt to escape arrest.

e) Reaching for some object or holding some object in the direction of the officer could be interpreted (rightly or wrongly) as reaching for a weapon or aiming one.

 

It's not hard to see how a jury would reach the conclusion that the killing was lawful.

 

However, there's only one real way the officer would be guilty of unlawful killing... and that's if he shot Duggan KNOWING there was no immediate threat. Proving that is nigh on impossible. Even if an eye witness says they saw Duggan holding a Blackberry and not a gun - it doesn't matter, it's not proof that the officer knew this.

.

So... where the gun actually was is a BIT of a red herring

That belief must be based on a "reasonable suspicion". A police officer couldn't, for example, say that he believed that Duggan was about to fire at someone because God or a little bird told him so.  Mere possession of a gun is not grounds for assuming that he was going to use it.

There is no evidence prior to the shooting that he even had a gun...it was only discovered later. The only evidence before the shooting is that he had a shoebox. They had no way of knowing for certain prior to the shooting what was in the box, although they may have suspected it. As it turned out (fortuitously for the police) he did at some point have possession of a gun, but there's no evidence that he made any attempt to use it.

If he was "attempting to escape", it wasn't much of an attempt.  He was shot while next to the minicab and his body ended up a couple of metres away from it. In any case, he was surrounded by armed men and the only possible exit route was over the spiked fence.

With no trace of DNA or fingerprints on the gun or the sock in which it was wrapped, there's no evidence that he even handled the gun let alone threaten anyone with it.

I believe that there are two likely scenarios. The first and most likely is that the shooter panicked. The second is that he was executed. That's not beyond the realms of possibility. I know from personal experience that executions by police have occurred in New South Wales.

[Pureblood]

Anyone sum this up for me?

 

MET, lies and videotape. 

[Loki]

Anyone sum this up for me?

 

Police state supporting cunts in being massive cunts shocker.

[Rico1304]

Is cutting off gas not enough for you?

Now you're using bullets to finish the job. You're a cold man rico. Cold.

Sometimes a cold draft isn't enough.

 

In reality one of my mates was an instructor at the Infantry Battle School in Brecon. We went on a few open days when we got to drink Stella at 80p a pint until 5 in the morning then get up 3 hours later and fire machine guns, SA80s and handguns.

[Paulie Dangerously]

Re: the gun being so far away. From the number of action films I've seen its clear that when a baddie gets shot anything they're holding gets flung into the air in slow motion. Remote detonators, hand grenades and yes, even guns!

 

Surely this is what happened? Case closed.

[VladimirIlyich]

Surely the most independent view here is the taxi drivers so what did he say?

[aws]

Surely the most independent view is that of the jurors who actually heard all the evidence first hand?

[stringvest]

When does Tooth get out of chokey? Can't wait to hear his take on this.

[Gnasher]

Surely the most independent view is that of the jurors who actually heard all the evidence first hand?

I'd take any evidence presented me by our police force with a large pinch of salt

[Spy Bee]

I do think that the police are institutionally corrupt, but I think you can minimise your chances of being shot by them, if you don't do bad shit and that.

[stringvest]

The police always have been, and always will be, corrupt.  From accepting the odd bottle of whisky to turn a blind eye to a lock-in, to the orchestrated (and government supported) injustices of Hillsborough, it's always gone on.  

 

Perhaps we, as individuals, expect too much from our police force.  Show me a country where the police are operating at a markedly higher level of morality than the majority of the populace that they're policing. and I'll show you a unicorn's clitoris.  Injustices should always be called out, and where proof can be established, the offenders should be pursued and prosecuted, just like any criminality.  State-sponsored crimes against their own people, such as the miner's strike and Hillsborough, should never be allowed to be forgotten, even if it means fighting against the judiciary and the rest of the establishment determined to protect the status quo.  

 

This latest - rather extreme - version of 'he fell down the stairs honest guv' comes about because they know they can get away with it.  The vast majority of the country will have no sympathy with the demise of the sort of scumbag who is better off the streets anyway, and despite a few dozen people maintaining 'vigils' (a bit of a shame they couldn't have dedicated a bit of time educating and parenting this lad so that he wouldn't get involved in violence, guns and drug-running in the first place), the fact that the papers will come down on the side of the police, the fact that the trial returned it's verdict in the winter rather than the summer, means that this will fade away and we'll all move on.  

 

Actually Adam said all this in one sentence in his previous post. 

[Anubis]

I do think that the police are institutionally corrupt, but I think you can minimise your chances of being shot by them, if you don't do bad shit and that.

 

Didn't work out for De Mendez. Maybe if you make yourself less Brazilian as well?

[Phoenix]

Once you start carrying guns around whether in a shoebox or otherwise, its reasonable to assume you are going to be a threat. Especially someone  who is involved in gang violence.

 

The police officer probably panicked at the time leading to the inconsistencies in the version of events but still lawfully killed.

 

No one will know exactly what happened on the day.  Witness B seemed to have forgotten that he had told journos that Duggan was holding a gun.

[Phoenix]

it was 1 Journo, a BBC one who only had their own note stating;

 

“initially thought gun but read newspapers then thought it was a BlackBerry”.

 

witness "B" denied it in court and said he didn't think he had said that at all and that he had stated a phone from the start. Maybe the journo should of recorded what was actually said as they normally do.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/03/mark-duggan-was-holding-mobile-phone-when-shot

 

It doesn't add to his credibility either way.  Unless you think BBC are in on it too.

[stringvest]

witness B 'got at'?  Never.

[stevebaby]

Once you start carrying guns around whether in a shoebox or otherwise, its reasonable to assume you are going to be a threat. Especially someone  who is involved in gang violence.

 

The police officer probably panicked at the time leading to the inconsistencies in the version of events but still lawfully killed.

 

No one will know exactly what happened on the day.  Witness B seemed to have forgotten that he had told journos that Duggan was holding a gun.

Mere possession of an illegal firearm isn't grounds for killing him. He would have had to have the gun in his hand and be actively threatening the police with it, and since no DNA or prints from Duggan were found on either the gun or the sock it was wrapped in, that is clearly not the case.

Everyone has a sharp knife in their kitchen...i.e. they are in possession of it. Should the police be allowed  to shoot anyone on the basis that they might at some time in the future use that knife to commit a crime ?

[Rotpeter]

Previously unseen evidence released.

[Lee909]

The lack of bacon is disgusting

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Previously unseen evidence released.

 

If he calls that a breakfast then he deserved all he got.

[stringvest]

That's not a sausage, it's clearly a gun.