The Duggan verdict

So just to clarify, snafu, you would conclude, if you were the jury, that the guilty party was the police and that Duggan was completely innocent?
Just asking as everyone else, including me, think the police did the right thing whereas you don’t.

No, read what I wrote.

Duggan was, according to information supplied by the police, a nasty piece of work; I said that early on.
Two members of the jury were not convinced enough to agree with their fellow jurors so the court had to take a majority verdict.

There is a hole in the basic story that shouldn’t be there – the gun in the sock – yet how it came to be so far away without anybody seeing it being disposed of (when you would imagine they would be very focused on where this gun was, in case it was pointing at them) allows an element of doubt to enter the proceedings when it needed to be clear cut and fully explained. You cannot claim that it was thrown there when he got out of the taxi or that it must have been thrown there when he was shot whilst (initially) claiming that he was firing his gun at the police was the reason to fire on him. The marksmans accurate description smacks of conferring with his colleagues, which must be a little like getting the answers to an test by consulting with school friends actually in the exam…

The Met was told several years ago that the hard stop tactic was a high risk option, with the target liable to be shot unless they reacted to what the police wanted immediately – something rather unlikely if they
are not fully focused on the idea that the men surrounding them with guns are actually police and not some drug gang or similar (the Met was recently found to have unlawfully killed Azelle Rodney in a similar situation, even down to the false claim that he was holding a gun when shot six times in the head and upper body. The claim that he was a major crack dealer en route from his factory to conduct a deal – something the police have since played down – was countered by his family’s claim that he had accepted a lift from two men he hardly knew since they would pass the hairdresser he was going to visit).

In fact it is the last point that niggles me – if armed police accidentally hard stopped me later today then I will almost certainly be dead – they might be shouting ‘armed police’ but in all the excitement and fear am I going to hear them and understand what is happening? The cars are unmarked, the cops are in civvies, they might be wearing bullet proof jackets and police-marked baseball caps but I am not going to be the quickest off the starting block and won’t have a clue what is happening. So since this tactic is deemed to be high risk (probably to the police as well as the target) then is the risk necessary? And all along I have been harping on about this in case it is an innocent, rather than an apparent gangster, who is inadvertently the target; on this occasion it was someone they could point a finger at and claim he was a naughty boy, but they need to be lucky on every occasion – and that doesn’t always happen.

Seems to me that given the intelligence was correct that Duggan had been transporting a gun, the belief on the part of the shooting officer that Duggan could have been preparing to fire would be a reasonable one. This is obviously contingent on Duggan’s behavior at the scene, but if he obeyed Police instructions I would think it unlikely that he would be shot.

It’s not impossible that the UK police can act outside the law sometimes, but given how rarely firearms are actually used, I think that a ‘gung-ho’ attitude is hardly prevalent.

So just to clarify, snafu, you would conclude, if you were the jury, that the guilty party was the police and that Duggan was completely innocent?
Just asking as everyone else, including me, think the police did the right thing whereas you don’t.

The video was taken after the shooting, and if its anything like my phone doesn’t have much of a zoom facility. In fact I can see clearer with my eyes than with the screen.
Apparently he was 100 yards away, which is not that great a distance but might preclude hearing any orders from the police or shouting/whatever from Duggan.

From the video that was broadcast on the news, apparently taken by the witness, he was quite a long way away from the action and several stories up a block of flats. Now I would doubt if this witness can really be relied upon, partly because he was so far away but also he’d be concentrating on taking his video on a very small screen. I do lots of video (using a specialist video camera, not a mobile phone) of aircraft, railways and the grandchildren and my experience is that the screen is far too small to see details while you are taking the shot. You can see a lot more later while watching the movie on the TV. If the mobile can be seen on the video (and I didn’t see it when I watched the film), the witness certainly wouldn’t have seen it at the time. In fact I doubt if he saw anything much.

Regards

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it’s possible that they get things wrong occasionally.

Everyone gets things wrong occasionally, me, you, the media, the police.

Don’t answer a question with a question; I’m not the one refusing to accept the jury’s verdict, so my thoughts are as irrelevant as yours. A majority out of 10 people, who were there, and heard all of the evidence, have given a verdict, which you are hell-bent on refusing to acknowledge.

Not sure if you are aware of this, but this is a discussion forum. The idea is that someone posts something and it gets discussed. Maybe.
These things under discussion won’t be things that directly involve us, usually. We might have an interest in it or feel strongly enough to share the subject to either show what is/has happened or comment upon it. It is, all in all, a fairly simple concept.

I was interested in this story since there are inconsistencies, aired and acknowledged in court, which allow doubt to seep into the inquiring mind. As you said, there was a majority verdict – but two of that jury were not convinced enough to agree with their peers: do you imagine that the other jurors shouted them down after declaring that what they disagreed with didn’t matter since the guy deserved to die? The chances are that they talked it through; maybe the numbers changed one way or another, but at the end of the day two of the twelve did not agree with the rest.
On this forum the majority view is that he had a gun and therefore he deserved to die. There seem to have been little discussion about the fact that the gun ended up being removed from the scene without anybody noticing, nor about the fact that having been removed from the scene the police marksman was still able to give an accurate description, nor about the fact that the police on the scene were all in one room to write up their reports afterwards, even then making the claim that he had shot at them despite the fact that he did not have the gun in his hand.

Yet Duggan, apparently, reached into his pocket (where police were entitled to think he might be carrying the gun they were told he’d acquired) to get a mobile phone, instead of putting up his hands. Never wondered why? Was it to warn his little friends that he wouldn’t be able to come and play Cowboys and Indians, after all?

No, I never wondered why, but that might be because the reports I read said that he apparently had his hand tucked in close to his stomach rather than in his pocket, and moved it in such a way as to give the impression that he had a gun and was about to bring it up in a threatening manner. And it had a mobile phone in it, which the witness in the block of flats could see was bright and shiny and said it was a mobile phone and that – in his opinion – Duggan was surrendering. Yes, this witness was further away from the scene than the police present but he still stated what he saw in court – did that make any difference to some of the jury’s decision, maybe?

Or maybe a policeman sick with the realisation of what could have happened (even policemen have feelings, strange as it might seem,) so gave vent? “Guns nearly blazing” Oh, please, you weren’t there, so how do you know that?

Maybe a copper with reflective heart, yes, but to take his frustration out on a parent is not very professional or wise: kids play, you can’t stop that. I doubt he was one of the armed police either; they don’t work like that.
The guns nearly blazing is something I was told by my colleague – maybe that was what the cop told him.

You do love the emotive claptrap, and running off at the mouth with cheap accusations, don’t you? Unfortunately for you, I’m not happy or unhappy, since the event has nothing to do with me, and, unlike some, I can resist the urge to stick my nose into an affair about which I know nothing.

See the bit where I describe a forum, above.
Unfortunately the police make snap decisions and it does not always end up with the best result. On this occasion the majority here believe it ended with the right result without comprehending that a marksman who can make a mistake about a mobile phone, identify a gun that isn’t there and claim that the target came out firing could just as easily make a mistake and shoot an innocent by making the wrong snap decision. The thing on the side of the police is that no armed officer has been punished for shooting anybody.

Originally Posted by TonyT
I would have shot him too
Well that has really shaken my faith in humanity – whoda thunk it…!

Simply working along the lines of our rules of engagement when I was in the military, when if you believe they have a weapon and are about to use it against you or some other person, you shoot to kill, none of these gun ho shoot to wound etc, simply kill them, yes you challenge them, but at anytime you think they are about to shoot you or others, you kill them.

I don’t have any policemen, crooked or otherwise, but it is nice of you to lift your nose out of the Daily Mail for a few moments..

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Not one for snap judgements then? Always believe that someone, with whom you disagree, is guilty until proven innocent? Sorry for the disappointment, but I gave up reading newspapers 40 years ago, since I found that I couldn’t trust them to tell the truth. I recommend that you follow my lead, and treat all madia reports with the same caution; you never know, it’s possible that they get things wrong occasionally.

Were you there? Do you have any information that has not been reported in the court? Is my input any more cynical than those who welcome the death of a possible nasty piece of work with so much left unanswered?

Don’t answer a question with a question; I’m not the one refusing to accept the jury’s verdict, so my thoughts are as irrelevant as yours. A majority out of 10 people, who were there, and heard all of the evidence, have given a verdict, which you are hell-bent on refusing to acknowledge.

And since you ask I have had a police weapon pointed at me – it lasted maybe three seconds (or several hours as I recall) and I drain blood whenever I think of what could have happened if I hadn’t noticed the officer coming in and put my hands up immediately,

Yet Duggan, apparently, reached into his pocket (where police were entitled to think he might be carrying the gun they were told he’d acquired) to get a mobile phone, instead of putting up his hands. Never wondered why? Was it to warn his little friends that he wouldn’t be able to come and play Cowboys and Indians, after all?

Many years ago there was an occurrence of kids playing ‘cowboys’ or something where armed police were alerted to a gun battle – they apparently came in with guns nearly blazing to a group of boys with cap pistols and stick shouting bang. I was shocked on hearing this from a former workmate – his son was one of those involved and apparently my friend was on the receiving end of a copper telling him off for letting his son play with a stick. Innocents getting let off with a warning because the police were embarrassed?

Or maybe a policeman sick with the realisation of what could have happened (even policemen have feelings, strange as it might seem,) so gave vent? “Guns nearly blazing” Oh, please, you weren’t there, so how do you know that?

I’m sure you are happy that an event like this can only happen to the right sort, and will only happen to that criminal sort, aren’t you.

You do love the emotive claptrap, and running off at the mouth with cheap accusations, don’t you? Unfortunately for you, I’m not happy or unhappy, since the event has nothing to do with me, and, unlike some, I can resist the urge to stick my nose into an affair about which I know nothing.

I think that if…

Thank you for recognising that there were inconsistencies with the evidence, and that the circumstances of the death were a little odd. You didn’t need to say it twice though…

I would have shot him too

Well that has really shaken my faith in humanity – whoda thunk it…!

I would have shot him too, as I said previous, live by the gun die by the gun….. Second guessing someone who is known to be armed gets you killed, unless there is clear evidence he wasn’t wielding it, ie hands in the air, you have to assume he will use it against you.

I think that if I’d been on that jury I’d have come to the same conclusion as they did, notwithstanding the evidential inconsistences. Purely because Mark Duggan was prepared to carry a gun and, at the very least, was going to use it to frighten somebody if not actually harm them. Such people are a menace to the rest of us and I’m not the slightest bit perturbed that he’s dead or that the circumstances of his death are a little odd.

I note that the Home Secretary is ordering an inquiry into ‘stop and search’. This can only be a good thing; the practice is utterly corrosive to community relations and must be replaced by ‘intelligence lead’ practices.

Regards

I think that if I’d been on that jury I’d have come to the same conclusion as they did, notwithstanding the evidential inconsistences. Purely because Mark Duggan was prepared to carry a gun and, at the very least, was going to use it to frighten somebody if not actually harm them. Such people are a menace to the rest of us and I’m not the slightest bit perturbed that he’s dead or that the circumstances of his death are a little odd.

I note that the Home Secretary is ordering an inquiry into ‘stop and search’. This can only be a good thing; the practice is utterly corrosive to community relations and must be replaced by ‘intelligence lead’ practices.

Regards

This story has dragged on and on. It was beginning to look like the media and public were going to get another chance to bash the police but alas the verdict went in the favour of the police thankfully.

In the split second the police have in these situations, are you telling me that if it were you you wouldn’t shoot him? I know I probably would have done, because the second he can get his hands on that firearm (supposedly in his pocket) you’re dead.

I would have shot him. It’s easy to look back at any situation and pick through it meticulously, especially when you have weeks and months available to do it. Unfortunately when you’re faced with a known criminal that is known to have firearms you don’t have weeks/months to assess anything, just seconds.

Who’s the cynic? An inquest verdict has been reached by a jury with the evidence presented.
There may be more to come and I am content to accept what has happened and await further developments.
I fail to see what is cynical about that.

I don’t have any policemen, crooked or otherwise, but it is nice of you to lift your nose out of the Daily Mail for a few moments…

Were you there? Do you have any information that has not been reported in the court? Is my input any more cynical than those who welcome the death of a possible nasty piece of work with so much left unanswered?

And since you ask I have had a police weapon pointed at me – it lasted maybe three seconds (or several hours as I recall) and I drain blood whenever I think of what could have happened if I hadn’t noticed the officer coming in and put my hands up immediately, since he insisted afterwards that he had shouted a warning before entering and was quite prepared to fire because of the manner of his briefing – even though no one present heard him or even knew there were police on the site. (Without wanting to go into too much detail we were checking out a derelict property with a view to either renovate or demolish, with the owner present, and someone thought we were stashing drugs or stolen goods there so reported us)
I am well aware that the majority of police armed interventions end in the best possible way, yet there is this back history of failures that does not give great confidence.
I am not trying to blacken the characters of the police since – if you examine the facts as presented to the court – they did a fairly good job of that themselves. The fact that no one knew what had happened to the gun (V53 insisting that it was in Duggans hand and giving an excellent description, others saying that he had shot at them, no one witnessing it being thrown away) leaves speculation as to how it arrived where it was found as the only option – and with that comes the possibility that it was planted. Had they (speculatively) planted it in his hand then it wouldn’t be much of an issue to play with, but they didn’t so it is.

Many years ago there was an occurrence of kids playing ‘cowboys’ or something where armed police were alerted to a gun battle – they apparently came in with guns nearly blazing to a group of boys with cap pistols and stick shouting bang. I was shocked on hearing this from a former workmate – his son was one of those involved and apparently my friend was on the receiving end of a copper telling him off for letting his son play with a stick. Innocents getting let off with a warning because the police were embarrassed?
Then there are all those other occasions where there have been screw ups and innocents have been killed or injured – read about the Stephen Waldorf case and see where the armed police went way over the top, fortunately without killing an innocent man.

Still, since Duggan has been painted as the devils right hand man by the police – now there is a man whose character has been blackened, if you are looking for one; as I have pointed out he was not arrested for any of the things he had been accused of doing, maybe he did them and maybe he didn’t, but he won’t be getting his day in court, will he – I’m sure you are happy that an event like this can only happen to the right sort, and will only happen to that criminal sort, aren’t you.

I posted along similar lines earlier but it has “disappeared” – cell phone glitch I suspect.

Yes, what if, what, if, what if….? So what?

I have two questions:-
were you in the coroner’s court throughout the hearing?
have you heard every word, from every witness, at first hand?
If the answer is “No” to either, or both, of the questions, then your entire thread comes out as a cynical attempt to blacken the characters of people you do not know, and all this talk of children with guns being gunned down does nothing to further your case.
“Maybe” “what if” “imagine” “would have” “could have” are no more than guesses, put forward by you, in an attempt to make things out to be worse than they really were; you even manage to imply that the gun was planted, after the event, presumably by one of your “crooked” policemen.
“Excreta agitator” (or a slightly more prosaic expression) comes to mind on reading your input.

Did he have a gun?

Apparently so, but it was not in his hand when he was shot – somehow it made its way to the other side of a fence, near where a police officer was apparently seen shortly after the shooting in a video taken by a witness, although the gun was not found for a while after the shooting. It must have come as a relief to the police when it was found, though!
And at least it wasn’t a child with a toy gun, or someone else with a table leg in a carrier bag, or someone with a mobile phone in their hand… You get the idea?

Did he throw it away ?

Not if the police marksmen are to be believed – V53 even insisted in court that Duggan had the gun in his hand when both shots were fired, even giving a very accurate description of the weapon. Doesn’t that strike you as strange, something he can only have seen for a split second, identified and countered, despite the fact that it actually wasn’t there?
The jury believed the gun was thrown away when Duggan was getting out of the taxi, although no one saw this so it can still only be speculation. In fact no one saw the gun being disposed of, even though all eyes must have been on Duggan in case he tried to fight his way out of the ambush – another weird mystery which, because of Duggans apparent bad character (a couple of minor convictions, remember? Innocent until proven guilty and all that… If the police had hard facts about anything else they would have brought him in and charged him, rather than let him run free. But now he is dead no one else is going to hold their hand up and say ‘actually I did it, not Duggan’, and those cases are now ‘solved’ and closed.) will be ignored.

Yes yes to either of those the decision to shoot was good enough for me.

Why?
Thank goodness they got the right man then. Imagine if there had been a screw up and they executed the wrong man…

My argument is not about who Duggan was; if he was as bad as he has been painted by the police then we are better off without him. The whole event looks too much like a rush job with the result that the target died, so it is really lucky that in the event that they got the right target, despite the fact that he was unarmed when killed. What would we be saying if it turned out to be someone who was innocent? Would it still have been good enough for you then?

Did he have a gun?
Did he throw it away ?

Yes yes to either of those the decision to shoot was good enough for me.

No

But solid intelligence – later proved totally correct – that I, as a known criminal, had just purchased and was carrying an illegal firearm falls a long way beyond ‘slightest excuse to stop’ in my mind.

Maybe I should have put something to the effect of you being an innocent member of the public…
Stephen Waldorf was innocent, but after being ambushed by police who mistook him for someone facing a charge of the attempted murder of a police officer he was gunned down, hit five times and finally was repeatedly pistol whipped as he lay injured by an officer who wanted to shoot him in the head but had run out of bullets. Solid intelligence obviously did not feature in that case, and there are others where, if there was any intelligence involved, it was not used by the cop with the gun.

It’s funny how the family and friends of people like Mr Duggan always make them seem like little angels who would never hurt anybody…

No, I am not saying he was an angel – a nasty piece of work, maybe, but not an angel.

But let’s get into the policeman’s shoes. You have a high reason to believe the suspect is armed (due to previous, and subsequently proven correct, intelligence reports that Duggan had just collected a firearm). The suspect is disobeying police orders. The suspect reaches into his pocket (although it is now believed he was reaching for a mobile phone).

In the split second the police have in these situations, are you telling me that if it were you you wouldn’t shoot him? I know I probably would have done, because the second he can get his hands on that firearm (supposedly in his pocket) you’re dead.

And to make it right the police claimed, initial, that he fired at them – doesn’t that appear to be an attempt to cover something up? The armed officer said that he believed Duggan had a gun in his hand yet did not see that gun being thrown away – in fact no one saw it being thrown away, despite the fact that they would have been watching that ‘gun’ extremely closely: might that have happened (as believed by the jury) when he got out of the cab? Duggan apparently had a phone in his hand – which precludes him having the gun in his hand right before he was shot or being able to throw it away when shot.

There was a report that the police involved all got together to write up their reports: isn’t that a bit cozy?

The Guardian noted, “V53 has said his substantive account of the shooting was compiled three days later, with he and his colleagues spending more than eight hours sitting in a room together writing their statements. He says he has ‘no doubt’ Duggan had a gun and was preparing to open fire.”

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08/08/dugg-a08.html

Eight hours conferring on an event where a man died when they might be called to court to justify their actions? Is that really legal? What have they got to hide if they need to spend so long writing their own reports with the opportunity to get the detail straight between them to bolster their case…

The officer who fired the shots, known only as V53, told the jury he was certain Duggan had a weapon in his hand and feared he was raising it to shoot. V53 said the suspect pivoted 180 degrees towards him: “It’s like a freeze-frame moment,” he said. “The only thing I was focusing on is the gun.”

He said he was sure there was a gun in Duggan’s hands. ` He said Duggan was holding it in his right arm across his stomach. “The next thing he does, he starts to move the gun away from his body. He’s raised the weapon, moved it a couple of inches away from his body.”

That, the jury heard, gave V53 “an honest belief” that Duggan was going to shoot. V53 said he decided he must open fire. He said the first shot struck Duggan in his chest, causing him to flinch. V53 said this caused the gun alleged to be in Duggan’s hands to point directly at him, so he fired a second time, hitting Duggan in the biceps. He said Duggan fell backwards and other armed officers converged on him. “My focus is glued on the gun,” the officer told the jury. V53 said he reassessed the situation but could no longer see the weapon.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/08/mark-duggan-death-london-riots

Strange that V53 should observe the gun was in a sock, since nothing has been said that intelligence told them it was in a sock. It was found in a sock, but none of Duggans DNA or fingerprints were found on the gun or the sock and, incidentally, the only gun residue found on his body was around where he had been shot and not from the gun he was supposed to have been holding.
A witness over 100 metres away said that he believed that Duggan had his hands up as though surrendering, with something shiny in his hand – certainly not a sock covered gun. Of course the police would contest this, it undermined their case and would have allowed V53 to be charged with unlawful killing – especially if he had made an admission that he was uncertain if Duggan had been holding a gun or not.

Why? You think the police are going to use it on the tourists? 😀 If anything it should make them feel safer when travelling abroad to know the police have this as an option… I can’t remember the last time I said “I’m not going to France, Germany or the Netherlands because their police all use water canons”.

Think about the idea that the police appear happy to gun down people who may or may not be surrendering, who could have a mobile phone or table leg in a plastic bag in their hand, or mistake you for someone else and happily try to kill you for that ‘crime’. The Met is not the most thorough force in Britain and appear quite happy to cut corners and even help cover up their inadequacies to save face. London is a big tourist puller for Britain; imagine if something happened like that shooting in New York where the police managed to unload their weapons at a target but actually shot a lot of innocent bystanders…
Wasn’t there a riot of some description in Northern Ireland last summer? I distinctly recall an American tourist declaring that he wasn’t about to return because the authorities were unable to protect innocent people (I believe he had been directed to the heart of the trouble, rather than away), and that is the one force in the whole of the UK who should have lots of experience in this field.

Intell on this man was good.

Like it was on Jean Charles de Menezes?
My point is that if there was a slip up (like with de Menezes) then, once again, an innocent member of the public would have been shot down for having a mobile phone in their hand.
A gun was found, but it was not touched by Duggan. Duggan was – I state again – a nasty piece of work (although, in fact, he only had a couple of minor criminal convictions, and surely if there had been anything solid on him then they would have got him on that, wouldn’t they? Funny how his ‘evilness’ surfaces after he is dead, after he cannot contest it in court, and when it would strengthen the polices case).

Live by the gun, die by the gun, the family can bleat on all they want, but at the end of the day, he went out carrying a weapon and was tried in a Court of Law before a jury of his peers and found guilty….. Get over it and live with it.

The guy had a gun in a box. He never touched the gun. He never fired the gun – despite what the police initially claimed. He did not have the gun in his hands when he was shot. He was not seen to have thrown the gun away and there is a line of thought about whether the gun was actually positioned there after the event. All these things were found to be true in court and undisputed – do they all add up to allowing effectively a state execution?

The police – the Met especially – don’t have a great record with honesty. As I said above, if there had been a c0ck up somewhere along the chain then innocents would have suffered.

One less dick head we to have to feed in prison.Personally i would look very carefully at his family and friends and start making more arrests.

Why does someone need a gun? that alone is a good enough reason to shoot to kill and it should be made more public that you get involved in crime you pay the costs.

The things he is supposed to have done have not been investigated in court, therefore we have only the polices word for it – and who might be trying to justify their actions?
Ask an American why they want a gun, and how they’d feel about being gunned down since ‘that alone is a good enough reason to shoot to kill’. Yes, I am aware that this is Britain and we don’t have guns, but look at the kind of people who do have guns – children for example – and ask yourself if a shoot to kill policy on persons who appear to be carrying can really be justified; see the Harry Stanley case too, its not very good from the police angle.
And before anyone jumps on me for pleading that crims should be allowed to carry guns – I’m not. But this case has more questions that need answers than have been answered, especially when it comes down to the armed officer merely being able to say that he felt his life was threatened and that his target was carrying a weapon to justify a lawful killing. Harry Stanley had a Scottish accent and a repaired table leg in a plastic bag; he was called to turn around by armed police (called to a report of an Irishman with a shotgun in a bag) and shot as he turned. The police, who apparently felt threatened, were subsequently exonerated.

I shouldn’t worry too much about family and friends Gary, every move they make will be reported on, either by the Police, or their Snitches and Snouts, incidently,who the Police have the power to pay their informants for intell.

Lets hope that the intel is all correct and documented then, rather than open to being angled to helping the case after the event.
Several years ago I recall a report that said that snitches and intelligence that came through irregular routes was more often than not used by gangs as a way of sorting out turf wars or getting revenge on individuals, and quite a bit of compensation had been paid out to innocent parties that the police had been ‘given’ for a quiet life…