Tottenham: police shooting followed by riots

[Ed Jewett]

## UK ##
Windows smashed in Birmingham as youths gather
London riots spread south of Thames
Potent mix of cuts, unemployment could fuel more UK riots
London riots: all incidents mapped in Tottenham, Brixton, Hackney, Lewisham and Greater London
Negative equity affects 827,000 households, lenders say
Flights hit by air traffic delays
Agricultural theft on the rise, says rural insurer
Rural crime costs farmers in the East £8m
"Insurer NFU Mutual said 'agri-crime' was up 18% for the year, with heating oil, diesel, tools and quad bikes the top targets for thieves."
London firefighters stretched to breaking point by riot blazes
London riots: send in water cannon to clear streets, Theresa May told
London riots: Police communications system struggles to keep up


From http://ricefarmer.blogspot.com/2011/08/n...-2011.html
(links active there)

[Magda Hassan]

Panic on the streets of London.
I'm huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight. This is the third consecutive night of rioting in London, and the disorder has now spread to Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham. Politicians and police officers who only hours ago were making stony-faced statements about criminality are now simply begging the young people of Britain's inner cities to go home. Britain is a tinderbox, and on Friday, somebody lit a match. How the hell did this happen? And what are we going to do now?

In the scramble to comprehend the riots, every single commentator has opened with a ritual condemnation of the violence, as if it were in any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are ugly occurrences. That much should be obvious to anyone who is watching Croydon burn down on the BBC right now. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, called the disorder 'mindless, mindless'. Nick Clegg denounced it as 'needless, opportunistic theft and violence'. Speaking from his Tuscan holiday villa, Prime Minister David Cameron who has finally decided to return home to take charge - declared simply that the social unrest searing through the poorest boroughs in the country was "utterly unacceptable." The violence on the streets is being dismissed as pure criminality,' as the work of a violent minority', as opportunism.' This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. Tonight, in one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart.

Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there. Unquestionably there is far, far more to these riots than the death of Mark Duggan, whose shooting sparked off the unrest on Saturday, when two police cars were set alight after a five-hour vigil at Tottenham police station. A peaceful protest outside over the death of a man at police hands, in a community where locals have been given every reason to mistrust the forces of law and order, is one sort of political statement. Raiding shops for technology and trainers that cost ten times as much as the benefits you're no longer entitled to is another. A co-ordinated, viral wave of civil unrest across the poorest boroughs of Britain, with young people coming from across the capital and the country to battle the police, is another.

Months of conjecture will follow these riots. Already, the internet is teeming with racist vitriol and wild speculation. The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don't know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ''

There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they're paying attention now.

Tonight in London, social order and the rule of law have broken down entirely. The country has been brought to a standstill; it is not safe to go out onto the streets, and where I am in Holloway, the violence is coming closer. As I write, the looting and arson attacks have spread to at least fifty different areas across the UK, including dozens in London, and communities are now turning on each other, with the Guardian reporting on rival gangs forming battle lines. It has become clear to the disenfranchised young people of Britain, who feel that they have no stake in society and nothing to lose, that they can do what they like tonight, and the police are utterly unable to stop them. That is what riots are all about.

Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.

Noone expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain't Twitter.

I'm stuck in the house, now, with rioting going on just down the road in Chalk Farm. Ealing and Clapham and Dalston are being trashed. Journalists are being mugged and beaten in the streets, and the riot cops are in retreat where they have appeared at all. Police stations are being set alight all over the country. This morning, as the smoke begins to clear, those of us who can sleep will wake up to a country in chaos. We will wake up to fear, and to racism, and to condemnation on left and right, none of which will stop this happening again, as the prospect of a second stock market clash teeters terrifyingly at the bottom of the news reports. Now is the time when we make our choices. Now is the time when we decide whether to descend into hate, or to put prejudice aside and work together. Now is the time when we decide what sort of country it is that we want to live in. Follow the #riotcleanup hashtag on Twitter. And take care of one another.
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/pan...ondon.html

[Magda Hassan]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DYX9qZVsMQP8%26feature%3Dplayer_embedde d[/video]
I believe this may be some footage of what the person in the previous video was referring to about the police maltreating a 16 year old girl.

[Magda Hassan]

[Magda Hassan]

I don't think the BBC will be airing this again any time soon.

[Peter Lemkin]

I don't think the BBC will be airing this again any time soon.

It is absolutely PAR for the BBC......that older man [who had all his marbles and more than the usual amount of ethics!] BLEW AWAY the high-paid (and much-lauded by the chattering classes) 'journalistically-trained (sic)' BBC zombies who 'speak' for the Oligarchy! :poketongue:

That interview should be shown to EVERY student of journalism as how to do everything wrong in an interview! :loco:

[Jan Klimkowski]

The black guy in the BBC News shot off screen clip is journalist Darcus Howe.

He was interviewed on BBC2 Newsnight last night, and made essentially the same arguments. Newsnight anchor and stooge, Gavin Essler, was similarly out of his depth. :pointlaugh:

[Jan Klimkowski]

The original Scotland Yard line, that Mark Duggan was shot dead in a gunfight in which both sides exchanged fire, now appears to be a lie.

The anger on the streets will increase exponentially.

Perhaps this is one reason why the number of police on the streets of London has been increased from 6000 last night, to 16,000 tonight.

Mark Duggan did not shoot at police, says IPCC

IPCC releases initial findings of ballistics tests in police shooting of Mark Duggan, whose death sparked London riots

Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 August 2011 18.34 BST

Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked London's riots, did not fire a shot at police officers before they killed him, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said on Tuesday.

Releasing the initial findings of ballistics tests, the police watchdog said a CO19 firearms officer fired two bullets, and that a bullet that lodged in a police radio was "consistent with being fired from a police gun".

One theory, not confirmed by the IPCC, is that the bullet became lodged in the radio from a ricochet or after passing through Duggan.

Duggan, 29, was killed last Thursday in Tottenham, north London, after armed officers stopped the minicab in which he was travelling.

The IPCC said Duggan was carrying a loaded gun, but it had no evidence that the weapon had been fired. It said tests were continuing.

The officer who fired the fatal shots has been removed from firearms duties, which is standard procedure, pending the IPCC investigation.

Officers from the Met's Operation Trident and Special Crime Directorate 11, accompanied by officers from CO19, the Met's specialist firearms command, stopped the silver Toyota Estima minicab in Ferry Lane, close to Tottenham Hale tube station, to arrest Duggan.

He was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest, and received a second gunshot wound to his right bicep. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 6.41pm.

The IPCC's statement said the bullet lodged in the police radio was a "jacketed round". This is a police-issue bullet and is "consistent with having been fired from a [police] Heckler and Koch MP5", it said.

The non-police firearm found at the scene was a converted BBM Bruni self-loading pistol. The gun was found to have a "bulleted cartridge" in the magazine, which is being subjected to further forensic tests.

The officer whose radio was hit was taken to Homerton hospital where he was examined and discharged later that night. The minicab driver was not injured but was badly shaken by what he saw, the IPCC said. His account, as well as those of the officers, is being examined along with the forensic evidence.

The police watchdog said it was examining CCTV footage of the area, including from buses passing by at the time.

The statement said: "Our investigators will be examining recordings of radio transmissions from both police and London ambulance service, including 999 calls, with a view to tracing further witnesses. We will also be examining any intelligence and surveillance material leading up to the planning of the operation."

The IPCC commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne said: "Any concerns expressed by the wider public about a perceived lack of information from the IPCC should be considered in the context that I am only willing to share information once I have had it independently verified and once the people who are directly involved in this case including Mr Duggan's family and community leaders have been fully informed."

An inquest into Duggan's death was opened at north London coroner's court on Tuesday. The coroner, Andrew Walker, adjourned the hearing to 12 December and offered his sympathies to Duggan's family.

"As members of the family will know, in due course there will be an inquest touching the death of Mark Duggan and this is the first stage in that process, he said. "Of course, as well as offering our deepest sympathies, I would like to reassure members of the family that we will be working closely with Mr Duggan's family and the IPCC throughout the process."

After the hearing, the family said they were "distressed" by the rioting in the wake of his death. In a statement on their behalf, Helen Shaw, from the organisation Inquest, said: "The family want everyone to know that the disorder going on has nothing to do with finding out what has happened to Mark. They also want people to know they are deeply distressed by the disorder affecting communities across the country."

[Jan Klimkowski]

Here is the full Independent Police Complaints Commission update on the shooting of Mark Duggan:

Update on Mark Duggan investigation including details of ballistic tests

9th August 2011

The Independent Police Complaints Commission's investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan is continuing today, with investigators examining statements, as well as analysing results of forensic tests and awaiting further results.

The IPCC is carrying out a full CCTV trawl of the area, as well as CCTV from buses in the area at the time. Our investigators will be examining recordings of radio transmissions from both police and London Ambulance Service, including 999 calls with a view to tracing further witnesses. We will also be examining any intelligence and surveillance material leading up to the planning of the operation.

At this stage, it has been established that at approximately 6.15pm on Thursday 4 August 2011, officers from the Metropolitan Police Service's Operation Trident and SCD 11 accompanied by officers from the Met's Specialist Firearms Command (CO19), stopped a silver Toyota Estima people carrier minicab in Ferry Lane, close to Tottenham Hale tube station in Tottenham to carry out an arrest.

Mark Duggan was a passenger in the minicab. What happened next is subject to the independent investigation.

Two shots were fired by one CO19 firearms officer.

Paramedics from London Ambulance Service (LAS) attended along with medics from the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) but Mr Duggan was pronounced dead at scene at 6.41pm.

A non-police issue handgun was recovered from the scene.

A post mortem examination concluded that Mr Duggan was killed by a single gun shot wound to the chest. He also received a second gunshot wound to his right bicep.

The IPCC commissioned tests by the Forensic Science Service (FSS) who have so far confirmed that:

The bullet lodged in the MPS radio is a "jacketed round". This is a police issue bullet and, whilst it is still subject to DNA analysis, it is consistent with having been fired from an MPS Heckler and Koch MP5.

The firearm found at the scene was a converted BBM Bruni' self loading pistol. This is not a replica; the scientist considers it to be a firearm for the purposes of the Firearms Act and a prohibited weapon and is therefore illegal.

The handgun was found to have a "bulleted cartridge" in the magazine, which is being subject to further tests.

At this stage there is no evidence that the handgun found at the scene was fired during the incident. The FSS has told the IPCC that it may not be possible to say for certain whether the handgun was fired, however further tests are being carried out in an attempt to establish this.

The officer whose radio was hit was taken to Homerton Hospital where he was examined and discharged later that night.

The minicab driver was not physically injured, but was badly shaken by what he saw. His account along with that of the officers is being examined along with the emerging forensic evidence.

IPCC Commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne said: "I know this is an incredibly difficult time for Mark Duggan's family, who have made it abundantly clear that they in no way condone the violence that we have all seen on the streets of London and elsewhere over the past three nights. I am committed to ensuring they are provided with answers from the IPCC about the investigation into Mark's death as soon as we have them, and I acknowledge their frustration that this can be a lengthy process.

"I know that much of this information has been reported in the media already, alongside much inaccurate speculation. Any concerns expressed by the wider public about a perceived lack of information from the IPCC should be considered in the context that I am only willing to share information once I have had it independently verified and once the people who are directly involved in this case including Mr Duggan's family and community leaders have been fully informed.

"I also have a responsibility to balance the need to provide information, with the need to avoid adversely affecting other judicial and coronial processes. This means that it would not be appropriate for me to put all the information we receive into the public domain as soon as we receive it. I assure you that our findings will be made public as soon as we can legally and legitimately do so

"I will continue to oversee the IPCC investigation and IPCC family liaison managers continue to be on hand to support Mr Duggan's family while our investigators get on with establishing the facts of this case."

The shooting took place on Ferry Lane, close to Tottenham Hale tube station, and anyone who witnessed the incident to contact us in confidence on 0800 096 9079 or e mail ferrylaneshooting@ipcc.gov.uk

Ends

[Jan Klimkowski]

An MSM analysis of Scotland Yard spin.

The reality, including the links with the Murdoch empire, is far worse.

Met should disclose facts behind Mark Duggan's death

The integrity of the Met's communications department is all too often called into question. No wonder the public are sceptical

Jules Carey guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 August 2011 14.30 BST

After Ian Tomlinson and Smiley Culture, we are once again faced with a controversial death in an incident involving the police. Once again, there are serious doubts about the integrity of the initial reports of the incident by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

The generally accepted facts are that Mark Duggan, a Tottenham man who grew up on the Broadwater Farm estate, was on his way home in a minicab on Thursday evening. Officers from the MPS firearms unit CO19 approached the car, shots were fired and Duggan was killed.

The initial reports, however, followed a depressingly familiar pattern. With the allegation that the police were fired at first came the implication that Duggan may somehow have been responsible for his own death. A police officer was also cast as a modern-day hero, catching a potentially fatal bullet in his radio during an exchange of fire.

The victim was predictably described in unflattering terms. In the earliest articles the Telegraph reported that on the night that Duggan was killed they were informed by "police sources" that the dead man was a "well-known gangster" who had been under surveillance by officers investigating gun crime in a preplanned operation in Tottenhan Hale the implication of "gangster" being that he was not worthy of public sympathy and may well have met a violent end in any event.

The Telegraph also reported that a spokesman for the IPCC said he understood that Duggan had been shot by police, adding that an officer had been shot and wounded. "We understand the officer was shot first before the male was shot." It appears that the IPCC relied on the police sources for their information.

Four days and three nights of riots later, the accounts attributed to a police source and the IPCC look misleading. It is now being reported that the initial ballistics tests on the bullet found lodged in the radio shows that the bullet was police issue, and therefore had not been fired by Duggan. Stafford Scott, a community leader, has also reported that the gun said to have been found at the scene "was found in a sock meaning it wasn't prepared for action".

In other death-in-custody cases the initial accounts put forward in the press have proved to be similarly misleading. Initial reports concerning the death of Tomlinson focused on the officers who went to Tomlinson's aid despite the "barrage of missiles from protesters". The inquest revealed that there was no such assault on the officers. A heavy emphasis in the press was put on Tomlinson lifestyle and health, notably, even before a postmortem had been carried out. Initial reports into death of Jean Charles de Menezes also proved to be similarly misleading, with accounts of the victim vaulting over the tube barrier and wearing a suspiciously bulky padded jacket later being proved untrue.

When there is a controversial, high-profile death or serious injury case involving the police, it is important that the public obtain a truthful, unbiased and accurate picture of the events. Usually the first communications about such incidents are from a police force's communications department afterwards the IPCC communications department assumes responsibility for the investigation.

These days, the lines of the comms battle are more apparent than ever before: on one side is the 24-hour news channels, the online media and citizen journalists blogging and tweeting in real time, and on the other side is the Met's public affairs department, equipped with a staff of 72 and a budget of £6.3m, dedicated to explaining and promoting the work of the Met's 30,000 police officers. Recently, the work of the Met's comms department has been brought to the public's attention when its director Dick Fedorcio was interviewed in connection with the News of the World at the home affairs select committee.

Discussing the 7/7 terrorist attacks in an interview with PRWeek, deputy director Chris Webb gave an interesting insight into how the department worked. "The first hour after a terror attack is the most important", he explained, "both in terms of setting out a proactive comms strategy and in reacting to media speculation. It's about reassuring the public that you're in control … we have what we call a golden hour. It's an hour to get a grip, to get control of the situation, or others will do it on our behalf."

In the case of Duggan, it is unclear who the police source that spoke to the Telegraph was, or even whether the source was authorised to speak. There is no evidence yet that what he allegedly said was part of a "proactive comms strategy".

What is clear, however, is that neither a vacuum nor proactive comms are going to reassure an increasingly sceptical and angry public. Improbable accounts are as bad for generating rumours as an information vacuum and it is perhaps no surprise that ahead of the riot in Tottenham there was speculation that Duggan was pulled from the minicab, held down and then killed.

In an ideal world, the IPCC would be a neutral body that concentrates on investigating allegations about deaths and serious injuries caused by police offers. However, the IPCC has increasingly become responsible for controlling the release of information about police incidents to the media and public. It opens itself up to the criticisms of bias in this role. In the Duggan case, for instance, while the IPCC has now '"categorically refuted'" rumours that Duggan was shot by police "execution style", it has failed to categorically confirm that the bullet in the radio was a police bullet or offer clarification about the circumstances in which the gun was found at the scene.

What is required, especially when a death is involved, is that there are timely and honest disclosures of the facts, even when those facts raise serious issues for the force concerned. Such frank and low-key disclosures would require the forces to radically step back from engaging in the comms war and cut the costs and influence of comms departments