Mark Duggan's funeral tomorrow...

[max_tranmere]

On Friday Mark Duggan, the death of whom apparently led to the Tottenham riots, is going to be buried. The Police are deploying 1000's of officers to accompany the funeral as they fear more disorder and it was said on the news tonight that every Police station in London has additional officers on stand-by to deploy if things get really out of hand.

Here is a biography on Mark Duggan, I am copying and pasting this from Wikipedia:

" ... Duggan, also known as "Starrish Mark", was an alleged drug dealer and founding member of North London's "Star Gang", an offshoot of the Tottenham Mandem gang. The Telegraph has cited unnamed police sources claiming that Duggan was a "well known gangster" and a "major player and well known to the police in Tottenham". It has also been reported that Duggan was a nephew of deceased Manchester gangland boss Desmond Noonan during Noonan's second marriage.

Operation Trident had Duggan under surveillance "amid fears" he was planning to avenge the death of his cousin Kelvin Easton, who was stabbed to death outside an East London bar in March 2011. Duggan is reported to have become "increasingly paranoid" as a consequence of his cousin's violent death. The Telegraph claims that Duggan was bound to avenge the death by the "street code" of a gang of which he was allegedly a member.

Duggan's family denounced the allegations against Duggan as "disinformation", claiming that he was "not a gang member and he had no criminal record". ... "

More from Wikipedia, about what happened leading up to Duggan being shot:

" ... The IPCC stated that a loaded Bruni BBM blank-firing pistol converted to fire live rounds was recovered from the scene. The IPCC had commissioned tests on the pistol by the Forensic Science Service and had received advice that it was an illegal firearm. The gun was wrapped in a sock, a practice allegedly used to avoid leaving evidence if it was used. The IPCC announced on 9 August that there was no evidence that the gun had been fired, that this had not been ruled out and further tests were being conducted.

According to an eyewitness, a police officer had "shouted to the man to stop 'a couple of times', but he had not heeded the warning". A Metropolitan Police Federation representative asserted that the officer who killed Duggan had "an honest-held belief that he was in imminent danger of him and his colleagues being shot". ... "

There should certainly be a thorough investigation, but Mark Duggan hardly sounds like someone who helped old ladies across the street and attended Church group. Still, today we have members of his family on the news criticising the Police and the Police's views either not mentioned or only very briefly. This is quite typical of the TV media. People like Mark Duggan have helped turn London into Los Angeles, but we're meant to think him and his family are the nice ones and it's the Police who are the bastards.

I hope there is no trouble on Friday.

[one eyed jack]

Its ok to be opinionated on stuff you read Max but please dont try to convince us that it is the way it is because of what you read and watch on the TV.

I've had a few arguments with my friends who mainly happen to be white middle class folk who seem to think that all poor black folk who do criminal acts are bad and therefore "have it coming to them"

Strange though it may seem , I'm not a police hater and appreciate the sensitive dispositon they are in with regards a community like Tottenham but the one thing people seem to forget in their notions of those who are the good guys and those who are bad is that in Tottenham, good and bad are very grey issues that are not accurately reported in the media

Max, you've already decided on the basis of what you read and I know how easy it is to just go along with it but unless you were there and witnessed with your own eyes I wouldnt go making assumptions beyond the fact that Mark Duggan was no saint but what turns the tables here is that he was shot and shot dead.

The IPCC are still investigating something that shouldve been cut and dried already but still they are trying to justify him being shot.

The rumours I am hearing now rippling through the hood is that it was "an execution"...Again, I wouldnt be too quick to go along with what I dont know and frankly, not sure what I should believe but I know that when anyone gets shot, whether innocent or not, creates a paranoia that causes unpredictable chain of events which are exploited by others who have a vested interest in chaos so yeah I would go along with the family being "the nice ones" I wont dispute their son was a "bad un" so did he deserve to get shot dead by the police then is what you are saying?

If they found a gun in his car in a sock then it was nowhere near his person to shoot a cop was it? So why shoot the guy when you can easily put cuffs on him?

Don't go for the okey doke man. Think about it. Entertain the possibility it aint what you read and watch. I do this all the time, especially since they switched details daily in the media since the shooting probably the police telling the media what not to report.

I may well be wrong but what makes you feel its right to say Mark Duggan single handedly turned London into Los Angeles? Youre giving this guy way too much credit than he deserves.

The police should have never changed duty officers from a senior to a junior and closed that shutter down on his Mark Duggans folk who just wanted answers about their sons murder. Call it what you want but shooting someone dead in my mind if it cant be proved justifed is murder. Bad bad move and they obviously forgot for a second that winding up the inhabitants of Tottenham is a very VERY bad move.

We all saw the results of that and it dont matter what you read in the paper cos you saw it for yourself on the TV.

This incicent was the trigger for something that has been coming for a long time which is why it blew up the way it did. The looting really diluted the real issues but there was a lot more to this than just Mark Duggan getting shot

[one eyed jack]

Lets not forget Jean Charles Menezes. A man. No gun. Shot 7 times in the head in Stockwell Police station

The police mistook him for a terrorist and nothing happened.

Cos he aint from around ere! If he was from the area there city wouldve lit up.

Still, it all kicked off in the mans home country though

It seems the police arent always accountable for their actions beyond just getting fired as it was put down to a "mistake"

I wonder if the IPCC report will put this whole incident down to the same thing

[steve56]

His brother was talking last night on the news wants to clear his name

[one eyed jack]

Clear his name of what?

If he's a bad boy then his rep stays the same. He was shot dead by cops. Theres nothing to clear. No one said he even pulled a gun on the cops so I don't see anything to clear.

[Jonone]

There was the case of the solicitor Mark Saunders who holed-up in a property with a shotgun. The street was closed off (possibly in or around Chelsea) and the guy was shot dead.

The difference here was that because the family was rich and advantaged (his sister was also a solicitor/ barrister) it seemed to have the ear of the Police Complaints Authority and other official bodies in a way that Mark Duggan's family will not. I think Saunder's sister was the spokesperson for the family in terms of the media and was very involved and visible.

There is a difference between the two cases - Mark Saunders endangered the lives of others, he had a gun and fired it, whereas Mark Duggan did neither of these. You have to wonder why the outcome should be the same ?

[max_tranmere]

Hi OEJ, on whether he deserved to get shot, the Police were right to do it if they felt they were in imminent danger, if not they should have cuffed him. I wasn't there but I doubt the Police would just gun someone down when there is an alternative.

I don't know what happened as I wasn't there. Armed Police would be shooting people every day if they were in the business of just doing that when there is the option of arresting them. They clearly don't.

I don't think he personally turned London into Los Angeles. However, him and 100's like him (gangsters who carry guns and are most likely in the business of avenging the death of a close relative, who was killed in a gangland hit, with shooting the person who did it) have turned the black areas of London, Nottingham and Birmingham into very similar to the black neighbourhoods of Los Angeles. However controvesial what I have just said is, it is a fact.

You say winding up the residents of Tottenham is a very very bad move. That seems to imply a vicious violent response will come if the Police do that. It seems to confirm there are aggressive, rough, violent elements there who will enage in violence if provoked.

I personally think it was the lack of care and appropriate follow-up, subsequent to his shooting, and the Police cars parked along the route of the march two days later, that caused the riot. A protester, who was part of the march on the Saturday to Tottenham Police station, said later that seeing two cop cars parked along the route was "like a red rag to a bull". Also the lack of visits from the Police to the family caused great anger. So there may not have been a riot had the Police left the march on the Saturday alone, and also sent liaison officers round to the family's house quickly.

[max_tranmere]

oej, the killing of Jean Charles Menezes was awful, and it was a case of the Police getting it terribly wrong (I assume you meant killed in Stockwell tube Station, not Police station). Mark Duggan's case was not the same thing. He wasn't some guy walking down the street, in a cab, or in a tube station who was minding his own business and just gunned down. Duggan was armed, was a known gang member, and apparently off to kill someone who had killed his cousin. The 'code' amongst these street gangs (from what I've heard and read) is that a death must be avenged. I am looking forward to the Police's findings on the Duggan incident, and I hope that for reasons of 'community cohesion' the findings aren't watered-down and the Police unnecessarily blamed, just in order to stop people getting angry in Tottenham.

[max_tranmere]

steve, if I was his brother I would be telling it like it is. Sometimes it's right to turn on your own. If the brother knows Duggan was a bad guy, and how could he not know, he should have been critical of him in the recent TV interviews. I am from a good family but if a close relative of mine was a known gangster, carried a gun, and was under survelliance because they were apparently off to shoot someone, I would be critical of them. Sometimes in life it is necessary, and right, to dump your own.

[max_tranmere]

Jonone, as far as I know both the Saunders and the Duggan cases were/are being referred to the Police Complaints authority.

Quote: "Mark Saunders endangered the lives of others, he had a gun and fired it, whereas Mark Duggan did neither of these." You are wrong on that one. Mark Duggan did have a gun, and the Police thought they were in imminent danger.