Armed officers cleared of wrongdoing in Mark Duggan shooting

A report by the U-K police watchdog has cleared the officer involved in 2011 fatal shooting of unarmed black man, Mark Duggan, in London.

The exhaustive three-and-a-half year investigation by The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) concluded that that the firearms officer used “reasonable and proportionate force” when he fatally shot Mark Duggan twice in Tottenham on 4 August 2011.

Duggan died from a gunshot wound to the chest. His death sparked protests against police brutality in Tottenham that later escalated into nationwide riots.

Political Commentator in London, Lee Jasper, told Press TV that the report was not much of a surprise to him given the history of British justice system in protecting “racist policing”.

“Here in the United Kingdom, we’ve got 500 black community minority deaths in the last 25 years and most of them have been deeply suspicious and highly controversial. But in the whole history of Britain, we’ve never had one officer charged with any offence relating to any of these deaths and so I’m afraid that here in the United Kingdom…we see the entrenchment of institutionalized systemic racism that is producing outcomes where young black men are subject to racist profiling violent policing. Then they are inevitably also the victims of a judicial process that really backs up racism”.

Last year an inquest ruled that Duggan was lawfully killed but the jury concluded that he had dropped the gun some time before he was shot in Ferry Lane.

Duggan’s firearm was found behind railings in a grassed area about 4 meters away from the shooting scene.

However, according to the IPCC's report, the "most plausible explanation" was that Duggan was in the process of throwing the weapon away when he was shot.

In the aftermath of Duggan’s death, some witnesses claimed they had seen Duggan giving himself up before police marksmen shoot him.

One eyewitness claimed she saw officers planting a gun at the scene minutes after the deadly shooting.

But the report found "no credible evidence" to suggest the weapon was planted. The IPCC, however, said it was "surprising" that none of the police saw the gun leaving Duggan's hand.

Following the release of the findings, Duggan’s family released a statement claiming the report "confirms their belief that the IPCC are unfit for purpose".

The family described the watchdog's conduct as "a chronicle of inefficiency and incompetence", and blasted the investigation for being "far from robust about a number of matters" and called on the police watchdog to produce a "supplementary report" to address a number of their concerns.

Lee Jasper is on the same wavelength with Duggan’s family:

"We need a new independent commission that is capable of coming to an objective truth on these matters. Time and time again over the last 5 years we have seen that the independent police commission makes error of a basic error… so, whatever the report’s conclusions may say today … they do not hold credibility and they undermine the search for the truth of the rule law,” said the political commentator.

The report is based on 1,200 documents, 500 witness statements and 340 exhibits.

HH/ FXL

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